There was a buzz in the Cardiff air on Saturday 3 February 1968. Elsewhere in Britain the slump in the polls of Harold Wilson’s Labour party after a disastrous devaluation of the pound occupied minds. But in the pubs and rugby club bars from Aberavon to Ynysybwl the fevered talk was all about a certain young Welshman: Gareth Edwards, elevated to national captain at the age of 20. Scotland, the visitors to the Welsh capital that day, had better brace themselves for the coming storm.
Fast forward 56 years and the echoes of that giddy moment are as plain as the red dragon emblazoned on a bottle of Brains beer. A Labour government may be on the way in this time and step forward Dafydd Jenkins, a raw 21-year-old lock, freshly minted as national captain by the Wales coach, Warren Gatland, for the Six Nations. And who should come calling first? Scotland, of course. The fans may still be singing Tom Jones’s Green, Green Grass of Home: “Yes, they’ll all come to meet you.”
