Success at Ellis Park does not come easy

CAN it really be more than half a century since Bristol found themselves at the heart of a minor rugby earthquake? It was in early June 1972 that England, led by the West Country team’s hooker supreme John Pullin and “winged” by his clubmates Peter Knight, making his final appearance at international level, and the predatory Alan Morley, making his first, beat the Springboks. At Ellis Park in Johannesburg, no less. Who’d have thought it?

Not England. Not in advance, at any rate. The South Africans had won a home series against the All Blacks a couple of years previously and, not unusually, considered themselves top dogs, armed as they were with such teeth-baring backs as Syd Nomis and Joggie Jansen and a prime fetch-and-carry flanker partnership in Piet Greyling and Jan Ellis.

Morley, a corner-flag finisher for the ages, scored the only try of the match – hands up if you think we will witness a single-try contest ever again – while the Moseley full-back Sam Doble out-performed his rival kicker Dawie Snyman in the marksmanship stakes. Only 27 points were scored all afternoon, 18 of them by the tourists. Hard to believe nowadays.

England have not won in Johannesburg since – your columnist recalls that Ellis Park, intimidating at the best of times, was positively scary when Stuart Lancaster took the national team there in 2012 – so emergence in one piece when the new Nations Championship begins next weekend will be a significant bonus for Steve Borthwick, Jamie George and the other red-rose office-holders.

Maybe Ellis Genge and George Kloska will make the difference. They may be Bristol props rather than Bristol wings, but at least they were born and bred in the city (as were Morley and Knight). History doesn’t repeat itself, but it sometimes rhymes.