Brutal days in the lair of the Beast

The French used to have a second row forward known as The Beast of Beziers, a fearsome, bearded giant who rarely missed a crunching trick in support of his nickname.

Alain Esteve stood out even in a decade notorious for its violence, a Seventies hit-man whose name sprang to mind yesterday when two of his more colourful British contemporaries put the Martin Johnson punch into some sort of historical perspective.

As the Welsh Lion Bobby Windsor, the 'Iron Duke' of Pontypool, readily confessed: 'It was a brutal game in those days. Everything went and everyone was at it.'

Brutal really was the word. Those were the days when the television camera followed the ball and touch judges were not allowed to flag against foul play, leaving the mayhem merchants scope aplenty.

Unions pretended it was all jolly good character-building stuff and referees were not supposed to rock the boat by doing anything silly like sending someone off.

So nobody did, with the notable exception of Norman Sansom, a courageous Scottish referee whose international career subsequently came to a premature end.

None of that excuses what Johnson did and the hullabaloo over his punch is a reassuring reminder that the game has largely cleaned itself up. Yet, not so long ago, his uppercut would have been par for the course at most major matches in Wales and France.

Had the sluggers of yesteryear been exposed to judgment by today's standards, Windsor has a rough idea of what would have happened. 'We'd all be in jail,' he said, by way of only a slight over-statement. 'You wouldn't have had a game because most of us would have been sent off. They're a lot of cissies playing the game now. Most of them wouldn't have lasted five minutes in my day.'

He is not exaggerating, which is where Monsieur Esteve comes in. Wales-France was invariably the match of the Five Nations during the Seventies and Windsor recalls how some pugilistic assistance from his Pontypool side-kick Charlie Faulkner caused him to suffer grievously from a bitten ear.

'I went into the scrum and one of their props had my ear in his mouth,' said Windsor. 'He didn't bite it but I was afraid that if I moved, it would be ripped off. I mentioned it to Charlie and he said: "Leave it to me, Bob".

'So at the next scrum the fella has me by the ear again when Charlie smashes him with an uppercut. All that did was clamp his mouth shut like a trap door with my ear inside. I was howling round that pitch until they put it together again. Sixteen stitches!

'Every time I played against the French, I broke my nose, which is why it's in such a mess now. I'd leave Newport on the Thursday and say to my wife: "Look at my face, love, because it isn't going to look like this when I get back".

'That Esteve was a real handful. In the scrum he'd say "Bob-bee" and this big fist would come through and smack you in the chops. To get my own back I once booted him in the mush as hard as I could. He got up and gave me a wink. It takes a lot to scare me but I thought: "Bloody hell!" Afterwards we'd go boozing together. Off the pitch, he was a great bloke.' Esteve and his mean bunch also used to terrorise the English until Mike Burton gave him a touch of the old-fashioned Gloucester treat-ment. Burton said: 'They'd been dishing it out as usual and, when Esteve caught a drop-out, I got my boot under him and he shot back five metres on the greasy pitch, like a dog skidding on its backside. I went to swap jerseys with him at the end and he said: "Non, Burton. Vous etes dirt-tee!"'

How ironic that the French now should be taking more of a stand than anyone else against indiscipline, a long painful process begun 10 years ago by Pierre Berbizier.

The wily old scrum half removed Abdel Benazzi and Eric Champ from a tour of Argentina after the pair had been sent off in a club match. For all their pious talk, none of the home countries would have taken a similar stand. England under Jack Rowell were so tough that when Tim Rodber was sent off in South Africa they played him in a Test match four days later.

No wonder the French believe they have had a raw deal. For the current squad to be portrayed as paragons of virtue today is nonsense, of course, but no more so than to have labelled their predecessors the nastiest of the nasties. Windsor will admit as much, describing the Welsh pack in which he played as 'a bunch of thugs'.

As a sign of how attitudes have changed, he disagrees with John-son's selection. Windsor said: 'The stupid thing about his punch was that he threw it after the whistle had gone. England are a great team playing great rugby but all this waiting for the appeal to be heard makes it look like it's been arranged on purpose. Nobody is coming out of it clean.'

Just like the bad old days when the Beast of Beziers ruled the roost. At least Esteve lived to tell the tale, unlike his club team-mate Armand Vaquerin, who blew his brains out in a bar during a game of Russian roulette.

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