It’s been labelled the most explosive 13 minutes in rugby history, the day an England versus Wales clash threatened to erupt into a ‘bloodbath’. The day Welsh flanker Paul Ringer was infamously sent off at Twickenham.
February 16, 1980. Wales had won 17 and drawn four of the previous 25 games in the greatest period of dominance in the history of the fixture. England were fed-up of being losers.
Both teams had won their opening fixtures and Wales travelled to Twickenham hoping to kick-off an assault on an unprecedented fifth successive Triple Crown. What happened over the following 80 minutes rocked the world of rugby and grabbed the sporting headlines for all the wrong reasons.
