The story has been told a number of times but remains a classic, highlighting how it used to be in Welsh derby matches.
A young Phil Bennett, skippering Llanelli aged just 19, knocked on the home dressing room door at The Gnoll with the referee ahead of a clash with Neath. The said door swung open and there stood the imposing figure of the legendary Wales forward Brian Thomas, a man as wide as he was tall, complete with black eye on this particular day, which may or may not have been sustained within the confines of his own dressing room.
Thomas looked as if he had just learned that a lorry had reversed over his new garden shed.
“What do you want?” he asked gruffly. Told the visitors had come about the coin toss, he growled back: “We’ll kick off and play with the wind in the first half, and if you don’t f*** off we’ll do the same in the second half as well.”
All things considered, they probably don’t make ’em like Brian Thomas anymore. Benny later admitted the episode had done little for his sense of inner peace that day. Which is as Thomas would have wanted.
A man open to gaining even the slightest edge over his opponents, he was still at it in his days as Neath rugby director, responding to suggestions that Swansea and their No. 8 Stuart Davies, in particular, had bullied Neath, who had worn turquoise shirts on the day, by telling this writer: “Next time you see Stuart Davies, just say one word to him — Phil Pugh.”
Self-preservation dictated that the big man wasn’t informed that actually two words would have been involved in that process.
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How much sledging goes on in modern-day Welsh rugby derbies? Only the players truly know. But sometimes emotions spill over and the words and deeds are there for all to see. It is no surprise.
“There’s so much on the line,” said Shane Williams, speaking ahead of the festive jousts between the Welsh professional sides. “For the Christmas derbies, you know the Six Nations is around the corner, you know there are bragging rights to be claimed. You also think as an individual that you need to get one over on the guy opposite you because he’s the fella who could be wearing your jersey in the first game of the Six Nations.
“Over the whole 80 minutes, there are no mates. You don’t want to lose, you certainly don’t want to have the guy opposite you have the better of you and there’s plenty of banter and things going on off the ball.
“There’s a lot at stake — a lot of experienced players playing over Christmas who’ll want to retain their positions in the Welsh team and a lot of young pups coming through thinking that they’re chocolate and ready to take that next step. That’s what it’s all about and that’s what makes it fun."
The legendary wing continued: “It’s about being clever as well, because there are players you know you can wind up. I know for a fact that whenever we played a team with Mike Phillips in, part of the game-plan was to rile Mike and get him carded.
“Let’s be honest, there are players you know you can wind up and there are players you shouldn’t wind up, because it brings the best out of them. You all know each other, so you know exactly whose buttons you can press, who not to bother and who to really rile so they don’t have a good game. You are playing against your mates, but, like I say, for 80 minutes there are no mates on that rugby field.”
The early years of regional rugby and the latter days of the previous era brought some memorable instances of sledging and more, sometimes resulting in red mist descending. Below are a few:
Martyn Williams v Gavin Henson (Cardiff v Ospreys, 2005)
Martyn Williams is among the good guys in rugby. He is known for being easy-going and affable.
What he isn’t known for is losing his cool easily. But maybe he and Gavin Henson were on different wavelengths. Whatever, something riled Nugget the day he came across Henson on the field in January 2005.
Let Henson take up the story in his book, My Grand Slam Year: “Martyn seemed to be in a daze that afternoon, as if he'd gone into his own little world. I put a big tackle in on the Cardiff scrum-half Ryan Powell. At the next ruck, I cleared out a couple of players and fell to the ground.
"All of a sudden Martyn came flying in on top of me and started throwing punches. He was screaming too. ‘You don’t like it in the face do you, pretty boy?! You can’t handle it’. I managed to grab him and turn him onto his back and then some other players came in to break us apart. 'What’s your problem?’ I said to him but his eyes had glazed over. Mentally he was somewhere else. He was just staring into space."
Fair play, it’s an accurate recalling of those events by Henson, with even Williams agreeing.
In his own tome, The Magnificent Seven, he wrote: “I couldn’t really have any complaints about it, because all of it was true! He had put a hell of a hit on Ryan Powell and he was whooping and giving it loads.
"I thought to myself 'who is this Flash Harry? Who does he think he is?' and I kind of lost it with him. Emotions were running high, as they often do in Welsh derbies, and I guess I got caught up in the moment."
Tries from Richie Pugh and Jason Spice secured the Ospreys the spoils that day.
Martyn Williams v Jason Spice (Cardiff Blues v Ospreys, 2006)
There was another flashpoint involving Williams the following year, this time with the aforementioned Spice, a man who wasn’t averse to the odd bit of a chat and more during matches.
“Jason Spice is the biggest wind-up merchant you can ever imagine — tough as boots but he would chops and niggle for 80 minutes,” laughed Shane Williams. "You have to watch out for those ones."
Someone should have told Cardiff’s No. 7 all those years ago, with an incident with the then Ospreys No. 9 resulting in the only red card of his career.
