Look back at the infancy of Rugby World, an issue from February 1965, just four years on from its inception and you have to wonder if any sport has changed quite so much in those intervening 60 years as rugby union.
Take the ‘famous club’ feature from that issue, which alights upon Newport. Looking at their history, the feature notes that they beat the South Africans in 1912, the Australians in 1957 and the All Blacks in 1963 – “the perfect Rugby hat-trick”.
Could it happen. Now? No, for the simple reason that rugby tours are finished in that sense, professionalism meaning that the schedule is so packed that overseas tourists come to Europe to play a handful of Test matches against various nations before jetting home, rarely, if ever, setting foot on the likes of Rodney Parade.
Have a read of the piece on Newport RFC here, and I’m sure you’ll agree that this particular bit of progress hasn’t necessarily made things better.
