Half a century on and Delme Thomas has just bumped into a man on the street claiming ‘I was there’.
“The number of people who say that to me,” laughs the captain of the Llanelli team which beat the All Blacks in perhaps rugby’s greatest upset. “I don’t believe half of them. If they had all been there we'd have had 100,000 at Stradey.”
Monday marks the 50th anniversary of a 9-3 win celebrated so hard and for so long that, famously, the pubs in the Carmarthenshire town ran dry.
Even now, barely a day goes by without somebody wanting to talk giant killing.
Rugby has known upsets in its time: Western Samoa beating Wales (1991), Japan shocking South Africa (2015), Munster stunning the All Blacks (1978) to name three.
But in 50 years only one club side has beaten the mighty Men in Black.
“I played for Wales for eight years, went on three Lions tours,” said Thomas, who turned 80 last month. “But that day at Stradey.. that was the highlight.”
Gareth Jenkins remembers it well, and not just because he had his nose broken when knocked out cold by lawless Kiwi prop Keith Murdoch.
“There was something in the air that day, most definitely,” said the steel-working flanker. “It wasn’t just 15 players, but the whole town that beat the All Blacks.
“Llanelli was an industrial town, full of steel works and mines. The rugby club itself was the heartbeat, the pride felt in the town was for the team.
“They were very different times. We weren’t gym boys, we were working men. We would play 55 games a year. The club had no commercial department. Volunteers would put fixture lists up in the pubs.”
Halloween in 1972 dawned with oily black skies over West Wales. The players arrived early at Stradey and headed on, with inspirational coach Carwyn James, to prepare at a hotel in Burry Port.
“You’ve got to think you can win,” Thomas told them. “Put it in your minds; get your heads in the right place that you are going to win.”
Heading back along roads lined with Scarlets fans, fly-half legend Phil Bennett was struck by the look on faces staring back at him.
“There was almost an eerie frightening silence about the way they were looking at us,” he recalled, prior to his death in June. “I just thought, god, they think we’re going to win today.”
Inside the ground they were met by what Jenkins remembers as a “cathedral of noise - we couldn’t believe what we were seeing.”
Neither could the All Blacks when Bennett struck the crossbar with a penalty attempt in only the third minute and the attempted clearance was charged down for a try by Roy Bergiers.
It was a lead Llanelli would not relinquish despite an All Blacks side, which featured Ian Kirkpatrick, Andy Haden and Bryan Williams, cutting up rough.
Jenkins ended the day with two black eyes - but laughing all the way to the bank.
After the game a stranger had tapped him on the shoulder, told him the way to heal black eyes was to put steaks on them, and stuffed a £20 note into his shirt pocket.
Jenkins was earning £29 a week at the time.
The future coach of Wales looked at the money, binned the thought of steaks, and instead took the rest of the week off.
He was not alone.
