My Life in Rugby: Tony Bond – former Broughton Park, Sale, Neath and England centre

They say a week is a long time in politics and the same is true of rugby, in my experience anyway. After the high of beating the All Blacks with the North in the infamous game at Otley came the low of losing to the same opponents in an England jersey.
While it was a great honour to represent my country on six occasions, to be a part of that North team was incredible. We had every confidence in the changing room beforehand that we would beat the All Blacks because of the quality we had in the side and the preparation we’d enjoyed under inspirational coach Des Seabrook.
The pack that day has to be one of the best ever assembled. Unfortunately Colin White, the prop, is no longer with us. He was a forester and as hard as nails. He once cut off two fingers in an accident at work and while driving to hospital to see if they could be sewn back on he realised he’d left them on site and had to go back for them!
I scored two of our four tries but it was the work of the pack – and the distribution of half-backs Steve Smith and Alan Old inside me – that created the space.
The first try involved a loop move with my centre partner Tony Wright, the best centre never to play for England, while I think I was just in the right place at the right time for the second. Wrighty used to side-step me for fun in training; I’d know it was coming but I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I was more of a crash tackle/strong running centre.
We’d planned to go out after the game but we were so tired and just had a few beers in the team hotel. The next day we drove to Leicester to meet up with England ahead of the test match at Twickenham.
England’s selectors did not heed the advice of many people in the game and opted not to pick the North team en masse. Alan Old had a fantastic game at Cross Green and his game might have been better suited to playing the All Blacks at that time as opposed to Les Cusworth, who a very different type of player and was in his early days as an international. On a personal note, it was my first game for England after a short period in the wilderness. I’d been penalised for a high tackle on Tony Ward against Ireland earlier that year and the selectors had seen fit to drop me.
I played against Ireland the following year but a badly broken leg put paid to me playing in any of the other games in that Grand Slam-winning campaign. After spending a few days in hospital I was discharged and I had to phone my dad and get him to come down from Manchester to pick me up. The RFU didn’t seem to have the same attitude towards player welfare back then as they do now!
I spent an initial three-months in plaster and then another three in hospital after it was discovered one of the original screws holding my leg together had split and infected the bone. I was lucky, however, to have a top physio at Sale, Kevin Murphy, and he helped me morning and night for a year until I returned to win my final cap alongside Clive Woodward in 1982.
That was the same year I became captain at Sale, who were one of the top clubs at the time. Whenever Fran Cotton played for us we tended to win. I remember him knocking out a big Gosforth lock after he’d late-tackled Steve Smith in an earlier incident, and then helping to carry him off the field.
When I’d moved to Sale from Broughton Park in 1977/78 it was to further my England ambitions. It was either go to them, as one of the top clubs in the country, or cross codes and sign for Salford, who I regularly watched on a Friday night. Alex Murphy was coach of Salford and I think that put me off because I’d heard he was a bit of a nightmare.
After four enjoyable years captaining Sale I moved south with work. I played a season at Blackheath before joining Old Askeans, who were coached by former Ireland back-rower Stewart McKinney.