Calon (21 page)

Dan continues to tackle mercilessly, tracking each of his targets for a few seconds before pouncing at their ankles to bring them down. But the effort is starting to show. When the game breaks, Dan remains on the ground on one knee for some time, his chest and back heaving with his laboured breaths.

Wales win a penalty fifty-two metres from the French posts, three metres further than the kick Leigh missed against France in the World Cup. Removing his skullcap, Leigh places the ball on the tee once more. As he does, a rendition of ‘Hymns and Arias’ begins to swell from the stands, serenading him as he steps back to study the posts like a mystery. Dropping his eyes to the ball, his inward gaze transports him back to Gorseinon once more.

Leigh strikes the ball clean and true, sending it end over end through the posts. This time he watches its
trajectory
and, when he knows it’s good, allows himself a brief explosion of relief and pleasure, grabbing at the air and shouting in celebration. Wales 13 – France 6. Wales
are by no means clear, but they are safer than before.

Yet again Wales have to defend from the restart against waves of French attack. Scott Williams, the saviour of Twickenham, briefly comes on as a blood replacement for Jon. Gethin, Toby and Dan all make more tackles. As the pack scrums down, Ryan crouching into Sam’s position at seven, the statistics show the story of the half so far. Despite the score, it isn’t pretty reading:

Wales choose a closer game, taking route one from rucks and mauls, picking and driving, picking and driving. The crowd rouse into ‘Bread of Heaven’, their voices willing the players forward. Inch by inch they chisel at the French defence, but France still aren’t committing at the rucks, leaving their lines of blue solid on either side.

Alex eventually manages to break through, barging through two defenders in a row. But then, within minutes, the man who gave Wales their try gives France a penalty. Caught in a breakdown as the French attack, Alex is penalised for handling on the ground. Up in the box Warren and the coaches look on anxiously, expecting a French kick at goal to bring them back to within four
points of Wales. But as Alex and the rest of the Welsh team drop back for the attempt, France surprise
every-one
with a kick to Buttin sprinting down the left wing. France want seven points, not three.

Buttin, however, is stopped short of the line by Dan. The attack continues, with Gethin and then Jamie putting in hits to slow its advance. The game pauses for a scrum, and for Jon to return from the blood bin. When the scrum finally hits, France are penalised for early engagement, the rhythm of Joubert’s instructions catching them off-guard once more. After all Wales’s earlier inch-work, nudging upfield, Rhys now, with a single kick, sends the ball deep into the French half and into touch.

The teams continue to trade attacks and kicks. George rises to meet a high ball. Leigh, Toby and Jamie all make ground with runs into the French line. When France return fire, Joubert’s microphone picks up the sound of Dan’s tackle on Buttin: a crunching thud of an impact, like a punchbag filled with wood swung hard against a wall.

When the play finally halts, players are on their knees all over the pitch. Gethin falls to his back and is treated by Carcass. Jenks, Adam and Prof. John bring on water. There is just over fifteen minutes left, enough for either Wales to secure their lead or for France to come from behind and deliver a defeat.

Taking advantage of this pause in play Wales replace a fifth of their team at once, bringing on Luke Charteris,
Ken Owens and Lloyd Williams, son of Brynmor Williams, who also played scrum-half for Wales. Although Lloyd’s father never pushed him towards rugby and his old position, once he saw his son had fallen for the game he advised him to refine his passing by watching videos of Rob Jones, who’d played for Wales through the 1980s and 1990s. Lloyd followed his father’s advice and, as he takes the field today, he brings with him more than a pinch of an older method of Welsh scrum-half play, not just in his passing, but also in a style more reliant on quick service and sniping, rather than Mike’s more
physical
flanker-type play.

As Mike, Alun Wyn and Matthew touch hands with their replacements jogging onto the pitch in Cardiff, in New York the opera singer Bryn Terfel, watching in the Red Lion on Bleeker Street, gets to his feet and sings, the pub’s wooden floorboards resonating with the depth of his voice. Encouraging the crowd to join him, Bryn leads the early-morning drinkers in a rendition of ‘Bread of Heaven’, as if even from there, three thousand miles across the ocean from Cardiff, their voices might rouse the team to victory.

Back in the stadium Wales continue to try and find a way through the French defence, while also fending off the increasing pace of their attacks. In the sixty-eighth minute, after a sustained push close to their own line, Wales are finally playing in the French half again. Up in the coaches box Thumper has joined Warren, Rob
Howley and Shaun. All three, no longer able to sit and watch, are on their feet. A faster, more urgent pulse of ‘Waaales, Waaales, Waaales’ washes through the stands as Ken drives through a tackle to make ground and Jamie, the ball held close to his chest, crashes forward.

Wales’s efforts have brought the figures for the half back towards parity:

But then, with less than eight minutes of the game remaining, Wales are penalised in their own twenty-two for pulling down a scrum. France are awarded a
penalty
in front of the Welsh posts. From their own tryline Wales, looking battered and exhausted, watch Yachvili return France to within four points. Wales 13 – France 9.

Within a minute of Yachvili kicking that penalty, Wales are awarded one of their own, deep in French territory. As Alex bundled Trinh-Duc into touch, the French player deliberately threw the ball away. So now, with Joubert telling him, ‘No need to rush, but no delay either,’ Leigh once again finds himself placing the ball onto his kicking tee.

In the last pause in play Prof. John was treating Leigh for cramp. Just seconds ago he made a break through
the French line, spinning through tackles until he was downed by Dusautoir. And now here he is with
white-wash
on his face, trying to slow his heavy breathing, once more lining up a penalty in the dying minutes of a crucial game against France.

For Leigh, his teammates and the crowd, memories of that final kick in the World Cup briefly resurface. Wales, only four points in the lead, are still vulnerable. They need him to kick this penalty.

