You could only sympathise with poor John Rawlins after his experience as a tour call-up for the first Rugby World Cup.
Whisked to Australia at short notice — “just find your passport, grab a toothbrush and head for the airport, Mr Rawlins: there’s a taxi waiting for you outside” — the prop barely had time to take on board his first ‘G’day’ when disaster struck.
“Never in the history of modern sport can anyone have flown so far for so little,” wrote Ieuan Evans in his autobiography, Bread of Heaven. “After a 32-hour flight from London, John stepped off the plane in Brisbane where we were preparing to play England in the quarter-final. He went straight to the training ground, changed, and, after two minutes, he had torn a hamstring.”
