The secret Phil Bennett and Gareth Edwards carried into historic match that would change things for good

March 18, 1978 — for Welsh rugby there has never been a day quite like it, before or since.

It yielded a Five Nations Grand Slam with red ribbons tied around it, but it also marked the departure of two Wales sporting icons from the international stage.

Gareth Edwards and Phil Bennett were both bowing out from the Test scene. All-time greats, the pair of them. Never to be seen in international rugby again.

The thousands of Welsh fans who emptied from the Arms Park stands and terraces onto the streets of Cardiff celebrating a third Five Nations clean of the seventies would have been blissfully unaware that at that very moment there was a quiet conversation going on inside the home changing room which was to mark a pivotal moment in Welsh rugby.

Sadly, Bennett passed away this week. On hearing the news, many would have perhaps allowed themselves to be mentally transported back to that spring day more than four decades ago, when the post-match news prompted such a sharp intake of breath.

Between them, the half-backs played 82 Tests for Wales and 18 for the British and Irish Lions, but it was the indelible moments of magic — the Benny sidestep, the Edwards kick and chase, the glorious dive in the mud — that will remain in the memory.

Now they were going at once, after Wales had seen off a formidable French team 16-7 to secure the title of Europe's best team for yet another year. But their decisions were taken independently.

“I knew it was going to be my last game, but I didn’t tell anyone beforehand,” Bennett once recalled.

“I didn’t want this game to be about me. This was a great Welsh team, we had just achieved the triple Triple Crown and were going for a second Grand Slam in two years. So there was no big farewell to the