Rugby’s supreme warrior
When it came to pulverising tackles and an indestructible force welded to indomitable will to win, nobody could touch JPR Williams
AS the 1971 Lions neared Eden Park for their Test of the Century and tension crackled on the team bus, JPR Williams made an announcement.
‘I’m going to drop a goal today, boys,’ he told the crème de la crème of British and Irish rugby, amid mounting apprehension over the delicate state of the fourmatch rubber, the Lions one up with one to play. ‘And we will win the series. So no need to worry.’
Throughout his stratospheric career, JPR never wavered from his two-word mantra of no fear, a philosophy which guaranteed him immunity from the corrosive effects of self-doubt. The way he saw it, the Lions had nothing to be afraid of.
The rest dismissed the medical student’s prognosis as a bit of a hoot, a welcome but frivolous diversion from their collective anxiety at trying to do something no Lions team had done in more than half a century before, nor in more than half a century since.
They had seen the indestructible Welshman surpass his contemporaries in so many aspects of the full back’s craft, his they-shalt-not-pass mantra inspiring comparison to a one-man panzer division.
But none of those on the bus heading to New Zealand’s fortress could recall him kicking a penalty or a conversion, let alone executing the more difficult art of dropping the ball on the ground and hitting it as it came back up, hence the spontaneous reaction.
‘Everyone burst out laughing,’ JPR told me years later. ‘I’d only ever dropped two goals in my life, in my first match for Bridgend against Bristol in 1967 and another for Wales against Fiji in 1969. Not surprising really because I always preferred to run the ball rather than kick it.’
When the pre-ordained drop goal duly arrived, it did so not with the Lions sailing home on the billowing wind of a 25-point lead, but with the match tied at 11-11 and the series in jeopardy. What’s more, JPR took aim not from a pre-planned cushy spot centre-field inside the All Black 22, but from double the distance.
David Duckham, caught in a cul-de-sac on the blindside wing, worked wonders to keep the move going, flinging a one-handed pass back inside to Barry John. He moved it on to JPR who broke the habit of a lifetime and went for goal from close to the New Zealand 10-metre line.
As the man himself said: ‘It was still climbing as it went through the posts. I’d hit it perfectly.’
That drop, giving the Lions enough insurance to win the series on the strength of the most celebrated draw in rugby history, never fails to crop up whenever old Lions reminisce. Nobody talked about it in more venerable tones than Duckham, the stylish England wing who died this time last year aged 76.
‘It was a magnificent kick,’ he said. ‘In those days celebrations were very muted and restrained but, my goodness, we were so thrilled we could all have kissed him. We all hugged him instead.’
Running back to his defensive sentry post, JPR raised a triumphant arm towards the Lions’ reserves and to his understudy, Bob Hiller, in particular. The England and Harlequins captain had encouraged his counterpart to think of the drop goal.
Williams took it seriously enough to hit a few shots under John’s expert eye after training the previous day. As big-match predictions go, his had the Lions laughing all the way into the history books.
Great players in any sport deliver on great occasions. That JPR was the greatest of all Lions full backs is a statement of fact, not a matter for debate, because his like shall not be seen again.
A few Test full backs, most notably the electrifying New Zealander Christian Cullen, were faster. Fewer still could move through the gears with the grace of a panther, like the inimitable Serge Blanco.
When it came to pulverising tackles, an indestructible force welded to an indomitable will to win, nobody could touch JPR. He redefined the specification of the full back’s job from that of a safety-first defender with a booming boot, transforming the last line of defence into the first point of attack.
A clue as to how he did it can be found in how he saw himself: ‘A flanker playing full back. I didn’t like to kick the ball and I’m very glad I wasn’t given much talent as a kicker because it meant I had to run it.’
It made him the game’s supreme warrior, a status beyond dispute before he took to wearing the trademark bandana and long after he managed without it.
He displayed courage above and beyond the call of duty so often that it almost became the norm, never more so than in a blood-curdling incident during Bridgend’s defeat by New Zealand in December 1978.
All Black prop John Ashworth put a stud clean through JPR’s left cheek as he lay trapped at the bottom of a ruck. The severing of the facial artery made the gaping wound all the more gruesome, so much so that Williams lost two pints of blood.
Astoundingly, he returned within 20 minutes, one side of his face held together by 30 stitches inserted by his father, the Bridgend president Dr Peter Williams, and his three younger sons, Philip, Chris and Mike, all doctors. Their combined attempt to talk their eldest out of going back on to the field fell on deaf ears — JPR hated making even the slightest concession to human frailty.
Against Scotland he played on for almost the last half-hour despite a fractured cheekbone. The way John saw it, the only thing worse than being forced into a premature exit was to show the opposition any discernible grimace of pain.
‘I regarded it as a sign of weakness,’ he said. ‘There were times when I was hurt but I would never show it. I felt to do so was to give your opponent an advantage.’
He reinforced that with a ruthless instinct, to which he resorted only when Wales were in dire straits. His fearsome shoulder charge of the formidable France wing Jean-Francois Gourdon in 1976 saved the Welsh Grand Slam, just as his foul on Mike Gibson at Lansdowne Road saved Wales another Slam two years later.
JPR’s fan club turned a blind eye to his good fortune at not having been sent off on both occasions. Just as he had no fear about being trampled on by a herd of All Blacks, so he had no fear of falling foul of referees when it came to putting the team first.
He shrugged off his obstruction of Gibson by citing a football phrase: ‘A professional foul. I was a “professional” rugby player in terms of attitude, playing in a non-professional era.’
GREAT players are, by definition, competitive beasts, nobody more ferociously so than the original John Williams, whose truncated renaming followed the advent of another John Williams, hence JPR and JJ. Nobody had immunity from the former’s ire when the mood took him, not even Sir Gareth Edwards.
Despite thrashing Ireland 32-4 at the end of the 1975 Five Nations, JPR still saw fit to give the scrum-half a flea in his ear over the ‘wild pass’ which Willie Duggan seized on for a late try, leaving the full back in a foul mood at the desecration of a Welsh clean sheet.
‘I gave him a real rollicking along the lines of, “How dare you let them cross my line”,’ he said. ‘That was typical of me. I can laugh about it now but, believe me, I was upset.’
He attributed his iron-clad winning mentality to a Lancashire lass from Rochdale, mum Margaret, a doctor in her own right.
‘She gave me a will to succeed,’ he always said. ‘I was brought up to take whatever I did in my stride. I played lots of musical instruments. I was a top chorister and I sang solos in the church choir. So from an early age I was used to performing in front of people and that stood me in good stead when it came to developing a big-match temperament.’
Ironically, nobody suffered more as a consequence than every England team from 1969 to 1981, each one paying an exorbitant price for exposure to that winning mentality. Williams played 11 internationals against England and won the lot. On the two occasions during his 12-year reign when Wales met England without him — in 1974 and 1980 — they lost both.
That he stood out among so many all-time greats in the most decorated team of the post-war amateur era underlines the monumental scale of his achievements. He was the rock on which Wales of the 1970s were built. He was there at the start and the only founder member still there at the end, a veteran of seven Five Nations titles, six Triple Crowns and three Grand Slams.
JPR, acclaimed long ago by the late Lions coach Carwyn James as ‘the competitor of competitors’, will be talked about for as long as rugby is played. The unforgettable can never be forgotten.