Team Photos | NURFC Old Boys

1971

1978 Preece Cup Final - Rosslyn Park

From rear left Standing: Barrie Tuck (NURFC President), Lyn Porter, Owen, Ray Rowley, Keith Coles, Terry Aston, Peter Rawlins, John Batch, Des Collins, David Douglas, Phil Wilkinson, Jeff Marais, John Wake.

Stooping: Peter Wright, Chris Kerin, Joe Bourke, Bill Craven, Kevin Heaver, John Andrews, George Hamilton.

The team was selected from Head Office to take part in the Preece Cup (Insurance Industry Competition) and included all the branches of NU including Ireland, Wales and Scotland. Around 7 players came from Norwich.

Background (credit Terry Beck)

"Barrie Tuck had become Club President maybe a couple of years before and he'd made it his mission to win this competition, which we'd won a couple of times before in the early 60s. Since then NU had become a bit tighter with the purse strings, so we'd been quite restricted in the number of players we could bring in for the games (always played in London). Barrie had managed to get a big enough budget for us to get players in from all corners of the UK and Ireland (much like our main opponents, like CU and maybe the Pru). So we went for it and there's players here from Cork, Dublin, Belfast, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Preston, Reading, Northampton and Brighton. Seven players from Norwich. I think we may have lost this final, but we came back the following year and won the Cup, boosted by the likes of Donal Cannife, who captained Munster to inflict the only defeat of the All Blacks in their 1978/9 Tour of UK and Ireland."

John Andrews - "As a Player, it was a great privilege and experience for us to play with, and against, those of a much higher standard than we were used to … Peter Rawlins for example, played for Cardiff. I will personally never forget playing some games as wing-forward with Donald Canniff as Scrum Half… He was from Dublin Office, and played in the only Irish Provincial Team to ever beat the Touring NZ All Blacks… It was awesome to play alongside these guys… And against some, too , to be fair…."