When every story always seems to lead back to that lineout…

WHILE his native Ulster were in Johannesburg for their fixture against the Lions, one of the province’s old players was otherwise engaged on international duty in the Middle East.

Ross Adair spent Friday night in pursuit of his alternative professional career, opening the innings for Ireland at the start of their five-match T-20 series against South Africa in Abu Dhabi. A ‘big hitting’ batsman, the 30-yearold from Holywood, Co Down made one appearance for Ulster and 47 for Jersey Reds before a damaged hip forced him to give up one sport and concentrate on another without impediment.

Cricketing rugby players of above-average ability were a rare breed before the Paris summit turned Union a professional sport overnight in August 1995. The breed has become rarer still, so much so that in the 29 years since then only one man has played international matches in both sports, Jeff Wilson.

The Kiwi known near and far as ‘Goldie’ played his first one-day international for New Zealand‘s cricket team in 1993, a few months before he announced himself on the rugby stage with a hat-trick of tries for the All Blacks against Scotland at Murrayfield.

Wilson had retired from Test rugby when he made his last stand for the Black Caps in 2005, emulating another New Zealander as only the second player to achieve such a double.

Brian McKechnie beat him to it in circumstances which provoked a diplomatic incident between the old rivals on opposite sides of the Tasman. To win the match for the Kiwis, McKechnie had to hit the last ball for six. Australia removed any possibility of that happening by stooping to the lowest of low blows. They instructed the bowler, Trevor Chappell, to roll the last delivery underarm along the pitch, an act of gamesmanship which led to angry exchanges at government level in Wellington and Canberra.

While all that was going on, a small country half a world away was awash with schadenfreude. Wales had not forgotten what McKechnie did to them at Cardiff Arms Park three years before the Chappell incident and never will.

In their first match after the dual retirement of Gareth Edwards and Phil Bennett, Wales led 12-10 with time running out when Andy Haden and Frank Oliver faked their double dive from the final lineout of the match. To a man, the Welsh team swore that their stunt had ‘conned’ the English referee, Roger Quittenton, into awarding New Zealand a penalty. Quittenton denied any such thing, adamant to his dying day that he had punished Swansea lock Geoff Wheel at the front of that fateful lineout. McKechnie, on the field as a substitute for Clive Currie, kicked the goal to ensure the All Blacks stole the match.

Even after all these years he will still not find an atom of sympathy anywhere in Wales for what the Aussies did to him on the cricket field. A clear case of what goes around, comes around…