First broadcast in 1978, GRAND SLAM is a period-piece now, especially in its dated attitudes towards homosexuality and gender construction. The outrageously camp Maldwyn Pugh (Sion Probert) minces through the film with a limp-wristed élan, while making jokes at the expense of the aggressively heterosexual Mog Jones (Windsor Davies) who blenches at the thought of having to share a bed with him.
Another sequence taking place in a Paris strip-club shows the group of Welsh rugby supporters getting ever more excited as one of the performers removes her clothes. In particular Mog enjoys the opportunity to feel the stripper's bottom and turn towards his friends as if expecting approbation. Meanwhile the youthful Glyn Lloyd-Evans (Dewi Morris) enjoys a one-night stand with the owner's daughter Odette (Sharon Morgan). Casual sex; male ogling; breasts and bottoms galore; all these themes are redolent of the Seventies when gender divisions were far more pronounced than they might be today.
On the other hand GRAND SLAM does make some significant points about the value of rugby union as a sport. The prospect of going to Paris delights Glyn's father Caradog (Hugh Griffith), who can relive his wartime experiences of meeting his French butterfly (Marika Rivera). As he dreams, so the screen dissolves into sepia shots of the city being liberated in 1944 - an occasion witnessed by the young Caradog. Clearly rugby provides the opportunity to bring people of different cultures together, as well as reliving the past.
Rugby also provides the opportunity for small nations to bond together. Mog relishes the prospect of fighting the French fans in the strip-club, as he can assume the role of a general marshaling his forces, just as Caradog might have done for real thirty or so years previously. At the film's end, when the Welsh team have lost, Mog stands in a deserted stadium holding a rugby ball and hears the sound of the Welsh national anthem in his imagination. The entire weekend has given him the chance to be proud of his identity as a Welshman, while joining his friends in happy revelry.
For nostalgia buffs, the film offers the chance to see brief glimpses of past greats - J. P. R. Williams, Phil Bennett, Gareth Edwards - at the height of their playing careers. For non-rugby fans, GRAND SLAM is a joyous celebration of national identity, as well as an evocation of past delights (signaled by the regular use of the theme "Plaisir d'Amour" on the soundtrack).
