Pope built legacy on fast hands and fitness

LLANDOVERY may have been a force in the Welsh game from the earliest of times but never more so than either side of World War 2 when the legendary, somewhat irascible, figure of TP ‘Pope’ Williams was in charge.

Williams, a stern disciplinarian, directed Llandovery rugby for over 30 years, produced three members of the Wales team that defeated the All Blacks in 1935 – Viv Jenkins, Cliff Jones and Arthur Rees – and helped the West Walians to become the first school outside of England to win the Rosslyn Park Sevens, when they beat Bedford in the 1952 final.

The captain of that winning side, Peter Scott, and his team were asked to return to the school 50 years later to do the honours unveiling a memorial plinth to the Pope made from local granite. Future British Lion Kingsley Jones, who recently died, was a member of that squad whose star player during their two-day campaign was Jackie Morris, a brilliant darting scrum-half who scored eight tries in the six games.

The Pope was also the man who helped nurture one of the greatest of all Wales coaches in Carwyn James, who served as his assistant for five years while teaching at the school before taking over First XV duties in 1962.

Pope’s philosophy appears to have been very simple. Extreme fitness, handling skills practiced endlessly and repetitively at high speed until they became second nature – which you can do when you have a group of energetic schoolboys marooned in the Welsh countryside with nothing much else to do – and moving the ball to the wing as quickly as possible. The modern coaching expression would being ‘going wide wide’.

Llandovery rugby lore insists that he once required Cliff Jones and his backs to practice a passing drill with an actual wet bar of soap as he attempted to prove that good technique could overcome all.

It is also said that throughout his reign the Pope imposed an absolute ban on dropped goals arguing that if any side of his were near enough to drop a goal they should certainly be able to score a try. There is only one verified incidence of this being disobeyed, when they lost 9-3 to great rivals Christ College Brecon in 1961, although the fate of the boy who dropped the goal is not recorded.

James bought into this expansive approach and added his own variations when he took control, encouraging variations – scissors, dummy scissors, chips ahead and even the occasional tactical kick – to the foot-flat-to-the-floor approach of the Pope. It was a sublime combo.