Six former players from schools team in Lions side
IT’S always interesting to see where your schoolmates ended up – but chances are if you played rugby in Swansea in the early noughties then the answer is the Lions.
The Swansea Schools rugby team has six former players in the 41-man squad, three times as many as the whole of Scotland.
Rugby fans will have differing views on Warren Gatland’s selections for the 10-match tour, but the Swansea Schools factor in the squad make-up is incontrovertible.
Ospreys stars Alun Wyn Jones, Dan Biggar and Justin Tipuric played for them, as did Leigh Halfpenny, Liam Williams and Ross Moriarty.
“We are really proud of the fact that this has happened,” said Swansea Schools secretary Ian Milne. “It is a kind of reflective glory.”
Retired teacher Mr Milne said Swansea Schools had only ever helped produce four British and Lions players – Mervyn Davies, Richard Webster, Tony Clement and Malcolm Dacey – before the 2013 tour to Australia which included Jones, Halfpenny and Tipuric.
Swansea Schools run district teams at under-11 and under-15 level, with all the area’s comprehensive schools eligible to put forward players. They play other district teams in Wales, and also compete for the annual DC Thomas Cup and Dewar Shield.
He said Tipuric played at under-11 level before moving to the Swansea Valley Schools’ side, while Williams was also an under-11 player but was considered too small for the under15s.
Mr Milne, from Sketty, Swansea, said it was often hard to tell which promising young players would make the professional grade.
He recalled watching a young Gethin Jenkins in action in the Dewar Shield semi-final and, on another occasion, a teenage Rhys Webb, both of whom are in the Lions club.
Former Newton Primary School teacher Mr Milne said the Lions’ callups would feel like a reward for all the teachers who kept the district schools’ set-up going.
“It is like a drug – you can’t stop doing it,” said the 72 year-old, who is eight years younger than Swansea Schools touch judge Derrick Howells. Mr Milne said Gatland’s tourists faced a very difficult task in the three Test matches against the All Blacks. “It is going to be tough,” he said. Swansea Schools, which formed in 1900, toured New Zealand in 1976, winning one match, drawing two and losing four.
Off the field the players were given a warm welcome, including a traditional Maori meal cooked in the ground. The following season one of their opponents – St Stephen’s College – flew half way around the world to Swansea, cementing long-standing friendships.