It was a grim old day for Welsh rugby last Saturday, but there was one club where there was plenty of cheer to be found.
Up at Talywain RFC, there was huge pride to be drawn from the performance of one of their own - Taine Basham.
There was even greater delight when the Wales flanker capped his outstanding display against Ireland with a try five minutes from time - and with good reason.
“The club had a deal on where it was half-price Jagerbombs if Taine scored,” reveals first-team coach Darren Davies.
“So that try went down very well!”
Basham is the shining light amid the gloom right now, the player both Mike Phillips and Adam Jones have recently labelled the "rock star" of this Wales side.
Talywain RFC, some three miles north of Pontypool, is where Basham played his rugby from U7s through to Youth level.
Davies was there every step of the way, coaching the team along with Taine’s father Dai, a former hooker with Cross Keys and Pontypool.
“I coached his year group all the way through,” he explains.
“My boy played alongside him.
“Taine’s father came on aboard after about a year and we ran the team together.”
So, were there immediate signs that they had a special talent on their hands?
“People ask me this all the time now,” replies Davies.
“The say ‘Did you think he was a future international from early doors?’
“That’s such a big call to make.
“Looking back, we had about three or four players in our side that were at a very high level from the rest.
“You couldn’t really pick between them. One or two have gone to Pontypool, one has gone to Ebbw Vale. There are very close margins in making it, I think.
“But whenever the big games came up, Taine did sort of step up that extra bit more than anybody else, I would say.
“He just loved rugby from an early age, every session, every game and you can see that in the way he plays now.
“After a match on a Sunday, we would go in and have sausage and chips or whatever.
“As soon as he’d eaten, he’d be the first one straight back out, having another game of rugby with the boys.
“His joy for rugby was there in the way he played and the way he came training. He never missed.
“Sometimes when players got to the Dragons at U12s, 14s or 16, they will say maybe it’s best if you don’t play on Sunday.
“But Taine would be ‘Can I play? Can I play?’
“He always wanted to play.
“He was a joy to coach, to be honest.”
The question was where to play him.
“Centre and back row were his two positions,” reveals Davies.
“His hands have always been very, very good and he’s always had very fast feet.
“In the end, I think he needed to be involved as much as he possibly could, so we put him in the back row eventually.
“We always had him at No 8, if truth be told, more than 7.
“He was so quick off the back of scrums and his feet were amazing.
“He was always a very talented boy.”
What also became increasingly apparent was Basham’s competitive streak, whatever the opposition.
“We were a very dominant side around our valley, so we used to travel,” explains Davies.
“We would go up to Gloucester and Droitwich, just to challenge the boys at another level.
“There is no good winning all the time, so I would look out for the better teams.
“We would go up there and Taine would really step up to the challenge and it was great for his development.
“The bigger the game, the bigger the performance out of him.
“You just knew he would rise. Whereas some people can sort of go into their shell, he never suffered from that.
“He would just puff his chest out and on he goes like.
“He isn’t the biggest and people have wondered if he’s going to get knocked off, but it has never been the case.
“He has always had to prove that point because he’s not the biggest.”
Basham’s final season with Talywain came in his first year of youth rugby.
“That was lovely then because him and his elder brother, Luke, linked up,” recalls Davies.
“They won the district cup together on Pontypool Park, which was nice for them.
“Luke plays in the centre now for the Talywain senior team, which I coach. He’s a talented player too, you can see it’s in the genes.”
After being taken on by the Dragons Academy, former Abersychan Comprehensive pupil Basham was farmed out to play Premiership rugby for the likes of Cross Keys, Ebbw Vale and Bedwas.
“Me and his father would go over and watch,” says Davies.
“He was 17 years of age and he was playing against these older men, but he just always seemed to stand out.”
Representative honours followed first with Wales U18s and then U20s, which is where he really started to catch the eye.
“We would go and watch him and every game he had he just seemed to step up a level again,” said Davies.
“Sometimes you would think, is it rose-tinted glasses that he’s standing out so much because you know him so well?
“But obviously it’s not. He is producing the goods, isn’t he?”
Despite his new-found fame after his heroics with Wales this season, it’s clear the 22-year-old Basham hasn’t forgotten his roots.
