On the 19th of March 2005 Wales lifted the Six Nations trophy for the first time after defeating Ireland 32-20 and winning their first Grand Slam since 1978. It was achieved in dramatic fashion with Wales playing some magnificent running rugby during the tournament scoring 18 tries on their way to the trophy. It had been 27 years since Wales had reached such dizzying heights and the whole country went wild.
Dad and I were at the match in Cardiff which was to be our last ever live international together. I can remember when Kevin Morgan scored Wales’s second try with 20 minutes to go picking my father up and screaming “there’s no way they can beat us now!” as my father begged me to put him down. We did have to suffer an awkward last quarter while Ireland did their best to spoil the party but as the last few minutes drew to a close the Welsh crowd sang Wales to victory in style.
When the trophy was presented to our two captains, I knew instantly that was the Grogg I would make to celebrate this amazing achievement. Welsh supporters will remember Wales’s skipper Gareth Thomas had broken his thumb in Paris so Michael Owen stepped into the captain’s role exactly halfway through the competition. The image of them both raising the six nations trophy was seared in my mind and I began work on the piece on Monday morning.
Grand Slam fever had engulfed the nation, and I remember Dad doing a radio interview the following week announcing what we were making to celebrate Wales’s success. The only tricky thing was deciding how many pieces to make as it was going to be quite a complicated figure to model and paint. In the end we decided to tot up the points scored by Wales during the competition and limited the figure to only 151 pieces. With such a low number the dual captain figure sold out in one day!
In retrospect it was too few as many collectors missed out but we were concerned it would take us years to produce any more. As it was our fortunate Grogg collectors had to be very patient as we got to grips with the technically challenging figure.
We are lucky enough to have an example of this special commemorative Grogg in the museum to remind us of that magical afternoon in Cardiff when Wales’ 27 year Grand Slam hoodoo finally came to an end!