Leigh himself is still nervous. The anxieties he shared with Jenks this morning have remained with him throughout the match. The kick is close to the posts, but also from a similar angle as the one which hit the upright earlier. But Leigh has a job to do, so as another rendition of ‘Hymns and Arias’ fades away with his steps backwards, he stops, rocks himself steady, eyes the ball, the posts, the ball again, then takes himself, as ever, back to that training pitch in Gorseinon.

The TV cameras pick out a woman in the crowd. As the other spectators around her stare towards the posts, she alone has turned her back on the kick. Bowing her head and with her chin against her knitted hands, she is praying. Her lips move as, down on the pitch, Leigh begins his slow advance upon the angled ball.

The sound of his strike is deep and true, the ball’s
trajectory
clean. The linesmen’s flags are raised and, as the stadium cheers, its thousands of voices as one, Wales go into the lead by seven points. Wales 16 – France 9.

The woman praying in her seat turns back to the bowl, looks at the score and slowly stands, unclasping her hands in thanks.

Leigh, replacing his skullcap, runs back into position, as France, still only a converted try away from a draw, restart.

For the last four minutes of the match the pulsing
heartbeat
of ‘Waaales, Waaales, Waaales’ ebbs and flows but never ceases. The stadium begins to rise to its feet in anticipation as Wales kick, run and drive up towards the French line. A line-out is lost but Ryan charges through. Lloyd’s head is bandaged and Toby’s shirt is ripped at the shoulder. Rhys tries for a drop goal, but it floats wide. The coaches in the box all look on, powerless, arms folded. France are slow to take their twenty-two drop-out, but when they do, Ken secures the ball. The forwards pick and drive, pick and drive, before briefly being driven back. Wales spin it wide, then drive on again. With thirty seconds left on the clock, ‘Hymns and Arias’ swells from the stands once more:

With ten seconds left, the ball goes loose. Welsh and French players dive upon it, and with just five seconds to go Joubert blows his whistle to penalise France. Jamie
and Gethin thrust their fists above their heads. Alex, out on the wing, jumps for joy. Dan collapses to the floor, close to tears. In the box Rob Howley punches the air at hip height, as Thumper applauds between Shaun and Warren, who both keep their hands locked under folded arms. Down on the pitch Ryan points up at the fans in the stands, as Rhys makes one last kick to send the ball spinning into touch. The clock goes red, and the crowd goes wild. Wales, as the Blims and the country had hoped, have won the Grand Slam.

Immediately, the Welsh players, all smiling, look younger, the relief of their victory rejuvenating them. Unlike the Grand Slams in 2005 and 2008, this one hadn’t been about surprise, but about expectation. About coming true on a promise they’d shown and keeping a promise they’d made.

On the pitch, between their hugs with each other, the squad shake hands and pat the shoulders of the French players. Welsh flags give birth to dragons throughout the stadium, the crowd itself suddenly active, with fans jumping and applauding. Up in the stands members of that crowd reach across to shake Warren’s hand, while Gerald Davies, a winner of three Grand Slams himself and a teammate of Mervyn Davies, wipes at his welling eyes. Down below him on the pitch three more players with three Grand Slams now to their names – Adam, Gethin and Ryan – come together to be photographed.
In the 1970s it was three backs who achieved that feat. Today, perhaps as a sign of how the game has changed, it is three forwards.

The players continue to celebrate as the presentation platforms are built between them and the victory
banners
are erected. From this moment on, the rest of the day and the night will be all about celebration. Later this evening the squad will attend a black-tie dinner at the Hilton, where the efforts of this match will begin to tell upon them. Dan will struggle through the after-dinner speeches, just wanting to go home and lie down on his bed. Alex’s back will be giving him pain. Lloyd will have five stitches above his eye. Sam, still drinking Coke, will continue to cradle his arm, while for Leigh the release of those day-long nerves will prove just too much. After the meal, when the others are still drinking and making plans for where to go next, he will already be back in his hotel room, ‘exhausted and ill as hell with all those
emotions
coming down on me’.

For now, though, the team will celebrate together, here on this pitch, with champagne sprays and victory laps, with medals, interviews and Status Quo’s ‘Rocking All Over the World’ blasting from the stadium’s
speakers
. Ryan’s son, Jacob, and his father, Steve, join him, all three generations binding in a hug. Ryan cries a little, then, carrying his son around the field, points up at the stands towards his mother. Adam, seeing Ryan and Jacob, finds he needs a moment alone. He’s overwhelmed by
the win, but he’s thinking of his own daughter Isla too, and how much he’d have liked her to be here. In the middle of all the thousands of faces he finds his wife in the crowd, and they share a private look of gratitude and promise.

By now Roger Lewis and the coaching staff are down on the pitch too. Dan Baugh is hugging anyone he can find, while Warren walks steadily through the squad and the still-falling ticker tape with his son Bryn beside him. Raising his hands, he applauds the crowd and
occasionally
allows himself the slightest of smiles. Roger,
meanwhile
, in an echo of that other walk they took together five years ago in Nantes, is strolling towards the centre of the pitch with Dai Pickering. Both are smiling broadly, everything they’d hoped that first walk would bring made manifest around them.

Once the squad finally leave the pitch they take their champagne bottles, medals and trophy back into the changing room, where J.R.’s order is, once again, undone by victory. Half undressed, they pose for photographs, as Gethin puts on the winning playlist, leaving Geraint, standing outside their changing-room door, in no doubt as to the result of the match. Breaking into song, the players celebrate not only their win, but also the hard work and the friendships that led them to it, their
country
which plays and supports like a club, and the feeling it gives them when they do – of being alive, now, and of being remembered.