‘Ringer’s match’ still a byword for violence, 40 years later

London — Rugby internationals between England and Wales are often passionate and fiercely contested.

But Saturday’s Six Nations match between the old rivals at Twickenham will have to go some way to match the excess of emotion that marred their 1980 encounter at “headquarters” and ensured lasting infamy for Paul Ringer after the Wales back-row was sent off.

Wales was the dominant force in the then Five Nations in the 1970s, a largely miserable decade for England. As the 1980s dawned, there was a generation of English forwards determined to avoid fresh humiliation while Welsh resentment at their treatment by Margaret Thatcher's government spilled onto the rugby pitch.

“The atmosphere was evil,” Eddie Butler, Wales’ No 8 at Twickenham that day, told the Mail on Sunday. “There was the Welsh steelworkers’ strike which made it more of a social crusade than a game.”

Both sides had won their opening fixtures, and from the start there were incidents of stamping, which in the modern professional era of television match officials would doubtless have led immediately to red cards.

David Burnett, who would recall the game as the “dirtiest match I ever refereed”, warned England captain Bill Beaumont and Wales skipper Jeff Squire that the next act of foul play would see a player sent off.

And so, with just 13 minutes played, Ringer became the second Welsh player on record to be ordered from the field after bowling over John Horton as the England flyhalf cleared from his 22.

It was a relatively innocuous clash by the standards of what had gone before, but Irish referee Burnett was as good as his word.

“I was going like a bat out of hell and attempting to charge down the ball,” Ringer told the Western Mail in 2019. “I had my hands up, but he [Horton] was too quick for me. I could not stop.

“It was nothing — he did not even go down. But there had been a warning and, I suppose, someone had to be sent off.

“It was [England’s] Peter Wheeler who got me sent off. He came over [after the incident] and said: ‘Ref, there’s going to be a bloodbath here if you don’t sort him out!’ That made up his mind for him.”

Wales still scored two tries to none, yet lost 9-8, with England fullback Dusty Hare kicking three penalties, the last one in stoppage-time.

It was a win that formed part of a Grand Slam for Beaumont’s men, England’s first Championship clean sweep since 1957.

The next day an international disciplinary committee banned Ringer for eight weeks, and he played only one more game for Wales.

Meanwhile, Butler reckoned the incident led to Wales losing a vital edge at the beginning of a decade far removed from their glory days of the 1970s.

“It was like we were being told to get back on the horse, but they’d taken away our spurs,” he said.

AFP