England lost that game, too, 27–20, and that led to changes that didn’t help my cause as the selectors frantically tried to avert a whitewash. Andy Ripley was left out and Roger Uttley moved into the back row. Although that left a vacancy in the second row they brought back Nigel Horton to partner Chris Ralston and, with a second row now in the back row, England needed a back row player rather than a second row like myself on the bench.
In those days England had an appalling record against Wales in Cardiff and 1975 was no exception. We were beaten 20–4 and that led to the axe swinging once more with Horton, Peter Wheeler and John Watkins the victims. Fran Cotton was ill, so Mike Burton was brought in to replace him and, in typical Burton fashion, he asked if he was also taking over the captaincy. There’s nothing like cheek, but it was Tony Neary who took on that responsibility for the first time.
Scotland were on for a rare Triple Crown when they travelled to Twickenham for the final game of a disappointing English season and they should have won the match. Dougie Morgan missed two simple penalties late in the game and England hung on to win 7–6 – hardly the best preparation for a summer tour to Australia. By that stage I had increased my training schedule, having acquired a rather better understanding of what was required to play consistently well at the top level, and I went back to enjoying my club rugby at Fylde. There was also greater recognition, because I was picked to play for the Barbarians on their traditional Easter tour to South Wales, travelling down in my maroon Austin Maxi along with Tony Richards, Dave Robinson – a tough Cumbrian farmer who played for Gosforth and later became an England coach – and my old partner Richard Trickey.
We partnered each other again in the opening game against Penarth. I wasn’t included against Cardiff but was back in the side for what proved to be a very hard game against Swansea. That’s when I came up against Geoff Wheel for the first time. Swansea had a decent side at that time and we had to play well to win but I was convinced that my own game was improving all the time, having started playing against the best second rows in Britain. I was also keen to be seen playing well because I was desperate to earn a call-up for the tour to Australia. My reasoning was that England had experienced a poor season and that a tour was the ideal vehicle for bringing on one or two young players.
When the touring party was announced it was just one of many botch jobs by the selectors and it is not difficult to see the wisdom of having one man responsible for picking the side, as Clive Woodward, England’s head coach, does now. He has other experienced coaches he can talk to, but at the end of the day it is his decision and, in the case of failure, his neck that is on the block. I always felt that selection by committee was flawed and that too many good players were denied an opportunity because of wheeler-dealing, one selector supporting a player from a different region in return for securing support for a protégé of his own. That is hardly the way to mould a successful side. Nowhere has bad practice been more apparent than in schoolboy rugby, where the old-school-tie network still works today.
While I had been confident that the selectors would give one or two young players an opportunity, including me, I hadn’t expected them to go overboard. Far too many experienced players were jettisoned and it wasn’t difficult to work out why I was in the touring party when I saw that the experienced Chris Ralston and Nigel Horton were being left at home. Of the four half-backs in the party only one had actually won a cap, Bedford fly-half Neil Bennett having made his debut against Scotland in the final game of that season’s Five Nations Championship. Alan Wordsworth, the other fly-half, and scrum-halves Brian Ashton and Peter Kingston, didn’t possess a cap between them. I found it absolutely staggering that they had completely ignored what I regarded as the best half-back pairing in the country, Steve Smith and Alan Old.
Peter Rossborough and Tony Jorden had both played at full-back that season but were ignored, while the untried Peter Butler and Alistair Hignell were called up. Of the four second rows Roger Uttley was clearly very experienced but I had just one cap and the other two, Bob Wilkinson and Neil Mantell, were uncapped. Perhaps the selectors had decided on a very experimental approach because Australia had performed poorly on their last visit to the UK but, as I was to discover, Australians are tough nuts to crack in their own backyard.
I felt sorry for our coach, John Burgess, because he soon found himself condemned to making what he could of a thoroughly bad job and the tour was to end his dream of turning England into a major force in world rugby. Before transforming the fortunes of Lancashire and the North West, Burgess had spent hours picking the brains of former All Blacks coach Fred Allen and studying the way the best side in the world went about its preparation. He had so much to offer England but was denied the opportunity by ludicrous selections and undisguised hostility in certain quarters. Players like Fran Cotton, Tony Neary and I knew what John was about. We knew what made him tick and what he was trying to achieve but I suppose he was considered by some to be nothing more than an uncouth and loud-mouthed northerner. Yet, he never threw in the towel and, although his coaching ability was never allowed to blossom at international level, he did become a leading administrator in the game before being honoured with the Presidency of the RFU.
The opening game against Western Australia was a bit of a cakewalk but we lost the second game, against Sydney, 14–10. I almost lost more than the game because, for no apparent reason, I was clobbered by Steve Finnane, Sydney’s international prop, as we ran across the pitch following the action. It was a mindless and unprovoked attack that left me out cold. There is no place in the game, at any level, for such behaviour but Finnane had a reputation for that sort of thing. During the same game he flattened Mike Burton and Steve Callum, a mystery player who suddenly appeared in the touring party from Upper Clapton but was barely heard of again. Two years later Finnane broke the jaw of Graham Price during a Welsh tour of Australia, so the guy built up quite a history of violent behaviour.
When I eventually came round from Finnane’s pile-driver, I was persuaded by Tony Neary to leave the field and was joined on the treatment table – thankfully not literally, considering the size of the pair of us – by Fran Cotton. He had trapped a nerve in his back and was unable to take any further part in the tour. As we were to lose Tony Neary with damaged ribs in the first Test you could say that some of our heaviest artillery had been put out of commission.
Not all the Aussies were out of Finnane’s mould, there being some guys you would happily have a drink with. One of those was a guy who became chief executive of Foster’s Lager. I met him during the 2001 British Lions tour to Australia and he told me he had made his debut for Sydney that day and had subsequently watched my career with interest. I was more than happy to enjoy a few beers with him, but I have never had any desire to socialise with people like Finnane who go around whacking people off the ball when they don’t know it’s coming and are in no position to defend themselves.
My chances of a Test place seemed to have diminished because I wasn’t involved in the 29–24 win over New South Wales, figuring instead in a surprise 14–13 defeat at the hands of a New South Wales Country XV. A place on the bench was the best I could hope for and that’s what I ended up with for the first Test in Sydney, and what an unpleasant game that turned out to be. The Aussies were capable of playing some breathtaking rugby so I couldn’t understand why they picked abrasive characters like Finnane who seemed more intent on intimidating than playing rugby against us.
Tony Neary injured his ribs midway in the first half and I was sent on to the battlefield. From a personal perspective it went quite well because I ended up front-jumping against a guy called Reg Smith and won my fair share of ball at the line-out. Though I say it myself, I had my best game of the tour in the loose and, after helping England to victory over Queensland in midweek with Bob Wilkinson as my partner we were picked as a pair for the second Test. So I won my third cap on merit instead of as a replacement, although I wish it could have been a more auspicious occasion. If we thought the first Test was bad then I am afraid we had seen nothing.
The Aussies launched themselves at us with all the ferocity of caged animals that hadn’t been fed for a long time, and I had trouble believing what was going on. Barry Nelmes, the Cardiff prop, won the ball at the kick-off but was tackled and, while he was on the floor, a pack of