Turning Points

From what I remember of sporting events in the mid-'90s, they were all pretty poor. Perhaps my judgement was clouded by the usual teenage angst, but I just don't feel there was anything to compare with the drama of, say, the great Lewis vs Powell World Championships in 1991 or, eleven years on, Brazil's 'pentacampeão' romp to the football world title.

Baggio's penalty miss in '94 was fairly dramatic, but it did come at the end of a mind-bogglingly dull 120-minute slog through the Pasadena heat. Gazza's goal at Euro '96 was sublime, and England beating the Netherlands 4-1 was special, but the rest of that tournament -- at least from the point of view of a 12-year-old England fan -- was forgettable enough.

One sporting occasion that does stand out from this rather fallow period, however, is the '95 Rugby World Cup. The political significance of this -- the recent emergence from apartheid, South Africa returning to the international sporting fold, Nelsen Mandela and Francois Pienaar -- has been covered in the recent film Invictus; suffice to say, then, this was an event the ramifications of which went far beyond the white lines.

Positioned halfway through the decade, and at the beginning of a new chapter in both international political and sporting relations with South Africa, this was a whole tournament of turning points.

This is not what I want to write about, however -- Matt Damon & co. have already covered all that. My turning point -- for English rugby, which spiralled into an 8-period of underachievement known as the 'we were waiting for JW's left foot' years; for international rugby itself; for a 6'5", 20 stone 20 year-old, who could have quite easily based a career on this one match, had he achieved nothing else -- came in the semi-final between England and New Zealand.

As I remember it, it was the first kick-off of the match; internet records inform me my memory is playing tricks.

Before I go any further, though, I should provide a little background for those of you unfamiliar with the niceties of the rugby union restart, or those of you who started watching the sport later, when what happened would have been nothing out of the ordinary.

When a game is (re-)started in full-XV rugby union (not Sevens, but that's another thing entirely), the fly half (or first five-eighth) kicks the ball diagonally forwards, the idea being to return it to the opposition team, but also to hang the ball up in the air long enough to give members of your team the time to run and put pressure on the catcher.

Rugby union was, for years, a rather genteel sport. When, in the late nineteenth century, a group of players at northern clubs thought to make polite enquiries as to the possibility of supplementing their meagre everyday incomes with money from the games they played in at the weekends, the southern clubs -- staffed in the main by rather-more-well-off types, who could afford to not receive remuneration for their rugby -- insisted that the Rugby Football Union was to remain amateur.

While Rugby League has been professional ever since -- and has indeed evolved almost into a separate sport -- Rugby Union spent much of the twentieth century an amateur endeavour. Which rather suited it.

Rugby Union is full of rules and regulations regarding 'set pieces' that essentially involve creating an elaborate ballet on the field of play. Where association football has one man throwing the ball in after it goes out of play, in union they involve up to 16 players in a cross between a morris dance, a synchronised swimming display, and a wrestling match. League have a perfunctory scrum that sees three players from each team linking arms, and waiting for the scrum-half to recycle the ball; in union the scrum has the sense of a ritual that must be performed in a certain way. When Gareth Edwards, say (like a Welsh Ben Youngs from the '70s, for younger readers), clipped the ball over the top and raced down the blindside, rather than passing it out across the field, you could hear The Guardians of the Game struggling to prevent their appreciation of his genius being tainted by a strong 'that's just not cricket' disapproval.

The hanging kick at the re-start is one of these performances -- 'things which must be done in a certain way before we can start playing the game'. The fly-half's kick is directed towards the opposition's heavier, slower forwards, who are in turn faced by the kicking team's forwards. The opposing catcher would either collect the ball and take it into contact or pass it straight to his own backs, or he would spill it (either under pressure or not). The game didn't really get going, in other words, until this 'kick to the forwards' had been got out of the way.

What, though, if this wasn't something that had to be done? Why not start playing the game much earlier?

20 minutes into the first half, Andrew Mehrtens -- the Kiwi #10 -- stepped up to take the re-start after a Rob Andrew penalty. The England forwards were lined up to the right of the right-footed Mehrtens, facing their All Black counterparts, and braced to receive the ball.

Mehrtens kicked left.

This had two repercussions: the England backs were completely unprepared for this, and so the advancing All Black backs reached the ball before they did; and the player who caught the ball -- the 20-year-old left winger making only his 5th appearance for the team -- had the bulk to brush aside the confused England defenders while they were still trying to work out which sport they were meant to be playing.

This wasn't what was meant to happen! They'd cheated!! By being fast, and quick-thinking, and powerful, and....generally better than England.

1995 is the year that Rugby Union turned professional, and I like to connect this with that moment, in which Jonah Lomu walked over poor little (as he looked) Tony Underwood. Gone was a time in which re-starts went in an expected direction, and wingers were the weedy members of the XV: in came the professional era, and daily training, and nutrition programmes, and back lines with an average weight north of 15 stone.

Perhaps my memory of the event is significant in its faultiness: it felt like the beginning of the match; New Zealand's dominance throughout deserved a first-minute try. It was a defining moment. English rugby was not going to be the same again; Tony Underwood certainly wasn't.

What's your sporting turning point? Leave a comment below, and we can continue the nostalgia-fest.