St Helen’s ArchivePreserving the past for the future
Four
Transcript:
This is part four of the five part audio trail following the story of the Australian rugby team’s tours to the UK, and their visits to Wales and specifically, St Helen’s. This part in the trail will explore two jerseys, both from the same match at St Helen’s, and also the story behind the rather sudden and immediate end of that match ahead of the usual eighty minutes. The previous part explored a number of tours in the 1960’s, 70’s and early 80’s, where the Wallabies sometimes saw middling results. However, in 1984, the tourists were one of the greatest Wallaby sides of all time, containing such names as Michael Lynagh, David Campese, Matt Burke and Nick Farr-Jones. The tourists won all four test matches and all but 4 of the 18 matches played, earning their first Grand Slam.
The first jersey to be explored in this part of the trail is the Australian jersey, now correctly identified thanks to the work of Australian rugby collector Michael Fahey’s information confirming the owner of this jersey. The jersey was worn by Australian hooker Enrique 'Topo' Rodríguez in the match against Swansea at St Helen's held on 30th October 1984. The jersey itself is yellow, or traditionally gold, with thin green double stripes on the shoulders and running down the sleeves. The collar is also yellow, and like the other jerseys in this trail, the Australian Rugby Union badge is on the breast. As described in part two of this trail, the badge shows the Australian coat of arms. On the rear of the jersey is a green number twenty-seven. Rodríguez, was a substitute for Australia in this match. He also started in all four internationals on the tour.
The second jersey, the Swansea jersey, is of course white. It has a navy and a maroon stripe down across the shoulders and down the sleeves. The Adidas logo is on the right breast, and a shield with Swansea’s 'Osprey' motif on the left breast. Within the shield are the letters SC an ampersand and FC standing for “Swansea Cricket & Football Club.” There is writing under the shield that reads, ‘V Australia 1984’. Unfortunately there is no number on the back, so we cannot be sure who wore the jersey, although the Swansea side was composed of: Mark Wyatt, Tony Swift, Ian Jeffries, Gareth Jenkins, Arthur Emyr, Aled Williams, Robert Jones, Clive Williams, Huw Gilson, Stuart Evans, Trevor Cheeseman, John Williams, Paul Moriarty, John Thomas and captain Mark Davies.
As for the match itself, and its teased sudden end, an early 6 point lead by the tourists was wiped out by an Arthur Emyr try and Mark Wyatt penalty but the Wallabies scored twice more before half-time. The Australians increased their lead after the break, seeing scores across both halves from tries from back row David Codey, scrum-half Phil Cox, a drop goal by outside-half Mike Hawker and penalty from full-back and captain Roger Gould.
This is all to say that the game was not uneventful. The score at sixty-seven minutes was seventeen points to seven. This is where the game ended, as most memorably, the floodlights failed throwing the St Helen’s grounds into darkness on that so close to Halloween night. As a significant portion of the game had been played, the match was abandoned as an Australian win.
As a bonus object from this eventful match, also on display at St Helens is a touch judge’s flag. One of a pair. The flag is green, with gold writing, reading ‘Swansea v. Australia’ and then the date of the match, ‘30th Oct 1984’. In the top right corner is Swansea’s osprey motif and at the diagonal opposite, the bottom left corner, is the Australian wallaby motif. On the reverse side of the flag are the Swansea colours, white with facing colours of maroon and navy stripes.
The next and final part of this trail reaches the promised and next Swansea win against the Wallabies in 1992. Equally as promised there is a greater material legacy from this match, given its temporal proximity to today, and so the final part shares a number of objects along with the story of this win… Please don’t forget to press next to follow on to the end.