The best Wales XV never to have graced the World Cup stage
THEY were the players who never got to parade their wares for Wales at a World Cup.
All featured in the Welsh game during the era of global-tournament rugby. But whether through injury, misfortune, form, or circumstances cruelly working against them, they all failed to make the cut when it mattered most.
We have put together a pretty starstudded team full of talent of the men who could never showcase their skills on the biggest stage of the lot.
What might have been...
15. GAVIN HENSON
Selection did for Henson in 2003, with Garan Evans chosen ahead of him, and injuries put paid to hopes in 2007 and 2011.
There was a shout for him to be drafted in as a replacement for the 2015 tournament as Wales suffered a glut of backline injuries, but the call didn’t come for the then English Championship player.
Fate simply turned against Henson when World Cups came around. But he played outstanding rugby in between some of those global bashes.
14. MARK TITLEY
One of Welsh rugby’s great entertainers scored 120 tries in 260 games for Swansea between 1985 and 1994 and also featured for Bridgend.
He and the All Whites were a perfect fit in those free-wheeling St Helen’s days, with Titley often scoring improbably brilliant touchdowns as part of one of Britain’s most attractive sides.
A reputation for being less than watertight in defence didn’t help him at Test level, but he won 15 caps up to 1990. Let’s hear it, too, for Morgan Stoddart, Steve Ford and also for Gerald Cordle, who missed out on a cap despite scoring 166 tries in 194 games for Cardiff RFC. Rugby correspondent 13. LEIGH DAVIES
The memory drifts back to the mid1990s with Ron Waldron and David Pickering saying how excited they were about a youngster coming through on the Neath scene. He had fast hands, could beat a man, tackled hard and had X-factor quality, they reckoned.
Ahead of the then 19-year-old Leigh Davies’ Five Nations debut against England in 1996, in opposition to the worldrated centre partnership of Will Carling and Jeremy Guscott, Gnoll supremo Brian Thomas declared: “He will murder them.”
It didn’t quite go that way, but Davies acquitted himself well and for a while threatened to fulfil his potential.
But he was operating at a time of Scott Gibbs, Allan Bateman and Mark Taylor and a World Cup spot eluded him in 1999.
Nor did one come his way under Steve Hansen in 2003. He had his critics who said he didn’t apply himself fully, but he had huge natural talent.
Andrew Bishop, a master in defence, also missed out on a spot on the biggest stage.
12. NIGEL DAVIES
There were few more cultured insidecentres around than him.
The former Llanelli RFC man had the ability to send out passes so sweet they might have been drenched in honey.
He could also beat defenders and had the precious gift of time. As midfield playmakers go, he was bordering on the complete package.
But he broke into the Wales team too late for the 1987 World Cup, didn’t feature in Alan Davies’ plans for 1991 and nor did he make the tournament in South Africa four years on.
It was Wales’ loss.
11. NIGEL WALKER
There have been fast wings and very fast wings to play for Wales over the past 30 years, and then there’s Nigel Walker.
The Olympian was speeding-bullet quick and a quite remarkable sight to behold on a rugby field.
His problem was that he didn’t make his Wales debut until three months shy of his 30th birthday after switching from athletics.
He had injuries and didn’t figure at the 1995 World Cup.
But as well as a veritable highlights reel of sensational tries, he also didn’t miss a single tackle in the 17 Tests he played.
10. PAUL TURNER
How good was Paul Turner in his prime?
So good that one top back-rower at the time said: “He’s the most difficult fly-half to play against. You don’t know what he is going to do next.”
Turner had flair, but he could also run the show.
How he picked up only three caps is a mystery Miss Marple is probably still working on.
Those appearances for Wales didn’t coincide with World Cups.
The gifted Aled Williams and Arwel Thomas also missed out.
9. DAVID BISHOP
There have been some fine scrumhalves who have fallen short of the ultimate honour for their country since the first World Cup in 1987, among them Jonathan Griffiths and Andy Booth.
And Rhys Webb still hasn’t shown what he can do on the global stage.
But maybe the best of the lot – well, let’s be honest, there’s no ‘maybe’ about it – was David Bishop.
This one-man army of a player was pretty much in his pomp during the mid-to-late 1980s. Indeed, there was probably no more influential figure on the club scene than Bishop at the time. But he was widely seen as too hot to handle off the field and won just a solitary Wales cap, in a friendly against Australia.
The pitiful return in no way reflected his talent. Some said he could have been an all-time great.
1. BRIAN WILLIAMS
There are some good loose-heads who have dipped out of World Cup places, among them Darren Morris, with Rob Evans also still to feature in a global showpiece.
But many at The Gnoll will suggest Brian Williams is the best to miss out.
Lack of bulk counted against him in the scrums, but many of those who played with him and watched him in his pomp at Neath in the late 1980s and early 1990s will still remember his ferocious commitment around the field, immense strength and appetite for battle.His old director of rugby at The Gnoll, Brian Thomas, told this writer during Williams’ peak: “Brian is the finest forward I have seen.
“He is a one-off, a flanker and a prop rolled into one. His commitment is incredible and he has enormous strength. There has never been anyone like him in the top-class game.”
Neath’s former team secretary David Shaw nailed it not so long ago when he said: “With Brian on the field, anything was possible.”
Williams passed away way too soon in 2007, aged just 46.
2. RICHARD HIBBARD
An up-and-coming Hibbard just failed