If You Could Watch Any Game of Rugby live, What Would it Be?

Imagine you could step into a time-machine and travel back to a day that quickened your pulse, drained your nerves, kept you roaring and leaping into the air, and made rugby history. What day would that be? What is the greatest game of all time?

I don’t watch a lot of live rugby anymore. The experience isn’t what it used to be, as technology has made it easier and more appealing to watch matches from the comfort of our homes.

There is something special about the live experience, though, and when you think about being in the stands and seeing classic encounters unfold, you can’t help but ask yourself:

If you could travel back in time to watch any rugby match live, which one would it be?

Ask any genuine rugby fan this question, and you will most likely be met with a sigh, a ponderous look, and a fair amount of hesitation. Nobody can really give a straight answer here, as there have been so many great clashes in the past.

From a South African perspective, that 1995 World Cup between South Africa and New Zealand at Ellis Park will be a popular answer. From the Boeing flyover to the raising of the trophy, I don’t think it would have been possible to maintain a resting heartbeat on that day.

If you were a New Zealander, a match like the Bledisloe Cup match in Sydney in 2000, in front of 110 000 people may come to mind. That match started at a million miles an hour with the All Blacks 21-0 up after 5 minutes.

Miraculously the Aussies came back and led by a point going into injury time at the end of the game, only for the late Jonah Lomu to score in the corner and win it for the All Blacks.

Then there was that epic World Cup final between Australia and England, a battle so great that it took a Jonny Wilkinson drop goal after the 2^nd period of extra time to give England their finest ever rugby moment.

All great matches, all worth getting into the time machine for, but there is a game that for me trumps them all, and it took place way back in the 1970s.

No, it is not the legendary 1974 British Lions playing in South Africa, close, but the match I would want to experience was the Barbarians vs New Zealand, 1973, in Cardiff.

Yes, it was the game that to this day probably produced the greatest try ever. The game was so much more than just one try of course. It was the Barbarians at their very best, and on the day the All Blacks were simply playing for second place.

How about that Haka! To have been in that stadium that day would have been to witness something special. The Barbarians nowadays are a bit of a non event made up of players near retirement, or on the fringes of international teams. Back in the day though, the teams were a lot stronger and more entertaining.

The 1970s was a golden time for British rugby. The 1971 British Lions had beaten New Zealand in a colossal series, and the Barbarians team on this day was essentially the same group of guys.

So no exhibition end-of-tour match, this really meant something, and in front of a packed Cardiff crowd Gareth Edwards got the game off to an incredible start with ‘that try’. They never stopped running it all day from there, and the crowd never stopped cheering.

It was a day when rugby could lay claim to being the ‘beautiful game’ and nobody would have argued.

Nowadays international rugby is so ultra structured and risk averse, that we often forget such a match was even possible. It looks wild and loose, but it is just so timelessly entertaining. If I had the choice, I would go back in time for that match, 10 times out of 10.