Nucifora shows the way forward

THE 1991 edition of the Rugby Annual for Wales has long been a collector’s item.

- PETER JACKSON

Etched in black, it could have passed for distribution at a requiem mass to those mourning the loss of their national sport.

As a sequel to finishing rock bottom of that year’s Five Nations, a losing team took wing on a shambolic tour of Australia made all the more shameful by the fact that they wound up fighting among themselves at the official post-Test banquet. All that remained was for someone to administer the last rites.

That someone turned out to be the sober-minded editor of what used to be the bible of Welsh rugby, the late Arwyn Owen. “The unique black border around the cover says it all,” he wrote in the annual, black cap on his head. “Welsh Rugby at senior international level is dead.

“It had been in extremely poor health for several seasons. However, the recent tour of Australia proved to be fatal. Never in the previous 22 editions of the annual have we had to record such disastrous episodes of failure by our senior national team.”

The beatings by England, Scotland and France earlier that year were nothing compared to those inflicted in Australia. On three successive Saturdays in July, Wales conceded 29 tries: 12 to New South Wales in Sydney, 12 more to the Wallabies in Brisbane and another five to Queensland.