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Jonathan Davies recalls a very different 'warm-up' to the 1987 Rugby World Cup

Dai Young receives attention from the physio while Kevin Phillips (behind) refreshes himself during a Rugby World Cup match in Australia. Mandatory Credit: Russell Cheyne/Allsport

England and Wales arrive at Twickenham on Sunday for the opening Rugby World Cup warm-up game having followed intensive training programmes dictated by cutting edge sports science that has taken the squads to an altitude camp in Switzerland and debilitating heat sessions in Italy. It is all in stark contrast to the build-up to the inaugural Rugby World Cup in 1987 which saw Wales head to the Pembrokeshire seaside resort of Tenby and take part in a fun run.

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Former league and union great Jonathan Davies was the Welsh outside half during that 1987 campaign in New Zealand and Australia that saw Wales beat England in the quarter-finals and finish third – still their best showing at the Rugby World Cup. The current Wales squad has been based at altitude in Switzerland and will head to Turkey for heat training while facing four warm-up international matches – two each against England and Ireland – to prepare for Japan.

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In 1987, the only match preparation for Davies and the Welsh squad was a controversial Five Nations tournament which featured the infamous Battle of Cardiff against England. The Welsh won 19-12 with the Rugby Football Union taking disciplinary action taken against captain Richard Hill, Gareth Chilcott, Graham Dawe and Wade Dooley, who had broken fellow policeman Phil Davies’s cheekbone during the fighting.

Wales didn’t play any warm up games before heading down under and Davies said: “Before the tournament we went to Tenby for a couple of nights and some training on the beach and that was about it.

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“We started a two-mile fun run but there wasn’t anything special in terms of training and just had a bit of fun before what we considered to be a bit of a mini-tour to New Zealand! We didn’t have any warm-up games – we were amateurs!”

During the tournament the injury-ravaged Wales Cup squad called up two 19-year-olds who were playing for Northern Suburbs in Sydney – current Wasps director of rugby Dai Young and ex-Lions and Wales flanker Richard Webster. They had remarkable starts to their test careers with Young making his test debut in the quarter-final win over England while Webster’s first Wales game was the third-place play-off victory against Australia.

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Jonathan Davies

“We had injuries in the front row; Stuart Evans got injured, John Rawlins flew in and pulled his hamstring the first training session and flew back so Dai go the call along with Richard Webster because they were good players and already in Australia: “ added Davies. “It was all very amateurish at the World Cup but we wanted to win it and to get to Brisbane we had to fly in from Invercargill.”

Before the 1987 quarter-final in Brisbane, England, unlike the Welsh, headed to the Hamilton Island resort where they enjoyed swimming, sunbathing, para-gliding and water-skiing. The quarter-final contest was a damp squib compared to that violent 80 minutes in Cardiff and a key moment highlighted the difference between the amateur game played in 1987 and the current professional one.

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Buck Shelford is tackled in Brisbane in 1987 (Photo by Ross Land/Getty Images)
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England lost prop Paul Rendall to injury and faced a scrum five metres from their line and second row Nigel Redman moved up to tighthead prop as England didn’t have time to get replacement Chilcott onto the pitch. Gary Pearce switched from tighthead to loose where Rendall played. Not surprisingly, Redman was marched back in the scrum, the ball squirted out and flanker Gareth Roberts scored a crucial first of three Welsh tries as they won 16-3, earning the dubious reward of a semi-final against eventual champions New Zealand. “What happened with the injury to Rendall would never happen these days and it was their fault – the should have waited to have the scrum:” explained Davies. “ We wanted to play open rugby but it was the worst game ever.”

That win led to 46-9 beating, lock Huw Richards was sent off while All Black legend Buck Shelford stayed on the pitch despite knocking out the Welsh player. Wales would redeem themselves with a remarkable touchline Paul Thorburn conversion earning a third-place finish with a 22-21 win over 14 man Australia in Rotorua.

It remains one of Davies’s favourite memories from his career and thanks to the calmer conditions, Wales were able to play their style of rugby. Does Davies envy the current players and their intensive preparations? “Back in 1987 you never envisaged what the World Cup would become with even warm-up games for the tournament selling out. The players are professionals on big salaries and the whole tournament has grown and I would love to experience that now. Yes, the preparation is different and good luck to all those lucky enough to be at the Cup.”

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J
JW 3 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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