There has barely been a sporting rivalry to compare with it. It didn’t just divide opinion. It divided friends.
Which camp you were in was deemed to say much about you as a person.
Steve Ovett or Sebastian Coe?
One seen as the middle-distance tough of the track, moody and a rough diamond. He stalked front runners before overtaking them with Rolls Royce acceleration. Occasionally, he used sharp elbows to hit the front in races.
That was Ovett.
The other was a future Tory MP, clean cut and supremely confident. He sailed around the track and tried not to get involved in any of the pushing or shoving. He was a devastating front-runner who operated by the maxim ‘burn or be burned’.
That was Coe.
The Tough and The Toff.
“You were either for Ovett, or you were for Coe," wrote Pat Butcher in the 2004 book, The Perfect Distance. “There were no agnostics.”
Everyone loves a good rivalry, whatever the sport.
WARBURTON AND TIPURIC
Welsh rugby has had countless battles for positional superiority over the years: Robert Jones v David Bishop, Mike Phillips v Dwayne Peel, David Watkins v Barry John, Garin Jenkins v Jonathan Humphreys, Tony Clement v Mike Rayer, Neil Jenkins v Arwel Thomas, Duncan Jones v Gethin Jenkins — the list is endless.
And right up there is the selection headache faced by Warren Gatland over whether to choose Sam Warburton or Justin Tipuric, two of the greatest Welsh openside flankers. Well, actually, Gatland didn’t seem to see it as much of a headache: when Warburton was fit for big games, he chose him.
But in 2013 under Rob Howley’s stewardship the jury was very much out and in 2016-17 the same happened again. Howley resorted to using Tipuric at seven and shifting Warburton to six, with the pair widely seen as working well together.
Their styles were different. Warburton was rock-solid over the ball, a master craftsman at the breakdown and a physical specimen who hit hard in the tackle and carried strongly. Tipuric was more creative, superb in open play but also a wonderful defender, with his skill at holding up players in the tackle a source of turnovers.
But Warburton was also Gatland’s captain.
No matter what Tipuric did, Gatland invariably went back to Warburton.
How did Tipuric feel? Did his cat run for cover when he arrived home at night? What did he think of the man who captained Wales 49 times between 2011 and 2016, for much of the time forcing him onto the bench? Was there ever ill-will between the pair?
Not at all, it seems.
“There was respect there,” says Tipuric.
“Sam was a world-class player and there was no sense that we didn’t get on.
“Selection going against you is just the way the game can go.
“Everyone wants to start and when I was younger I might have been a bit more frustrated with not beginning a match.
“But the older you get the more you are able to put things into perspective and think how lucky you are just to be playing for your country.
“You try to get on with everyone. That’s what being part of a team is all about. The side has to come first.”
There were occasions, of course, when the pair dovetailed together quite brilliantly, most notably against England in 2013, when they dominated breakdowns, loose play and were key to the surge that swept Wales to a 30-3 success on a day that saw perhaps the finest Welsh performance of the decade.
“The key thing is to do your job,” says Tipuric, now out of the retired Warburton’s shadow and established as Wales’ first choice No. 7.
“It was like that when Sam was playing and it’s still that way today.
“Whether you’re appearing off the bench, playing alongside Sam or starting or whatever, you’re still pulling on the Wales jersey.
“You just know how lucky you are to be representing your country.
“You always think it might be the last time you do it, so you have to give everything.
“Even now, there’s a lot of competition, with so many people who could start at No. 7.
“There must be about 10 different players who could do so.
“If we had nine injuries, the 10th openside picked would still do an outstanding job.
“Before, everyone used to say we had loads of outside halves.
“But, for me, the crazy strength in depth in Wales now is at seven.”
TREBANOS AND ALL THAT
Tipuric is doing interviews at Trebanos rugby club as an ambassador for Canterbury, the kit people, who are offering an opportunity for grassroots clubs who have developed a Lions player to have their Canterbury kits personalised with the logo of the Lions Origin Club to celebrate the achievement.
The pride the 30-year-old has in his home village is palpable.
And at the centre of it all is the rugby club.
“The club helped shape me into the person I am today,” he says.
“When I was a kid I’d jump over my parents’ garden and head over the canal to the pitch. I spent most of my time growing up there, kicking a ball around or playing in the park.