“He’s still heavily involved with the club,” says Davies.
“He will come to training with the boys and either watch or get involved in the gym.
“It lifts everybody round the club when they see it.
“He’s just a normal kid and takes everything in his stride.
“After the New Zealand game in October, he was back home because they were allowed out of camp for the day.
“I phoned his dad to see how he was, having played the All Blacks.
“I said ‘Where is he?’ His dad replied ‘Oh, he’s up in his bedroom playing his X-Box’
“I don’t know what I expected him to be doing, but I didn’t expect that.
“Taine is just so humble with it all.
“It couldn’t have happened to a nicer person or a nicer family or to someone more deserving.”
It’s a family with strong sporting roots, with Taine’s great, great grandfather Johnny Basham having been a Welsh boxing legend.
Dubbed the Happy Wanderer, Newport-born Basham - one of 17 siblings - became British and European champion at both welter and middleweight during a professional career from 1909 to 1929.
In more recent generations, rugby has been the focus, with Taine’s dad David (Dai) having played at hooker for Abersychan, Garndiffaith and Talywain, as well as Cross Keys and Pontypool.
Taine, who took his very first rugby steps with Abersychan RFC, has spoken about how his father has always been there for him as he has progressed, coaching him at Talywain, supporting him and setting high standards.
Dai is a plasterer by profession and his son worked with him for a couple of years as a teenager, getting his diplomas in the trade, just in case the rugby didn’t work out, but there were to be no worries on that front as he went from strength to strength with the Dragons.
Taine still lives with his parents in the family home in Pentwyn, less than a mile from Talywain, with his auntie just two doors down.
“If we want to communicate, we just chat over the garden fence,” he told RugbyPass.
“It’s a proper tight-knit Welsh valleys community.
“We’re lucky up here. You’ve always got ‘leccies’ or plumbers to help out.”
Then, of course, there’s the local rugby club.
“That is the community here,” Basham told the Daily Mail last month.
“Pool nights, darts nights, curry nights. Water runs down the mountain and the pitch turns into a mud bath.
“There are lots of good players who missed out on academies as teenagers. “Usually they end up in construction jobs and let off some steam at the weekend. Diamonds in the rough. People love it.
“It’s tribal down here whenever Talywain play Garndiffaith, the local derby. Scrapping and all sorts.”
He added: “Every kid that plays here dreams of playing for Wales.
“I remember going down my dad’s local, the Bat and Ball, when I was a kid to watch the Six Nations on TV.
“That smell of beer, chips and currywurst. Me and my mates would be in the back room causing havoc but when Shane Williams scored against Scotland we were all there thinking, ‘Wow, that’s amazing’.
“If I wasn’t a rugby player, I would’ve been a plasterer with my old man. Mum’s a hairdresser and there was no chance of me doing that!
“I was desperate to play for Wales. I wouldn’t jump on the horses with my cousins because I didn’t want to fall off and miss out on rugby.”
Now it’s Basham that the locals are watching, with the Dragons’ openside having been Wales’ player of the season so far.
“There is always a big turnout at the rugby club when Wales are playing, but with Taine involved it has gone to another level obviously,” said Davies.
“We are all watching him, to be honest. Wales are sort of secondary to him at the minute with us up at Talywain.
“It’s a very close knit community and it’s great to see one of your own doing so well.
“It was great that it happened for him when he scored that try at the weekend.
“You could see he had put so much into that game.
“Just previous to that, he’d made the tackle and was back on his feet and he read that play lovely, picking off that offload from the Irish boy.
“Like I say, the bigger the game, he always just seems to puff his chest out and get on with it.”
It really was a tremendous all-round display from Basham on his Six Nations debut, as he emerged as Wales’ top tackler (22) and top carrier (15).
“That is what is expected of me,” he said afterwards.
“Chucking my body about is what I have to do for the team, so I can be happy with that.
“It is all about mindset for me. Every time you get an opportunity in this shirt, just play your own game and make your own stamp on it.”
Basham is certainly making his mark and a packed Talywain clubhouse will be backing him do the same again versus Scotland on Saturday.
You never know, there might even be some more cut-price Jagerbombs!
To get the latest rugby news and analysis delivered straight to your inbox, you can sign up for our Welsh rugby newsletter.
