Peter Jackson over the gain line with the headlines

Peter Jackson gets over the gain line, behind the headline.

Will American adventure have a happy ending?

Now that he’s abandoned his England career and chosen to head Stateside on the off chance of making it in gridiron, Christian Wade will be hoping to go further than any migrating rugby player has gone before.

The few to have flirted with the notion of making a fortune include the Springbok fly-half of the Eighties, Naas Botha, whose prodigious goalkicking against the Lions earned him the alias Nasty Booter.

After a series of trials for the Dallas Cowboys, he retired from rugby at 25 and headed for Texas clutching a three-year contract. At a time when Joe Montana and Dan Marino bestrode the game like a pair of colossi, Botha never got to the Superbowl during his two seasons as a Cowboy.

Another long-range goalkicker, Paul Thorburn, made an abortive attempt a few years later only to discover that his NFL career began and ended on the same day. The Welsh Rugby Union gave Thorburn their blessing but only on condition that he accepted nothing more in the way of filthy lucre than 14 pence-a-mile petrol money.

The Los Angeles Rams arranged for him to appear in a match at Wembley where he took one kick. He duly reverted to rugby as Botha had done amid a storm of protest over his reinstatement to the amateur code which was nothing of the kind in South Africa at the time.

In contrast, the RFU banned Dave Alred from Union for life for spending part of a season with the Minnesota Vikings. Then a schoolteacher in Bristol, now Open golf champion Francesco Molinari’s performance coach, Alred rejoined Bath before being notified of his ban.

Wade’s loss adds further demoralising proof that rugby is no longer a game for all shapes and sizes. Capped once by England, Wade dropped down the pecking order behind Joe Cokanasiga who happens to be eight inches taller and four stone heavier.

When it comes to succeeding in more than one football code, nobody can hold a candle to the late Kevin O’Flanagan. A Dublin doctor, he played soccer and rugby for Ireland, his one appearance at Lansdowne Road against Australia in December 1947 coming halfway through his last season as an amateur winger with Arsenal.

Champions Cup colourblind to fans

The organisers of the Champions’ Cup say they will issue a formal apology to Cardiff Blues and Glasgow Warriors over the inexcusable clash of colours during Sunday’s tie at the Arms Park.

Well, that’s big of them but what about the fans, those who paid good money to watch two teams wearing the same shade of sky blue?

As yet there has been no mention of an apology to them.

Neither has there been a satisfactory explanation beyond a bland reference to ‘procedures’ which had not been followed.

Had such a colour clash happened during the years when they were wrestling control of their tournament from the Unions, the clubs would have made a bigger song-and-dance about it than The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and Mary Poppins put together.

Two little boys done good

Two boys born on the same day on opposite sides of the Irish Sea in the autumn of 1948 grew up nurturing an ability far above average for spotting a gap and squeezing over in the corner. One started work in the local steelworks, the other went to university.

In the same season during the early Seventies, each made history against the All Blacks.

In 1974 they were side by side as Lions throughout the invincible tour of South Africa. Three years later, on January 15, 1977 at Cardiff Arms Park, they captained their respective countries when Wales kicked off that year’s Five Nations tournament with a 25-9 win over Ireland.

Such a coincidence had probably never happened before and is unlikely to happen again.

Later that year one captained the Lions in New Zealand. Some 30-odd years later the other became chairman of the Lions for their winning series in Australia.

Yesterday, still on their native sides of the sea, they celebrated their 70th birthdays – Phil Bennett, the most decorated of Welsh fly-halves and Tom Grace, still a revered figure within the IRFU as national treasurer and the player whose try gaveIreland a conversion to beat New Zealand at Lansdowne Road.

Those who were there swear to this day that Barry McGann’s shot from near the right touchline was soaring between the posts until a gust of wind blew it off-course by inches.