Barbarians vs New Zealand, 1973


Barbarians v New Zealand was a 1973 rugby union match between the Barbarians and New Zealand. It was played as part of the 1972–73 New Zealand tour of Britain, Ireland, France and North America. The game is considered to be one of the best rugby union matches ever played; it featured what has been described as "the greatest try ever", scored by Gareth Edwards. The Barbarians won the game 23–11. It was also the first time New Zealand lost to the Barbarians.

The greatest try ever scored

In the second minute of the game New Zealand winger Bryan Williams kicked the ball over the head of Phil Bennett, who ran back to pick it up near his goal line. With nearly the entire length of the field between him and the New Zealand goal line, Bennett started upfield by sidestepping and evading three tackles, in turn passing the ball to JPR Williams, who managed to offload the ball after Bryan Williams had tackled him around the neck. Still deep in the Barbarians' end of the field, the ball then passed through four pairs of Barbarian hands heading upfield before Edwards, slipping between two team-mates and seemingly intercepting the last pass, finished with a diving try in the left-hand corner, 22 seconds after Bennett picked up the ball.
Barbarians coach Carwyn James is credited with man management to stimulate Bennett to make sidestepping runs that day.

Commentary

The commentary itself is sometimes described as the greatest ever, although it very nearly didn't happen because until just 2 hours before the match Bill McLaren was due to commentate; but he was recovering from 'flu so Cliff Morgan was called in at the last minute.
Morgan commentated the try:
A moment later, at the restart, he added,

Poll standings

Often known simply as "that try", the try is frequently mentioned as the greatest ever scored or one of the greatest. In a UK poll conducted by Channel 4 in 2002, Edwards's try was voted number 20 in the list of the 100 Greatest Sporting Moments. The 40th anniversary of the try sparked renewed interest.

Other play

The Barbarians had tries nearly scored by John Bevan and then John Dawes. David Duckham showed his skills in possibly his best UK performance, before more tries were scored by Fergus Slattery and John Bevan to make the halftime score 17-0. Grant Batty scored two tries in reply before JPR Williams completed the try-scoring.

Teams

The Barbarians coach was Carwyn James, who was always noted as seeking to encourage his teams to play attacking rugby.