PETER JACKSON
THE MAN TRULY IN THE KNOW
AS THE supreme tighthead prop of his generation, Graham Price played 91 times for Wales and the Lions and went the distance in 89 of them.
He came off just twice in eight years, the victim of a brutality to which too many referees of his time too often turned a collective blind eye. The first incident happened at Cardiff in 1976, the second at the Sydney Cricket Ground two years later.
Against France in what was a Grand Slam decider, Price had to be helped off the Arms Park suffering from a loss of vision. It was caused not by concussion but the most vile act of foul play, a French finger, or fingers, in his eyes. “I couldn’t see very much,’’ he says in a typically matter-of-fact manner as if it were no big deal. “So I had no option but to come off.’’
Mightily relieved to have his sight restored, the junior member of the Pontypool front row went quietly about his scrummaging business without any serious disruption until he came across a Sydney barrister by the name of Steve Finnane. His uppercut in an early scrum during the last match of a damaging tour for Wales broke Price’s jaw in two places.
Before Wales manager Clive Rowland publicly accused the Wallabies of ‘thuggery’, Finnane, a former amateur heavyweight boxing champion, admitted responsibility: “They started it. We finished it.’’
The next day, rather than check into a local hospital, Price made the long flight home, his jaw swathed in bandages. Typically, he did so without complaint. The damage eventually repaired, nothing more untoward stopped him compiling a run of 12 successive Tests for the Lions over three tours, seeing every one out from start to finish.
His maltreatment at the fingers of the French and the fists of an Aussie paled almost into insignificance compared to what Price has been through more recently: “I’ve been through the wars over the last 18 months.’’
That time included 40 days in hospital recovering from six hours of neck and spinal surgery. “I saw one X-ray,’’ he says, “and it looked like I had a set of miniature scaffolding around my neck. The operation had to be done. I had no alternative even though the damage meant it could have been nasty. The worst case scenario would have been paralysis.
“I played a lot of rugby, not just for Wales and the Lions but nearly 600 matches for Pontypool. I missed about another 150 because of international commitments. I played veterans’ rugby until I was 53 so all that’s bound to have been a major contributory factor. But there again people who have never been in a rugby scrum in their lives get the same things that I’ve had.
“At one stage my legs start to get a bit wobbly. Within a week I started to develop sciatica. One day I went to see my grandson play for Pontypool schools and I almost fell over. Before I knew it I was going from one walking stick to two and then to crutches. And after that the equivalent of a walking frame.’’
Fortified by two new knees, the most enduring of all Lions’ props is back on his own two feet. “I was using a stick up until Christmas but I’m walking ok now without one,’’ he says. “The Welsh Rugby Union’s Charitable Trust have been very helpful with private physiotherapy. It enables me to walk a bit further every time I take the dog out. It’s been a long struggle but I’m over the worst of it.’’
Two years ago when he reached 70, Price gave himself the usual treat with a two-and-a-half mile run up and down the Shell Grotto some 700 feet above Pontypool Park; the place where, more than 40 years ago, head coach Ray Prosser made the players fit to be the most consistent of all British clubs. They did so in the belief that, sooner or later, their all-Wales front row would wear down even the most durable opposition. “It was all about taking advantage when they got tired and the more scrums, the better,’’ says Price. “That’s why I did so much running up and down the Grotto.’’
The substitution law destroys the old concept. Front rows at the highest professional level don’t get tired any more because they will be replaced by a brand new one, often with at least half an hour still to go.
In their three Six Nations matches this season, Wales have used four tightheads: Leon Brown, Keiran Assiratti, Archie Griffin and Dillon Lewis. None has lasted anywhere near as long as the full 80.
Price, still a shrewd observer of the Test scene as a columnist for Wales Online (shrewd enough to forecast Ireland and France being knocked out in the World Cup quarter-finals), went the distance as a matter of course.
Ironically, those wishing him a complete recovery numbered his old nemesis, Finnane, his get-well message the first communication between them since 46 years ago even if there was no reference to what happened at the SCG. At least he made the effort…
