Quinnell’s call: Prepare to make history against All Blacks

Louis Rees-Zammit will be bursting to deliver an emotive message from a famous old warrior when Wales unleash him against New Zealand for the first time.

Derek Quinnell, still the only player to beat the All Blacks three times in three seasons with three different teams, is urging Wales to settle for nothing less than making history of their very own in Cardiff on Saturday.

A weekend when the dazzling Rees-Zammit won acclamation as the ‘new David Campese’ and the ‘ugly’ All Blacks almost came unstuck in Tokyo gives Quinnell’s battle cry a significant amount of relevance as opposed to just another exercise in tub-thumping.

“The boys have a rare privilege, a real oppor- tunity to make history,” he told The Rugby Paper. “They have to be bold and they have to be brave. You cannot sit back against the All Blacks and defend for 80 minutes.

“This is their chance to make a statement for Wales. When it comes to beating the All Blacks, Ireland have shown us all the way. Get early points on the board and they will be rattled.

“A win for the nation would be huge, so huge that in 50 years time they will be able to say: ‘Hey, I was one of the players who played on that magical day when we beat the All Blacks way back in 2022′.”

Nobody will find those words a greater source of motivation than Rees-Zammit, at 21 declaring himself ‘very excited’ in relishing the prospect of giving the All Blacks more than a run for their money. Their technical team will already be busy carrying out a forensic video examination of a wing whose like of they have not encountered before.

Quinnell knows what it takes as the only Welshman to have beaten New Zealand four times: for the Lions at Wellington in 1971, Llanelli at Stradey Park in 1972, the Barbarians at the Arms Park in 1973 and the Lions again, at Christchurch in 1977. He never beat them in the red of Wales, neither did his sons, Scott and Craig, nor his brother-in-law, Barry John.

At 73, Llanelli’s mighty warhorse has renewed hope that he will see Wayne Pivac‘s squad finally put an end to a run of 32 straight defeats since Wales last beat New Zealand in December, 1953.

“The Lions of 1971 had a nucleus of Welsh players,” Quinnell, below, says. “Having beaten them in New Zealand, we thought we’d be in with a reasonable shout at Cardiff the following year. We lost by a whisker, then again by a point in the infamous game six years later. (A late penalty awarded after Andy Haden dived from a line-out.)”

In a matter of days there has been a perceptible shift in the mood of Welsh fans, from no chance to genuine optimism, a change based around the knock-on effect of two outstanding individual performances.

Rhys Priestland’s near flawless exhibition in Cardiff ‘s home win over URC champions The Stormers, the best by a Welsh stand-off for sometime, has surely earned him the right to fill the vacancy left by Dan Biggar’s knee injury.

Rees-Zammit’s electrifying show at a packed Kingsholm on Friday night where he scored one and made two of Gloucester’s six-try blitz of Exeter won him lavish praise from a pair of former England internationals.

Martin Bayfield acclaimed the young Welshman as ‘a rising star of the world game’ His fellow BT Sport pundit, Austin Healey, went further, saying Rees-Zammit had ‘the ability to become the best the game has seen’.

Healey went on: “He has all the raw material.

“Managed the right way he could be as good as David Campese. That’s a massive thing to say but, right now, I think it’s true. Talk about X-factor. In Rees-Zammit, you have someone who is faster than anyone else but someone who also has the ability to do things which I don’t think anyone else in world rugby can do.”

Gloucester coach George Skivington said: ‘’Louis has all the potential to be an absolute superstar. He is working so hard adding those bits to his game which you don’t see in highlight moments but which make him an even better player.”

The All Blacks, slated after they ended up clinging to a 38-31 win over Japan, have been dealt another self-inflicted blow. Brodie Retallick’s red card for dangerous cleaning out a ruck means the lock will be banned from the Wales match and probably the entire tour.