West Country wit perfectly suited the times

Keith Duggantalks to John Pullin, the quintessential son of the soil who captained England when they dared to visit Lansdowne Road in 1973

John Pullin never much pondered the complexities of Irish life before his most famous appearance at Lansdowne Road and never dwelt on it too much afterwards. Perhaps in the back of his mind he admitted there was an undeniable symbolism attached to his running on to the old field on that overcast, expectant Saturday in Dublin wearing the starched white shirt with its emotive red rose emblem.

And although he must have seen the faces and heard the warm, sustained Irish ovation thundering around the ground, some innate sense of Gloucester reserve blocked it out. The taciturn farmer turned a blind eye, the stubborn athlete in John Pullin willed himself deaf.

Of the 42 times he played for England, what he remembers most of that windblown February afternoon of lasting English gallantry is of being uneasy and - more keenly - of losing.

"It was still Ireland against England," he points out with a chuckle some 34 years on. "They weren't going to hand us a present. Once the whistle went, it was a typical Dublin game. It was scrappy and it was hard. Ken Kennedy was the other hooker and he was a tough so-and-so, a bit like me - always up to tricks. So I knew I was going to have my hands full.

"But I do remember enjoying the security of the scrum that day. You might have been getting your head boxed, but at least you were hidden! I hated standing still, especially at the lineout. Because, I suppose, it meant you were an easier target. At some level, that preyed on our minds. Our boys were nervous, no doubt.

"I always remember Alan Morley, who played with Bristol, dropping a couple of passes that day. And I had never, ever seen Morley drop a ball. It was that sort of atmosphere and Ireland beat us well. Then, it was over."

The old number two cradles a pint of shandy in his massive hands as he delivers his summary. Pullin had appeared precisely on time in The Boar's Head, an authentic tavern that has been serving ale to the villagers of Aust for over 300 years.

"Doubt you'll have much trouble finding it," he had advised down the telephone from Changeways, the farm he ran in tandem with his shining rugby years. "There's only one pub in the village."

The many decades of outdoor work have kept him fresh and youthful and, at 67, Pullin has maintained the prodigiously strong frame which, allied to his technical perfectionism, gave him the weaponry to become the great hooker of his era. Aust is just up the road from Bristol but it is self-contained and absurdly peaceful and defined by its location at the edge of the mighty river Severn.

Sitting in The Boar's Head, Ireland felt like a much greater distance than a short flight across the sea. Listening to Pullin as he munches on baked Camembert while talking engagingly about his previous life as the moral force on a glamorous if under-achieving England team, it is impossible not to be struck by the sheer strangeness of the situation in which he found himself in 1973.

This was, after all, a farming man with little patience for the etiquette and the essential silliness of the England rugby hierarchy. He came to captain England in spite, rather than because, of his unfashionable, rural background, and at the time of the controversial Dublin fixture he was bluntly informed of the RFU position on the matter.

"The thing was, the English selectors did put a gun to my head: 'We are taking a team to Dublin. You are captain'. What are you going to do? I knew if I said no, they would have simply gone down the line - to the 10th choice if necessary. And there was no way I was giving up my England place.

"A lot of us were astounded that they were dictating terms like this. There may have been pressure from higher up, but, if so, that was never explained to us.

"I honestly think the more likely reason is that the English committee wanted another weekend jolly with their wives. I decided fairly much straight away that I was going. I didn't want a reserve hooker getting in. I had never come off in an England game and I suppose I wanted to keep that record."

Pullin had good reason to be acutely aware of the eccentricities of the England selectors. After winning his first cap in 1966, he was among seven players abruptly dropped and received no further communication from Twickenham for two years. He farmed and turned in auspicious performances on an outstanding Bristol team, but the silence was deafening.

But given that his rugby ambitions were modest - "In the beginning, I thought if I could just play once for Bristol, I would die happy." - perhaps he could have easily left the game with that single national honour.

"Oooh no," he says with a shudder. "Could have been happy with two, perhaps! But not one cap. There is something about that one cap. You could end up a question on a quiz."

When he was recalled, Pullin became the linchpin of the England frontrow for the next decade. He attributes his ascension to captaincy as a matter of "desperation".

"On my part and the England selectors' part," he says cheerfully. "We had just finished the championship and lost every game. I think Peter Dixon had been captain and he thought, sod this. He'd had enough and wasn't going to South Africa. So I was a senior player. And if I said no, I'd have been out again. So I said fine. But it was not by design or desire. If they offered you the England captaincy, you had to say yes or they would never pick you again."

He is not exaggerating. Four players declined the trip to Dublin. Peter Larter and Sam Doble never played for England again.

From the moment the England team flew in, the security was immense. Both teams stayed in the Shelbourne Hotel, and, although the players were instructed to remain indoors, Pullin remembers a few of them strolling around St Stephen's Green on the Friday night.

"Don't think we were supposed to, but a few players wandered around for a while. We didn't meet that many people, but anyone we did talk to was appreciative and happy we had come.

"It wasn't until we took the bus to Lansdowne Road and were sitting in the dressing-room that it hit us, though. The security was very noticeable and we were all very quiet, and I remember thinking, yeah, this is something different. I think that is why the ovation sort of escaped me. I was just very anxious to get on with the game.

