Pride of Lions turn out to honour Top Cat

PORT TALBOT, famous for making steel as well as a trio of matinee idols in Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins and Michael Sheen, can now justifiably claim to have achieved another first – hosting the largest collections of Lions seen outside their natural habitat.

They converged on the smoky old town from near and far last Sunday night in honour of Clive Rowlands’ 80th birthday. ‘Iron’ Mike Teague, Gareth Chilcott and Derek White from across the border, Sir Gareth Edwards headed a stellar cast of Welsh Lions spanning the Sixties to the Nineties and Finlay Calder came down from Scotland.

True to form, the captain of the winning 1989 Lions in Australia told a story not of the victorious series but of its losing start and Rowlands’ unifying influence as the unflappable manager. Calder revealed how he offered to fall on his sword after the 30-12 hammering by the Wallabies.

“I called a meeting of the management and offered to stand down for the second Test,’’ Calder recalled. “Clive spoke up immediately as tour manager. ‘If you go, then I must go also’. And that was the end of the matter.’’

Almost 200 family and friends, more than a third of them retired internationals, turned out for the occasion, proof, not that it was required, of Rowlands’ enduring popularity. The assembly included three other Lions’ Test captains in addition to Calder – David Watkins (1966), John Dawes (1971), Phil Bennett (1977).

His own male voice choir, Cor Y Gyrlais, turned up with a medley of songs, finished off with a rendition of Top Cat, Rowlands’ nickname since he began on the Test stage during the Arctic winter of 1963.