S 1965 - 1969
Here is the story promised about my memory of my first away fixture in the Colts Team against Monmouth School, and subsequent 1st XV fixtures against Monmouth.
A Match and a Player to Remember.
It was the 8th October 1966 and much training work had been put in prior to the first school rugby fixture of the season against Monmouth School. This was my first away match for the Colts Team and we were travelling down to Monmouth with the 1st XV Team. Don Rutherford, who was the Head Coach for Rugby at Wycliffe was also travelling with both teams. For those not at Wycliffe during this era, Don played full-back for Gloucester and England, also played for the British Lions and the Barbarians, and then when he left Wycliffe in 1968, went on to be Director of Rugby at Twickenham from 1969 to 1999. He was, in my opinion an outstanding coach and dedicated most of his life to rugby.
At Monmouth it was a lovely day for rugby. Monmouth School’s rugby pitches are in a stunning location on the bank of the River Wye. The Colts Teams kicked off first and we had a bruising encounter, and finished with a win of 14-8. Our final whistle coincided with half-time in the First XV match. So we wandered over to support the First Team for the second half. The two packs were very evenly matched, but every time Monmouth won the ball and passed it to their inside centre, he performed 3 or 4 sidesteps, coupled with very powerful running, and touched the ball down, generally close to the posts. The final score in this large win for Monmouth was 24 – 3 (this was when tries were only 3 points).
There were some very long faces in the Wycliffe 1st XV. About a month of hard training, only to be trounced in the second match of the season. In the changing room, one of the 1st Team said to Don Rutherford “That inside centre was good wasn’t he Sir”. Don replied “He was good, but nothing special, he will probably get lost when he leaves school and starts in club rugby.” Well that was Keith Jarrett, who left Monmouth School in December that year, and on 15 April the next year, he was selected to play fullback for Wales in their 34 – 21 defeat of England. Keith Jarrett’s tally on the day was 19 points, equalling the welsh all-time record for test rugby set in 1910 by an earlier welsh fullback, Jack Bancroft. Fortunately for England, Keith Jarrett “went North” to play rugby league for Barrow soon after that outstanding performance for Wales in 1967.
Although the England defeat on 15 April 1967 was painful for me and fellow England Supporters, I did learn something on that day, and that was that sometimes, just sometimes School Masters, even Wycliffe School Masters, can be wrong.
Setting the Wycliffe/Monmouth Record Straight.
In 1967 (my first year in the 1st XV) we took on Monmouth at the Berryfield on a fine early Autumn day. Fortunately Keith Jarrett had left, but Monmouth still had the same competent, mature fly half who controlled much of the game. We had a cracking, close game of rugby, but lost 8-9. This was a very good year for the Wycliffe 1st XV captained by Archie Barber. We won 7 of our 12 fixtures, which hadn’t been achieved since 1961. Don Rutherford (this was his last season as Wycliffe Rugby Coach) stated in the Star that our best performance was definitely kept to last, when we beat Cardiff High School 13-11 on a very wet afternoon at the Berryfield. The lead changed hands 4 times, which led Don to remark in the Star “Everyone who had the good fortune to see this game saw one of the finest school performances in years. Just ask Mr Paine!”
In 1968 (my final season in the 1st XV at Wycliffe), we again went down to Monmouth for the first school match of the season on 5 October, with Mark Binns as Captain and Keith Richardson as the new Wycliffe Rugby Coach. After a hard fought game we finished up with an 11 – 10 win. The whole team played well that day, but special praise to our scrum half, David Gwilliam, who ran in 2 great tries from our own half. For both tries he picked up the ball from the base of loose scrums, broke on the blind side, wrong footed the blindside winger and was gone. That’s what you get when you play a competent sprinter with a brain at scrum half. I read in the Wycliffe Star later that this was the first victory for Wycliffe over Monmouth School since 1953, which was 1 year after I was born. It certainly was a great day.