"Years later, I said to someone that I wasn't keen on standing for the national anthem. Just the idea of standing still on that open field . . . if someone was going to try something. But now, I have no recollection of us lining up for the anthem. In fact, I cannot honestly say if it was played. I would be interested to know. Maybe it wasn't played that day because it might have been a bit . . . touchy."

God Save the Queen was, apparently, played. The match was completed without incident, distinguished by tries from Tom Kiernan and Tom Grace.

Pullin considered his speech when he was fixing his tie for the ceremonial dinner. He had something of a reputation for killer opening lines delivered in the distinctive dialect of the West Country. The previous summer, England had got their act together and enjoyed an impressive tour of South Africa (Pullin also captained victorious England sides on tours of New Zealand and Australia). After the first Test in Cape Town, he stood up and solemnly informed the audience that the RFU had sent him along to a speaking course to polish his technique.

"Trouble was," he continued, "when they discovered I was captain of the England rugby team, they only taught me how to give losing speeches."

He guffaws now at the memory. "I thought that was a better one-liner myself," he shrugs.

But his opening remark at the boozy knees-up in the Shelbourne that night - "We might not always win, but at least we turn up." - was perfection. So light and throwaway and yet, underneath, a stinging rebuke of Wales and Scotland for failing to travel the previous year. It also poked fun at England's miserable run of form and it presented the English as humble and self-deprecating, a charm to which all Irish people are helplessly susceptible.

Then, bleary-eyed and eager to get back to Aust, Pullin and England left the next morning, and he was amused at how the legend of that quip grew in the following years.

Had he never touched a rugby ball again, his place in the folklore of the game would have been assured. But his main reason in coming to Dublin had been to prolong his international career, and that season he was playing lion-hearted stuff.

Irreplaceable for England, he also featured in the immortal, end-to-end Barbarians try scored against New Zealand in Cardiff in the winter of 1973. Considered one of the most glorious sequences of imaginative, off-the-cuff rugby in the game's history, Pullin grins wryly and allows that, "It was quite good, I suppose".

"Because there was a lot of rubbish talked about that game, too," he argues. "All this stuff about playing Ba-Ba rugby. Carwyn Jones was our coach for that game - the Barbarians didn't have a coach normally. Gerald Davis dropped out and John Bevan

was called in.

"But the powers that be didn't want Bevan, who was a coalminer's son. He wasn't cut from the right cloth. Carwyn stood his ground because John Bevan was a good, good player. And one of the committee boys came in beforehand and gave the usual talk: 'Right chaps, play like true Ba-Bas'. Soon as he left, we shut the door and said, right, forget that bloody rubbish. This felt like a bit of reunion of the Lions 1971 team. And we just wanted to win. 3-0 would have been fine.

"And that is why it was such a good match. We didn't set out to play exhibition stuff. That try, it was born out of desperation really, though, wasn't it? Phil Bennet caught it and Phil thought he could run rings around everyone and ran up his own arse, basically. Got clobbered for his trouble. He threw JPR (Williams) a hospital pass and JPR got it around his neck and shoved it on from there.

"A disastrous start, really, when you look into it. I think there was a pass a bit later then from Tom David to (Derek) Quinnell and the ball was down around his ankles, it was amazing he ever managed to pick it up.

"And then Gareth (Edwards), who everyone had forgotten about, suddenly realised there might be a score on for him and he came flying through from the back. But yeah, it was a good try. And a great game."

Pullin played at the highest level for a further three seasons and then retired completely. He noticed he was beginning to hang back from the fiercest confrontations because he was worried about injury affecting his ability to farm. He realised he had stopped enjoying it, and the slow descent into the junior ranks, "getting shoed and kicked to pieces because of who you used to be", held no appeal.

He stopped and, never having courted the RFU old-school-tie brigade, quickly disappeared back into the hinterland of Somerset and Gloucester, an enigmatic figure whose career, in subsequent decades, was neatly summed up through that casual remark of devastating dignity he made that night in Dublin.

"I think it took many years before I realised how important us playing that game was for Irish people," he says. "I was back in Dublin three years ago for a benefit dinner for Kieran McCarthy and it was hugely enjoyable. They gave me a beautiful Waterford crystal decanter. So I appreciate that the game meant a lot.

"But the thing that always surprised me is that the Irish rugby union have never done anything to acknowledge that. There was never an official recognition, even when they had their centenary. It doesn't bother me, but I was surprised that there was never any letter, nothing."

But then, John Pullin was never an establishment man. Mostly, he shies away from reminiscing about his athletic past and watches England on television when he has time. With an apologetic wince, he predicts that England might well triumph over Ireland.

"I'm not a great watcher. Although playing for England meant everything to me - I'd play now if only they would select me."

He was riveted to the Ireland v France match a fortnight ago and speaks admiringly about the splendour of Croke Park.

In fact, he made a rare visit to Dublin yesterday for an unofficial function, but was booked on a flight touching down in Bristol by daybreak this morning. Because he was busy with the lambing season in Aust, a night in Dublin, however appealing, did not really suit him.

But the invitation was heartfelt, and John Pullin, the quintessential son of English soil, thought it only good manners to turn up.