Williams later recalled: "They'd won a penalty and I had the ball in my hands. So I turned to walk away with the ball, just to stop the quick penalty. Jason obviously wanted to get the ball so he ran up behind and gave me a bit of a clip behind the ear and I lost it. It was probably a bit of a footballer's headbutt! It was my one and only red. Thankfully, we still won that day."
Cardiff had Ben Blair to thank significantly for their triumph, with the full-back scoring 25 points.
“Nugget wasn’t a dirty player, but this is where emotions come into it,” said Tom Shanklin, Williams’ old Wales and Cardiff team-mate. “No-one would really target Martyn and say he’s a loose cannon, because he was so cool-headed and captained a lot as well. He wasn’t that type of player. But it was against the Ospreys, because you were desperate to win - it’s that fine line of trying to keep your emotions in check.”
Justin Marshall v Mike Phillips (Ospreys v Cardiff, 2007)
Phillips was joining the Ospreys, who already had Marshall on their books, when the pair met in the EDF Energy Cup semi-final at the Millennium Stadium.
Sparks had been predicted to fly between the two soon-to-be rivals for the Ospreys No. 9 shirt. And fly they did.
A masterclass from Marshall earned him the man-of-the-match award, but the headlines the next day focused on a clash between the two scrum-halves in the tunnel.
Marshall later said: "He grabbed me by the throat after the game when I tried to shake his hand. That’s how wound up he was. He was angry."
He revealed he had first crossed swords with Phillips two years earlier while playing for Leeds against Cardiff.
“By God he disliked me," he said. "That was very evident 20 minutes into the game. I was not a favourite of his. A lot of it was really personal. ‘You’re rubbish. What are you doing out here?’ Blah, blah, blah. At this stage, I’d played 81 Tests for the All Blacks so I thought I was okay. But I was no good in his mind. It was quite a ferocious approach."
The New Zealander said there had been a further tiff before the game in Cardiff. "What he did that annoyed me was that he approached me one night in a pub in Swansea and had another go, with the same sort of stuff - 'you're rubbish. I'm a better player than you and all that'. That's stepping out of the boundaries and you probably deserve to be pulled in a little bit."
Returning serve, Phillips said: “The way I looked at it was: he’s Justin Marshall, he’s got 80 caps, he’s been one of the best in the world and I’m going to try and beat him. I want to be the best in the world. He’s arguably one of the best that’s played the game and you want to push yourself to be as good as you can be.
“Me giving stick to people on the field was always about me, it wasn’t about anybody else. It was to spark that competitiveness in me or maybe, at times, I was a bit nervous or edgy. It was never personal with anyone. You just want to win so much you use anything you can.”
Edge comes with local derbies.
Dragons and Cardiff players will know as much when they do battle in Newport on December 26 and so will the Ospreys and Scarlets players in Swansea later on in the day.
It doesn’t mean anyone has to lose control. And the challenge is always to maintain composure. But sometimes, just sometimes, tolerance levels can be tested. Count to 10 is the advice, however great the temptation to do otherwise.
The Stradey Park crowd v Shane Williams (more than once)
Not a case of Wlliams ever losing his cool — though he may have been fortunate not to lose his head on more than one occasion when he came up against a fearsome Tonga international who had a reputation for testing the tolerance of referees with his tackling and charging.
Salesi Finau boasted forearms the size of cartoon-sized hams and he became a cult hero in Llanelli and a focus of deep concern for plenty of opponents. It would not be an untruth to say he let the occasional high tackle slip into his game, albeit he used to say such hits involved attempts to knock the ball clear rather than knock any heads from shoulders. Whatever, the Llanelli crowd feted him.
Frequently when Williams went out west, the chant would go up from home supporters: “Finau’s gonna yet you, Finau’s gonna get you, nah, nah, nah, nah.”
And the man himself couldn’t be faulted for effort. “I remember going down to Stradey Park with the Ospreys and nearly being decapitated several times by Salesi Finau - it was always an experience,” said Williams.
The Llanelli crowd were partial to serenading Williams. “I had just got into the Wales team and recall going down to Llanelli and getting absolutely abused on the sideline while thinking: ‘Hopefully, you are going to be supporting me in the Six Nations. Yet here you are, calling me all the names under the sun'."
But the little wide-man from the Amman Valley never had any complaints. “It just felt great that it meant that much to the supporters and teams,” he added.
- Shane Williams and Tom Shanklin are part of the Viaplay team bringing fans every game from the BKT United Rugby Championship throughout the season. You can join Shanklin, Williams, Ross Harries and Rhys Ap William for back-to-back Welsh derby action on December 26, when Dragons take on Cardiff (2.15pm kick-off) followed by Ospreys v Scarlets (5.15pm), and New Year’s Day with two more Welsh derbies scheduled. Visit www.viaplay.com for more information. Viaplay is available on Sky, Virgin TV, Amazon Prime and online through the Viaplay App.
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