PETER JACKSON

FOR decade after decade, the old fogies responsible for running the world’s oldest annual international sporting event steadfastly refused to recognise it as a competition. In their unflinching protection of the Corinthian spirit, such a word smacked of professionalism.
Officially, they never published a table, let alone dared refer to it as a championship. “The official position is that it’s a series of individual matches, not a championship,’’ Ray Williams, then secretary of the Welsh Rugby Union, once told me. “So your idea of a trophy can’t happen.’’
Ray Williams, the...