All Blacks struck by warmth of Welsh welcome

Press, 22 October 1980, Page 42

All Blacks struck by warmth of Welsh welcome

From KEVIN McMENAMIN in Llanelli

The All Blacks still have some distance to go before any judgments can be made on their visit to Wales, but the overriding impression of the first week has been the warmth of the Welsh welcome and the obvious determination of all concerned to try and make thifc a good-will tour.

The Welsh attitude has, no doubt, been influenced by the fact that this tour is part of the Welsh Rugby Union’s centennial celebrations and nothing must happen to detract from the occasion. The Llanelli game has been viewed with some trepedation because - of the tremendous rugby fervour that exists in the town. This was in evidence when the All Blacks trained at Stradey Park on Monday and found the scoreboard showing the 9-3 result of when Llanelli beat New Zealand in 1972.

Apparently this is nothing new, the scoreboard often reminding visitors to the park of what is known locally as "Llanelli’s great day.”

But amidst such partisanship there has been a warmth of hospitality that goes beyond anything All Black sides to Wales in the recent past have experienced. As one 1972-73 traveller observed after his first day in Llanelli: "In 1972 they spat on us ' — now they seem to want to kill us with kindness. It’s hard to understand.” Even from 1978 the attitude seems to have changed. The Welsh newspapers, traditionally the pace-setters of pro-Welsh and. anti-All Black sentiments, have been treating the All Blacks with a new-found favour. Some even gave the All Blacks more praise than they deserved for their win over Cardiff.

One All Black who has: been pleasantly surprised by the Welsh attitude is the Canterbury prop, John Ashworth. Before he left New Zealand Ashworth fully expected that the "Bridgend incident” of two years ago, in which he was charged with deliberately kicking J. P. R. Williams in the face, would haunt him for at least the early part of the tour. But Ashworth has, if any* thing, found himself being singled out for special V.I.P. treatment. The day he arrived in Wales he received an expensive book about Wales-New Zealand rugby history from a man in the Rhondda Valley, with an accompanying note wishing him well. He has also been in demand for school visits, and it was noticeable that when tankards were given to the All Blacks at the dinner after the Cardiff match that the applause volume rose when Ashworth's name was called. Some people have said that they admire Ashworth for returning to a country in which he had good reason to believe that he was unwelcome, and another factor might be that for all his rugby greatness J. P. R. Williams is not the Welsh hero of yore.

Ashworth also won a certain admiration for the way he kept his "cool” in the Cardiff game. There was certainly extreme provocation in the way his opposing prop kept stepping forward, and often grabbing his jer-

>sey at the scrum put downs. At any other.time and in : any other place a prop indulging in such actions would have found himself • facing summary justice. But I Ashworth, conscious of both , his own and his team’s reputation, obviously “bit the bullet.” The centennial test on : Saturday week will be the acid test of whether the Welsh are as forgiving as they seem, but so long as last night’s Llanelli game contained no unpleasantness there is every chance that the big match of the tour will at least begin in an atmosphere of nothing more than in tens competition.