It started midway inside the Great Britain half. Bobbie Goulding broke from a scrum and set Offiah away, but he was tackled by Australia’s speedy full-back Brett Mullins. From the play-the-ball, Alan Hunte, Goulding and Phil Clarke worked possession right to Betts, who fed Davies on the halfway line with a long way to go.
“I’d noticed that Mullins had got caught up in a little tussle with Alan Hunte at the play-the-ball,” Davies recalls.
“And as the ball came out there was good wide passing, and then I straightened up a little bit and there was a little bit of a dog leg [where the defensive line is not straight], so I just threw a dummy and then all of a sudden I was in space. And it was like slow motion then.
“As soon as I hit the gap, I hit open space. And the noise just hits you. It hits you, but it doesn’t affect you, because it’s like playing as a kid in the field.
“And Brett Mullins was coming over and I knew that if I just checked him a little bit, leaned in with my head, and then accelerated off my left foot, that I’d have a good chance of beating him as he was out of position because of that little tussle he’d had.
“Ten yards out, I knew I’d done him.”
Wembley’s best-ever try? There’s some friendly disagreement there. Six months earlier, Offiah had scored an astonishing length-of-the-field try, finished in the same corner of the stadium, for Wigan against Leeds in the Challenge Cup final.
“I went through Brad Fittler and Steve Renouf, and then outside Brett Mullins,” Davies says. “Martin Offiah always says he scored the best try at Wembley, and I’m going: ‘Hang on, who did you beat, mate? Who did you beat?'”
Offiah recalls: “I always joke to Jiffy that he scored the second-best try ever at Wembley. And he always says that his was against better opposition. But yeah, it was an incredible score. I’d say that’s the moment that Jiffy’s going to be remembered for.”
Viewed in 2025, the try has a touch of poignancy. Ray French, the BBC television commentator who described it so memorably, died in July.
On the night of his death, the BBC One late news ran a short tribute. There was an archive clip: Davies’ try, with French’s words.
“It was a really poignant moment to remember that and remember Ray as well,” Davies says.
