St Helen’s ArchivePreserving the past for the future
Six
Transcript:
This is part six of the nine part audio trail following the career of ‘Merve the Swerve’, Mervyn Davies. Previously this trail explored the British and Irish Lions tour of 1971 in New Zealand, as well as the following celebration match in 1972 where many of those same Lions returned to play on opposite sides. This part explores the Lions tour two years later, in 1974 between May and July. Here the Lions toured South Africa, and found it beset by some controversy.
By 1974, and the time of this Lions tour, Mervyn Davies had played for Swansea RFC for two seasons. Part five in this trail explored this in detail, with extra focus on the centenary season. This part shall also spend some time exploring Mervyn’s latter years with Swansea, until the unfortunate early end to his rugby career.
The 1974 ‘Lions’ tour, besides the political controversy, is remembered as one of their most successful. Known as the ‘Invincible’ tour, the Lions squad went undefeated throughout the tour, not just regarding the test matches. Mervyn Davies played in each test match, and nine of the midweek matches. Another point of controversy, the final trial match did end in a draw: a Fergus Slattery try was dubiously disallowed by the South African referee enabling the Springboks to avoid losing every game they had hosted and suffering a ‘white-wash’.
To speak of the jersey itself, it is understandably almost identical to the first ‘Lions’ jersey in this trail. It bears the quartered badge on its breast, and has also suffered some ultra-violet caused fading. Unlike the first British and Irish Lions jersey however it is without Mervyn’s identifying number, the jersey has no number on the back at all. However, the jersey was still donated by Mervyn himself.
As for the other points of controversy: the tour went ahead even within the context of condemnation for the apartheid regime in South Africa. Some players like John Taylor and Gerald Davies refused to make themselves available for selection. Despite this, the British and Irish Lions did tour in South Africa again during Apartheid in 1980, but then did not again until 1997, three years after the end of the regime. As well as this, rough play by many of the host teams was much in evidence, a characteristic of their style of play and also an intimidatory tactic used against touring sides. The Springboks were renowned for their physicality, but some would have argued, for their ‘dirtier’ and more violent play. To counter this, the Lions developed a ‘99’ call, where every player would engage with their nearest opponent in physical violence amidst any sign of roughhousing. The idea being that the referee wouldn’t be able to send every player off, and the Lions could prevent the violent behaviour from stopping them playing their open style or running rugby. Answering violence with violence however meant that the third test match of the series on the 13th of July saw J. P. R. Williams run 50 yards, headfirst into a fight with Moaner van Heerden. The match itself reportedly saw two fist-fights, one in each half.
Unlike Mervyn Davies’ first Lions tour, 1974 saw a more balanced selection from the home nations. Mervyn was rejoined by the aforementioned J. P. R. Williams, as well as Gareth Edwards from the earlier 71’ tour. Now other Welsh selections included: J. J. Williams, Clive Rees, Roy Bergiers, Phil Bennett, Bobby Windsor and Tommy David. As stated earlier, John Taylor and Gerald Davies had played in the 1971 tour, but did not now attend for political reasons. Regardless, the tour was still extremely successful, and so the changed selection only produced a stronger Lions side.
As previously mentioned this entry in the trail will now speak briefly on Mervyn Davies’ final few seasons with Swansea RFC after the end of this British and Irish Lions tour. Between the 1974 to 75 & 1975 to 76 seasons, Mervyn would play for Swansea for an additional 35 games, winning 22. In his final 1975-76 season he also captained the ‘All Whites’, but it was in this captaincy that he suffered a brain haemorrhage during the March 1976 Welsh Cup Semi-Final match against Pontypool at the National Stadium in Cardiff. It is universally held that Mervyn would have surely captained the 1977 Lions tour should he have been able to continue in playing. Mervyn Davies did survive the ordeal, he was just 29, but said he was lucky to have had access to the Doctors and life-saving equipment. As this trail has stated multiple times, he would later donate each of these jerseys to the archive himself. He passed away on 15th March 2012, at the age of 65 after a battle with cancer.
This British and Irish Lions jersey is the last in the trail that Mervyn wore himself. The back half of this trail shall now explore a selection of jerseys Mervyn swapped for after a range of international games. Please don’t forget to click next to continue on to the next part.