“The club is the centre of Trebanos. Everything that happens here seems to go on around the club.
“It turns you into a particular type of person.
“I live just outside the village now, but my parents are still living in the same spot where we grew up.
“So I’m always back and around here.”
FAMOUS SONS
Truly, it is some place when it comes to breeding sports people.
Robert Jones, Rhodri Jones, Arwel Thomas and Bleddyn Bowen all hail from the village, as well as Tipuric.
Much the same goes for another former Wales rugby international, Andy Lloyd, while the ex-England cricketer Greg Thomas also has his roots there.
The broadcaster Edward Bevan, too, is a local.
“There’s a great community spirit here and particularly around the club,” says Tipuric.
“Anyone who’s come through will tell you the place always has a pull so you want to come back, do something or see people. It’s that type of club, where people who come here never forget it and always end up returning in some sort of way.
“Rob and Rhodri are top blokes.
“When I was growing up, my father would take me down to St Helen’s to watch them play for the Whites and Arwel was down there as well. I’d watch them because they were from Trebanos.
“Rob is coaching the Trebanos juniors now, while Rhod is coaching the firsts.
“I did a bit of coaching with Trebanos and in that role you get to see it all every weekend, the different clubs, grounds, characters and the unseen work that goes on to make sure things run smoothly for people to play rugby.
“It’s crazy what people do just so these local rugby clubs keep going.
“It happens all over the place and it’s brilliant.”
He continues: “Club rugby offers a lot.
“People may forget how big a part Aberavon played in my career.
“They were excellent and I still keep in touch with people there. They’re a great club with great people.”
OSPREYS AND THE WORLD CUP
Tipuric is in rest mode after the World Cup, but that will change next week when Wales play the Barbarians in Cardiff. While he and other Wales internationals have been off limits, the Ospreys have struggled.
“It’s not easy to be on the sidelines while results haven’t been going our way,” he says.
“I want to get back to winning ways with them.
“Hopefully, we’ll soon be picking from a bigger squad of players and we’ll turn our form around like we did at the end of last season.
“I enjoyed every minute of the World Cup.
“That said, I still have a few sleepless nights, thinking about what might have been. There wasn’t a lot in it in the semi-final against South Africa and it could have been us in the final, perhaps lifting the trophy.
“But it wasn’t to be and you just have to try to look ahead.”
THE LIONS AND BIG JOE
Tipuric will be 31 when the next Lions tour takes place, young enough to challenge for a third consecutive trip with the best of British and Irish rugby.
“The Lions is the goal for everyone in northern hemisphere rugby,” he says.
“The first target is to play for your country, then you want to play for the Lions.
“It’s the pinnacle in many respects.
“The Lions are made up of the best rugby players in the UK and Ireland and it’s a huge honour to be part of a tour.
“The friends you make are a key part of it, people you know you are always going to stay in touch with.
“I found everyone as good as gold.
“Joe Marler, Dan Cole and George Kruis are English boys that some Welsh people might think you wouldn’t get on with, but they’re great. Rory Best is a top man, too.
“You wouldn’t have a bad word to say about any of them.
“What’s Joe Marler like? He’s a top bloke and a tough man.
“That came through in some of the Lions games I played alongside him.
“He’d take a whack but he’d be straight back on his feet giving it back to someone.
“He’s an honest guy, too, who’ll tell you exactly what he thinks.
“And he wears his heart on his sleeve.”
THE FUTURE
Tipuric has made clear at the outset of the interviews that he isn’t going to discuss his future. He is out of contact at the end of the season and there are any number of interested clubs. Will he stay or will he go? We’ll have to wait for the answer to that one, it seems.
But what drives him on after two World Cups, two Lions tours, a two Six Nations titles, including a Grand Slam?
“I’ve always said I play best with a smile on my face and when I’m enjoying my rugby,” he says.
“As soon as I’m not enjoying it, I’ll hang my boots up.
“I won’t just go on for the sake of it.
“Enjoyment is a big part of playing rugby.
“I’ve always got a lot out of the game in that respect and I’m going to try to keep it that way.”
Wales will hope the man with the Trebanos-blue headgear keeps going for some time yet.
And the Ospreys will hope he stays with them.
Because while no one is irreplaceable, some players come closer to such status than others.
Tipuric, assuredly, is one of those.
