It was a big birthday for one of Welsh rugby’s greats, but it passed without media fanfare.
Terry Holmes wouldn’t have minded. He never was one for a fuss, particularly over himself. But that shouldn’t be cause for others not to salute the iconic figure who turned 65 in March.
How good was he? Worth hitchhiking up to Pontypridd in heavy rain to see him play for Cardiff in a Welsh Cup tie back in the day. That’s what a teenager and his mate did. The weather was dismal but the game wasn’t live on TV — of course it wasn’t — so anyone interested in watching had to make the effort to be there.
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Holmes scored a try but Cardiff lost on a mudheap of a pitch. It was worth the effort to attend, though, to see him play at close quarters for the first time. A belated thanks to the mayor’s chauffeur who unexpectedly provided us with our carriage all those years ago. Rarely can two hitchhikers have travelled in such style.
Holmes was always worth seeing. His greatness had been apparent from the moment he broke into the Wales set-up as a 21-year-old in 1978. A few months earlier he had been the number three scrum-half at Cardiff behind Gareth Edwards and Brynmor Williams (read how Williams beat the All Blacks and got punched in the face for it here). The assumption had been that Williams would claim top-dog status after Edwards retired.
He had been an outstanding player himself, after all, dynamic in everything he did and considered by many to be the best number nine in Britain behind Edwards. But Holmes came to the fore on tour in Australia that summer to the point where he usurped Williams, who was to play just two more games for his country.
There unfolded a seven-year reign as Wales scrum-half for Holmes before he left for rugby league. He may not have had Edwards’ kicking game — it was a borderline impossible task to better him — but at 6ft 1in and 13st 3lb Holmes brought his own qualities to the position. He was bigger than some back-row forwards, for a start, and boasted immense strength, developed in his day job as a working director for a scrap-metal firm. Season 1978-79 brought him 24 tries for Cardiff, a remarkable individual tally.
But what truly marked him out wasn’t just his unerring ability to score from short range, sometimes taking half his opponents’ eight over the line with him. No, what marked him out was how he performed behind beaten packs. Wales’ forward play regressed during Holmes’ time, and often the ball sent back ranged from poor to rubbish.
But Holmes dealt with it. Quite how many times he was Wales’ best player over his 25 Tests isn’t clear, but there wouldn’t have been many games when he wasn’t in the frame for seren-y-gem status.
Naming him in a world XV of players he had played with or against, Paul Thorburn paid him a notable tribute in the full-back’s autobiography, Kicked Into Touch. He first listed some of the exceptional nines he had encountered, before saying: “I have not included them because my man could, and had to, carry a team.
"I am not alone in thinking Terry Holmes to be the best scrum-half produced in Wales. Before anyone mentions Gareth Edwards, I will be the first to express my admiration for Gareth, who was a great player with fantastic skills.”
He went on to say Edwards had benefited from playing behind a "more than reasonable pack", though. “If the possession wasn’t good, he too could look mortal. Though Terry Holmes wasn’t given such a cushion, he could, with his immense strength and determination, turn bad possession into attacking platforms. He went looking for trouble, and he was trouble for any back row. His presence was an inspiration. He carried the Welsh team during his injury-plagued career. To me he was the world’s best.”
Writing about Holmes is incomplete without mention of his half-back partner with club and country, Gareth Davies. The pair dovetailed perfectly. “He did the kicking and I did the tackling,” Holmes once joked. Whatever the mix of skills, it worked. You can read more about what Holmes is doing these days here.
A piece on the scrum-half also needs to reference his injuries, two of which ruined his Lions tours in 1980 and 1983 and wrecked his time in rugby league.
Years after he finished in the game, after returning to coach Cardiff, there was occasion to ring him for his views on some issue of the day or other. He could not have been more helpful. Criticism of modern-day players was always constructive and he was generous with praise. There was modesty about himself, too, a trait which comes through in a quote published in Ross Harries’ book Behind the Dragon.
“I never felt any pressure to live up to Gareth Edwards, because he’s the best scrum-half that’s ever played the game," he said. "I did my own thing. As much as I’d have loved to have been as good as him, it was never going to happen.”
But Holmes made a pretty good fist of succeeding Edwards. So Cardiff the Churchill Way-born Holmes might bleed blue and black blood if cut open — no player could have been more a product of the city, noted Trevor Herbert in More Heart and Soul: The Character of Welsh Rugby — his status as one of the club’s all-time greatest players isn’t in doubt. He even got married on an Easter Monday so he could play for the Arms Park team against the Barbarians two days before. Nor is his standing as an all-time Welsh icon up for debate. A belated happy birthday, then. Terry Holmes deserves it.
