There used to be a correspondent calle John Reason, who always seemed to be very anti-Welsh. Mind you, that was in the Edwards/JPR era so almost everyone was who wasn't Welsh themselves.
I call tedious bigotry on that one.
Watched Wales several times in that era and there was full and proper respect for what was an outstanding rugby team.
Well, I call one-eyed twattery.
I recall, with great amusement, the BBC lining up in the studio the entire England team that had last won in Cardiff before 26 (or something) years without an England wins. Must have been about 1987 or 89. Can't remember ('89, on checking the results). They were itching for an England win which is bloody poor from the British Broadcasting Corporation. I think England were after the grand slam as well. The two Roberts, Norster and Jones, played them out of the game. Hoist, petard.
Well, trying to avoid being a bigot or a twat [but perhaps a bit pedantic and with a definate pro-England stance], in my mind the "Edwards/JPR" era must have ran from 1967 [Edwards' first cap] to 1981 [JPR's last cap]. Comparatively, the 80's was a relatively poor period for Welsh rugby, although they continued to do reasonably well against England [their biggest win being by 13 points in 1987]. Throughout the 80's Wales won seven games to England's three with one draw.
So, due to the apparently incredible efforts of second row and scrum half, in 1989 Wales beat England by 3 points. However, in 1990 England beat Wales by 34-6, in 1991 25-6, in 1992 24-0. Wales won again by a point in 1993 and since then England have won nineteen games to Wales' eight. So the England team's revival story as presented by the BBC was perhaps a year later than scheduled but being hoisted on their own petard has probably helped raise England to a much higher altitude, including winning the World Cup.
I'm guessing that BBC Wales wasn't available in Southend in 1989! I wonder what their version of the story was!
On the subject of bias pro/con England/Wales, - the 24th Regiment of Foot that fought at the Battle of Rorke's Drift was an English Regiment. It's proper title was the 24th (The 2nd Warwickshire) Regiment of Foot. The highest proportion of nationalities in the regiment were English and it didn't become the South Wales Borderers until 1881. Proud Welsh man Stanley Baker would have it that they sang "Men of Harlech" as portrayed in the film "Zulu" but ..... what you see on a screen isn't neccessarily the truth, it didn't happen, but it makes a good story!.
So back to the BBC in 1989, perhaps they were working on a good story ["England win after 26[?] years....."] etc but in that year it was not to be!
On a different tack, I was in Harrogate back in the summer and chatting to the bar maid in the hotel: It turned out that her ex-husband, a Welsh man, was in the South Wales Borderers and his surname was Chard. His distant ancestor was Lt John Chard [an Englishman] who commanded at Rorke's Drift. I got up a photo of Lt Chard on my phone from Wikipedia and we compared it to a photo she had of her ex and her son. The likeness was incredible!
Anyway, my ramblings over, back to rugby! COME ON ENGLAND!!!
