There were rugby coaches in the 1970s who, with JPR Williams as their full-back, didn’t lose a wink of sleep at night.
If he missed a tackle it was a Penny Black moment.
Just as rare was the sight of the buccaneering Wales No. 15 failing to defuse an opposition bomb.
“Indomitable before thundering forwards whose strength he could match with his own (6ft 1in and 15st 5lb) he made crowds, all over the world, suck in their breath to see him leap to pluck a high ball from the air when opponents advanced on him,” is the take on Williams in the beautifully written Fields of Praise, the Official History of the Welsh Rugby Union.
How good was he to play alongside?
Long after the dust had settled on his and JPR’s playing careers, his old Wales, Lions and Bridgend team-mate Steve Fenwick was asked by The Sunday Times a simple question: Who was the best player?
Most would come up with the name of Gareth Edwards in response.
Some might opt for Barry John or Phil Bennett, or Gerald Davies, Mervyn Davies or Graham Price.
Fenwick chose differently, saying: “My number one on the team sheet would be JPR Williams.
“A lot of people would say Gareth Edwards, who on his day was the best player in the world, but JPR was consistently the best player.
“He had 100% commitment. He had a mental approach that he wasn’t going to get beaten.”
(Image: Chris Fairweather/Huw Evans Agency)
Forty years ago this weekend, Williams played his final Test against England. Wales won, maintaining their warrior-like full-back’s 100 percent record against the old enemy: 11 wins from 11 matches.
The ex-London Welsh man had come out of international retirement after previously announcing the end of his Wales days.
But after that 1981 victory, three weeks later he was gone from the Test stage, dropped after defeat by Scotland at Murrayfield. The shock waves took an age to abate. That wasn’t how it was supposed to end for a superstar.
The news had been broken to him during team preparations for the next round of matches. “They told me at the training session for the next game, against Ireland,” Peter Jackson quotes Williams as saying in the book, Lions of Wales.
“Steve Fenwick, the skipper, had been dropped as well.
“He went off home.
“I trained with the team and hit s**t out of the rest of the team, which was a fairly typical reaction!
“Maybe the desire for international rugby had waned, plus the fact that I didn’t have as many outstanding players around me.”
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An era had ended, though.
For the next game, Wales handed the No. 15 shirt to Maesteg’s Gwyn Evans, a classy player who made his name as a fly-half but never had the opportunity to wear the No. 10 jersey in a senior Test for Wales.
The late Peter Williams, brother of JJ, rated Evans one of the finest tactical controllers in Wales at the time.
But the national selectors insisted on using him out of position.
Even operating away from his natural habit, though, Evans did well enough to hold down the full-back role with Wales for two seasons and play in two Tests for the Lions against New Zealand in 1983.
Williams carried on playing with some distinction for Bridgend and then Tondu.
“What was brilliant about John is that he played for Bridgend as he played for Wales and the Lions,” said his old Bridgend team-mate Lyndon Thomas.
“He only knew one way to play, with total commitment and total courage, and he deserves every accolade that has come his way over the years.”
At Bridgend, they remember Williams’ reaction after being stamped on by New Zealand’s John Ashworth in a tour match at the Brewery Field in 1978.
Williams had 30 stitches inserted in a hideous facial wound.
Unbelievably, he returned to the field of play.
Stuff like that set him apart.
There’ll never be another.
-- to www.walesonline.co.uk
