When Finn Russell and Gareth Anscombe commence an inevitable kicking duel during Saturday’s game, spectators would do well to remember how far the game has come.
It is more than 60 years since a game that holds a firm place in rugby infamy.
The Murrayfield slugfest in 1963 is regarded as one of the dreariest matches ever played – and it changed the way the game was played forever.
And one man was responsible for the ‘spectacle’ – Clive Rowlands.
The Big Freeze of 1963 was among the harshest winters on record.
Sporting fixtures across the country were cancelled, however the newly installed undersoil heating at Murrayfield and an army of volunteers with snow shovels ensured the February game between Scotland and Wales went ahead.
However, many of the 60,000 who braved the bitter cold may have wished they had not.
Wales won 6-0. Although at the time such a scoreline was commonplace, the aspect that had purists crying into their beer were the tactics employed that day by the visitors – tactics that yielded an astonishing 111 line-outs. The average for international rugby today is rarely more than 20.
As Denis Busher of the Daily Herald wrote at the time: “International rugby is in its death throes as a spectator sport. Wales won carrying ‘modern’ power rugby to its logical conclusion.”
