by Lance Mason
The hit came like a bowling ball to the face, like a round flying from a cannon. I had pulled my head from a scrum, looking for the ball, maybe a tackle, when the Welshman plowed his forehead into my nose with a sound like shattering glass.
That’s Welsh rugby, played with pride of purpose, with maximal intent. Kiwis beat you with inbred skill, Australia with speed, South Africa with power — think Gretzky, Butkus, and LeBron. In Wales, though, it’s just Butkus. All business — nasty business. They crack heads and breathe fire, like the Red Dragon on their nation’s flag. Rugby is their crucible of manhood and ancestry, and you are the invader, pillaging their wealth, women, and homeland. The studly prop-forward, in the unambiguous application of his head to my nose, delivered a message on behalf of his countrymen — You don’t belong here, mate, and here’s a little how’s-your-father as a token of our esteem.
The Welsh are a lovely people. Polite, welcoming, and lovely. In the pub. During a singsong. Over a meal and a pint of Brain’s Bitter. You’ll have heartwarming stories to tell — but not from the rugby pitch.
We’d spent the week at the Welsh National Sports Center, suffering under two national coaches, John Morgan and Leighton Williams. Incidentally, the great names in the annals of Welsh rugby are worth a mention. In a monologue of Anglo-Saxon stuttering, they overlap like Lego blocks: Gerald Davies, Carwyn Davies, Carwyn James, Boyo James, Jamie Roberts, Gareth Roberts, Gareth Edwards, Arthur Edwards, Arthur Lewis, Lewis Morgan, Haydn Morgan, Haydn Evans, Ieuan Evans, Denis Evans, Denzil Thomas, Denzil Williams, Shane Williams, Lloyd Williams, Llewellyn Lloyd, Barry Llewellyn, Barry John, John Rees, Clive Rees, Rhys Webb, and Too Many Joneses to Count. Poetic ones also appear: Windsor Major, Aneurin Rees, Bathurst Mann, Ralph Sweet-Escott, Viv Huzzey, and Anthony Wyndham Jones (Wyndham — remember that).
In cryptic contrast to these are Welsh place-names — Aberystwyth, Abergavenny, Merthyr Tydfil, Mynydd Llanllwni, Llanelli, Llanybydder, and, everyone’s favorite, Llanfairpwllgwyngyll — pronounced with your tongue tied by leather shoelace to a passing taxi.
Nomenclature aside, we received selfless, passionate instruction under John and Leighton. They had every reason to be proud rugby men, for this was 1974, the Golden Age of Welsh rugby. The British Lions, a combined team from Scotland, Ireland, England, and Wales, had just completed a 30-match undefeated tour of South Africa, and the Welshmen, in a field of stars, had been phosphorescent. Pride sparkled across Wales’s landscape like the aurora borealis.
Our training, however, was purgatorial — up at 7 a.m., a light breakfast, then two hours of scrum, lineout, and passing drills before morning tea of thin sandwiches with, yes, tea or “orange squash”, Tang’s British cousin. An hour and a half of sled work, tackling, and wind sprints followed, then lunch, a rest, and two more hours of wrestle-and-sprint drills, footwork, play execution, and position technique. By dinnertime, you’d earned every calorie they could throw at you.
The first night, a Monday, four of us returned to our room ragged as jailhouse mops. A forlorn voice moaned, “I need a beer.” Right — we were off to the main gate, where taxis awaited the willing.
“Take us to a bar,” Steve said.
“A pub,” I corrected, feeling superior. Steve, who had only been out of LA to visit Tijuana titty bars, would become one of the great scrumhalves in America, but we like to think he got his start that night.
Before we knew it, we were at the Wyndham Hotel. “Here you go, chaps,” said the driver. “As good as any.”
How little we knew, but were about to find out, as into the Wyndham we strode. To the uninitiated: your public bar, the unrefined in drinking etiquette, is the scene of all good brawls in British movies. Your lounge bar, while a cut above, but not pretentious, is a place to impress (i.e. loosen up) a date before going out on the town. Some premises retain a saloon bar, for spruced-up couples having pre-prandial refreshments, or just keeping clear of the Great Unwashed in “the pub.” This pedantry requires years of studious drinking.
How we avoided the Wyndham public bar remains a happy mystery. Even in the lounge bar, though, in foreign clothes and haircuts, we were the center of edgy attention, as if bearing the Mark of Cain. Beatty, Dan, and I dropped our heads. Two dentists and a doctor, we weren’t looking for trouble. Steve, though, was a lad from the streets, tough as a buck rat. He stared around the room, assaying any challenges, but we got him seated with a round of beers. Barely into them, we realized that two of Steve’s visual targets had joined us. We glanced up warily.
Steve was not big, maybe five-eight, but when you tackled him, he seemed built of rusty cannonballs. Though we were far from his home territory, he radiated danger. To read more…
Lance Mason was born and raised Oxnard, California, and worked in gas stations, lemon orchards, lima bean plants, a fiberglass shop, hotdog stands, and splicing cable for GTE, where his mother was a union steward. He studied at UCSB, Loyola University, and UCLA for his graduate degree. He has taught at UCLA, the National University in Natal, Brazil, and Otago University in New Zealand. His short pieces have appeared in Upstreet, City Works, The Santa Barbara Independent, Askew, The Packinghouse Review, Newborders, Solo Novo, Sea Spray, Traveler’s Tales, Negative Capability, and several professional journals. Mason has spent 20 years traveling, living, and working overseas, including several round-the-world trips by foot, bicycle, motorcycle, kayak, helicopter, tramp steamer, catamaran, plane, train, and dugout canoe. In 2007, he directed his team to an age-group record in the RAAM coast-to-coast cycling race. He has also performed in a number of live theater productions.