In 1972 the All Blacks toured Britain, Ireland, France and North America. A tour which saw them play 32 fixture with the ABS running out winners in 25, losing 5 and drawing 2. Unusually, by modern standards, the tour spanned Christmas and the New Year with the ABs playing the Combined Services on boxing day at Twickenham (and all conducted in the amateur era).

The tour is remembered for a number of reasons.

This was the tour when, playing for the  BaaBaas Bennett side-stepped and evaded three tackles in his own 22m area before initiating a sweeping move involving  JPR Williams, Pullin, Dawes, David and Quinnell before a final pass enabled a super-charged Gareth Edwards to score in the left-hand corner..

The tour also saw Llanelli beat the ABs 9-3 and (painfully for me as an All White supporter) endless column inches (even now), the production of  plays, commissioning of documentaries and the holding of re-union dinners. Nobody remembers about the North West Counites win in Workington or the Midland Counties (West) win in Mosley with the same aplomb but, then again, this was the last win by a Welsh team agains the ABs.

But perhaps the most infamous aspect of the tour occurred on the 02 December, 1972 when after scoring the winning try in a 19-16 victory over Wales at Cardiff Arms Park, Keith Murdoch turned up at the Angel Hotel on Westgate Street where, finding the kitchen closed, decided to help himself. A hotel security guard was called, who asked him to leave. What exactly happened next (i.e. who started punching first) is not clear suffice to say the security guard came off second best.

The All Black management (some say pressured by the home rugby unions) decided to send Murdock home, the only All Black ever to be sent home from a tour for disciplinary reasons.

Murdoch never made it back to New Zealand, getting off the plane in Australia and heading for the outback where he has lived ever since.

This evening we headed in to town to watch ‘Finding Murdock’ a play by Margot McRae  based on these events and  as much about Murdoch as the lengths the media will go to capture an “exclusive”.

Great entertainment for a Welsh expat (despite the dodgy Welsh accents) and providing an insight into the murky world of ‘old school’ rugby skullduggery and the happenings in Cardiff in 1972.

Having only been four years old at the time of the events, writing this blog post also brings home how exciting the old style inbound tours to the UK must have been with their four month itineraries and attritional fixture which allowed clubs (and their local ‘hard men’) to measure themselves against the best and with stories like the Llanelli victory, the BaaBaas victory and THAT try and the Murdock story emerging. What an exciting period in rugby’s rich history.