Not only Wales, but the rest of rugby as well has been tendering fond salute to an auspicious anniversary: Sunday was the 40th anniversary of Gareth Edwards' first international match for Wales on April 1, 1967. The fabled scrum-half from the Swansea valley - still full of the joys, rosy of both cheek and outlook and 60 this July - is generally accepted as the whole game's most complete player; even New Zealanders concede it.
It has been warming in the past week to read again the familiar tale of that first cap and the early morning match-day call in Paris's swank Normandie Hotel when the 19-year-old debutant was woken by his ma and pa and half the Cwmgors village rugby club who had come over on the night boat-train for the game and how, at the end of it, old hand Dewi Bebb grabbed the match ball for the teenager because he knew the boy would be leading Welsh rugby into its most gilded and glistening era. Which, of course, he did.
Ah, imperishable folklore. Nevertheless, when such blessed mythology is logged in the legend I fancy it sells itself short if, as in this case, only hallowed beginnings are evoked and celebrated - and not the obviously richer, more idyllic and halcyon finales. Thus, my own vivid remembrance exclusively offers a more conclusively telling and far more jubilant jubilee to cherish this same month. Edwards' span of international grandeur ran from that first match on April Fools' Day 1967 to St Patrick's Day in March 1978 (in Cardiff, also against France). It was fully 10 years and one month later, in April 1987 - just before we all embarked down under for the inaugural World Cup - that Gareth, by now a businessman and feted oldie in his 40th year, was persuaded against his better judgment (and certainly that of wife Maureen) to travel to Toulouse to lead an Invitation World XV against the reassembled ancients of France's first and immortal grand slam équipe of 1968. Two decades and 20 Aprils on, Gareth's still bright eyes moisten at the memory.
"It was truly glorious, both the day and the match. I expected to last five minutes; I lasted the full hour. We relived everything. What fabulous comradeship and true warmth. Outside me, as of old, Phil [Bennett], seemingly fitter than ever, really turned it on, scurrying footwork, sidesteps and all; Jo Maso full of all his old magical weaving patterns. All of us so elated to be together and involved again. I can hardly describe the thrill: crowd excited, stadium packed, and all of us seeming to play just like we used to, like people said we had played.
"What a day to store forever in the mind. It still feels unreal, overwhelming, so fulfilling - unless we all saw it through tinted glasses on account of the bonhomie and the wines we'd downed at the banquet the night before.
"Near the end of the game I had a run. Just like the old days. I got it around our 22 - suddenly I was through, then going like crazy for the line. Straining every muscle: 30 yards, 40 yards, 50. The hounds of hell in blue shirts in frantic chase. Would they catch me? The crowd going mad. Maureen up in the stands, heart in her mouth. Suddenly she was on her feet, apparently now pleading with me: 'Stop! Stop!' She thought her old man was going to kill himself. Funny, a dozen years earlier, she'd have been on her feet bellowing: 'Go on, Gar! Go on!' wouldn't she?"
He made it. Toulouse and all the world rose to acclaim him, and it. Gareth's last try. "Complete satisfaction. I knew then I would grow old happy." And he purrs, content: "And I am doing, aren't I."
