nigel walker

just watched a clip on another thread and saw this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USd_yIfiRos&feature=related

im sure that was the try that made me a cardiff, and then blues, fan. i still remember watching the match with some old school mates in a pub. i still remember nigel's post match interview. anyone remember what year it was?

i saw nigel score his last international try, and the only welsh try of the day, in a hammering at the hands of the allblacks.

he was such a good player. he is the player responsible for me turning into a stupidly fanatical fan.

I always thought he was awful (particularly in defence).

I remember one Wales game played in rain, where he came in with a prestine kit although he had been on the pitch for the full 40 and everyone else was caked in mud.

Not a fan!

Hobo wrote:I always thought he was awful (particularly in defence).

I remember one Wales game played in rain, where he came in with a prestine kit although he had been on the pitch for the full 40 and everyone else was caked in mud.

Not a fan!

i remember one wales game where he made a try saving tackle, but seemed to do as much damage to himself as the other guy. i thought it was a terrible tackle but it did save a try.

not bad for a guy who came to rugby late. he was a hurdler wasnt he?

I'm with Hobo on this one, although awful may be over egging it. He was great if you managed to create room for him as he was so fast. Defensively he was very weak and I dont remember him coming in field to look for the ball often.

How many tries did he score in his career? I could look it up myself but I'm hoping someone will know...

SubsBench wrote: and I dont remember him coming in field to look for the ball often.

but that was back in the day where wingers were meant to run and nothing else. when i played we wernt allowed to run hither and thither. keep to your wing! or maybe that was just what they told me.

No offence Dogtooth but maybe they thought you'd cause less damage if you stayed on your wing

I know that's why I supposed to stay there

SubsBench wrote:No offence Dogtooth but maybe they thought you'd cause less damage if you stayed on your wing

i wouldnt be surprised if that was true. left wing was a bad position for me. i couldnt run or pass to my right.

From wiki:
He went on to win 17 caps for Wales, scoring 12 tries and making his final appearance 21 February 1998 against England

that is actually not a bad scoring ratio. would never have expected him to score that many

He did score some good tries for Wales the one against France in 1994 at the end was brilliant, though 4 of his tries came against Portugal in a 102-13 win. He also got another against Spain 3 days later.
He scored a better try than that against Newport one season going the length of the field.
He was brave and didn't shirk any tackles, but sometimes the basics of his play could be lacking, I remember in a cup game him doing a run then handing the ball to someone in front of him, not a forward pass he literally handed them the ball while they were in front of him.

His defence maynot have been the best, but as I posted on another thread recently, Nigel Walker didn't miss an international tackle.

I always liked Nigel walker. He may have not been a top welsh international and played at a time when Wales really struggled. He used to take a lot of stick, but you can't say he didn't give everything. After he stopped playing, I thought he was a good pundit and surprisingly for a rumney boy, he always talked well of Newport.
I bet his Cardiff scoring rate would have been excellent. Himself and ford used to score tries for fun, as did simon Davies of Swansea. It was a time when you could predict the welsh league scores easily. You had Neath, ponty, Cardiff, Llanelli and Swansea regularly handing out stuffings to the likes of newbridge, abertillery, Newport and treorchy. Maybe because I was a suffering newport, but I found the league really poor. I remember Cardiff stuffing abertillery about 90-30 and Newport battling for a point at Neath. Both teams picked up 1 point. Newport for a draw and abertillery for scoring 4 tries even though they'd been battered.
Also anyone remember the host to Wales on saturday? Wilkins? Man he was biased!!!

polotechnics wrote:His defence maynot have been the best, but as I posted on another thread recently, Nigel Walker didn't miss an international tackle.

True but he did knock himself out a few times from poor tecnique. Several times he caught a knee to the side of the head.