I have always known that Carwyn James was the greatest rugby coach ever (his Lions’ tours were both successful and his Welsh club Llanelli beat a touring All Blacks side). I also knew that not everybody liked him – he was never coach to the Welsh national team because the men at HQ didn’t like the cut of his jib, look you!

Life never ceases to amaze. Three weeks ago the Barbarians played the All Blacks. In the Daily Telegraph Brendan Gallagher and Will Greenwood both reminisced about the 1973 game and “that try” and both described Carwyn James joking with Phil Bennett and suggesting that he wouldn’t dare to use his amazing sidestep in a game of such importance. You will remembe how “that try” began with a Bennett sidestep of such virtuosity that four All Blacks collided with each other (poetic licence on my part, but you get the picture).

Now I have been passionate about Rugby Union for 40 years and an admirer of Carwyn for most of that time, but I had no idea that he was involved with that Barbarians team. So I got onto the internet and found a wonderful article by Chris Hewett in the Independent, written in 2004.

In a nutshell, John Dawes, captain of the Barbarians in 1973, wanted Carwyn to coach the side, which bristled with heroes of his Lions side of  ’71. The Barbarian management weren’t keen (was this a conspiracy of the smallminded?) and Carwyn didn’t appear at either of the two training sessions.

On the morning of the match the persistent Dawes invited Carwyn up to his hotel room, where the whole team was waiting. He spoke to them for twenty minutes. I would love to get hold of every word, but the only snippet available to me is the bit about Bennett’s sidestep.

In my opinion, that game, and in particular “that try”, owed little to the Barbarians and everything to Carwyn James, and he should be given the credit for it.

Is that worth bothering about, after all this time and Carwyn long departed? Interestingly enough, it is. For the last six or seven years international Rugby Union has become tired and pedestrian and boring, which is largely a matter of coaching. So now is the time when the game most desperately needs to be reminded that there once was a giant of a coach, who raised the game to a level never reached before or since; a coach, moreover, whose life and works are well-documented and can provide  immense rewards to anyone who takes the trouble to do the homework.

I hope that crediting “that try” to the man who begot it will encourage today’s coaches to return to a position of attentive humility at the feet of the one true master.