Jerry Flay: Legendary figures of Lions epitomise rugby's ability to form bonds of friendship

Jerry Flay

My father always considered himself unlucky not to have been a British Lion.

In all fairness, he also considered himself unlucky not to have been British Open golf champion and Prime Minister, so perhaps it wasn't ill luck at all, just a lack of ability and an overinflated sense of his own.

But as a 6-year-old boy, shivering besides the pitch on a damp, windy Saturday afternoon, watching him chase Gareth Edwards, tackle JPR Williams or later, in the warm welcoming glow of the Wanderers clubhouse, sharing a few post-match pints with Graeme Price, I felt sure he was good enough.

In the late 60s and early 70s, rugby ruled South Wales. And the kings of the rugby men were the Lions, legendary figures striding like giants across the world stage. To play for Wales was the pinnacle of ambition, to be selected for the Lions the pinnacle of acknowledgement.

To be able, in a few short weeks, to put aside the divisions born of centuries, and then unite into a team who depended upon each other for their very lives, aye, that took more than great rugby players, it took great men.

And that was how it was; the legend of being a Lion was in the selection, not the results they achieved.

Back in the amateur era, victory was important, but not the be all and end all of rugby. It was a game for the players, and the bonds formed through rugby, with fellow Lions and with members of the opposition, were stronger than many ordinary friendships.

Yes, they spend 80 minutes doing their damnedest on the field to pulverise each other, but only because this was a necessary prelude to the camaraderie attained in the bar after the game. They were brothers.

That then, was the Lions of yesteryear, an almost mythical band of heroes, sailing forth from the shores of Britain to battle their old foes. They were indeed great men.

In the summer, walking through the covered arcades of Cardiff to buy laverbread or maybe a stuffed breast of lamb for dinner, we would often meet the rugby crowd, and my father diligently introduced me to comrades and foes alike.

Those who were Lions just seemed bigger, and a little more friendly and interested in a shy 6-year-old. "Can you spin pass as far as your father?" asked JJ Williams one day. I blushed at such attention from the great man, then nodded. "Almost". He laughed, shook my hand one more time, then went on his way.

Many years later I met him again, in a pub in Cornwall. Age is no respecter of men, even of Lions, but the aura of greatness still shone strong and true. He asked again after my spin pass and I told him it was fast and flat, and that I was unlucky not to be in the BBC First XV.

"Is it a good club?" he asked.

"Great", I replied, "all really good blokes."

"There you go then, that's what rugby is all about," he said.

And it was, and I hope it still is, and that for the men of the Lions in 2017, touring together in New Zealand, that most adverse of rugby environments, they too find that they are good blokes, that they too form unbreakable bonds of friendship through the game, and that they manage to pulverise the men in black!

Jerry Flay is a freelance writer based in Hawke's Bay.
Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz