Many rugby supporters west of the River Severn would probably choose two moments if asked to recall their favourite Hadleigh Parkes deeds in a Wales jersey.
One might be the try he scored to set in motion the 25-7 win over Ireland that clinched a Six Nations Grand Slam in 2019. The other could be the tackle on Jacob Stockdale minutes later that saw the then Scarlet surge back and haul down the pacey Ireland wing — who’d been timed at 9.97 metres per second not long before —in full-flight. It was early in the game, but the hit saved a try that might have altered the game’s momentum.
Had Parkes not donned his superhero cape in that moment, the thinking is Wales’ then defence chief Shaun Edwards would not have been a happy man. “I was thinking, ‘Jess, Shaun’s probably about to jump out of his box and rip our heads off’,” Jonathan Davies is quoted as saying in Behind the Dragons: Playing Rugby for Wales. “I was convinced he [Stockdale] was going to score — and then Parksey jumped out of nowhere, like Roadrunner or something.”
