JPR leads the tributes to Williams... ‘a lovely guy and a great player’

HE was a former rugby player good enough to play for Wales and the British and Irish Lions.

But the mental image many will have of Gareth Williams, who has passed away after a long illness, is of a dashing forward wearing the blue and white hoops of Bridgend.

He may have been born in Bedlinog, but he was educated at Bridgend Grammar School and played with distinction for the town’s rugby team during a golden era for the club. He was as Bridgend as the Embassy cinema, the town’s Old Bridge and indeed the Brewery Field itself.

The mind’s eye thinks back to Williams playing in derbies against Maesteg in days when the Old Parish had a team to be reckoned with. The games were often tumultuous affairs. At the Brewery Field, a mass influx from the Llynfi Valley would help swell the attendance and with a side that included Gwyn Evans, Leighton O’Connor, Phil Phillips, Colin Donovan, John Morgan, Billy Howe, Dai Arthur and John Thomas, the black-and-amber hordes travelled with expectation.

But Williams would often prove the rock on which their hopes crashed by raising his game to the level that saw him tour with the Lions in 1980. His loose play was magnificent and there were cornerflagging tackles that even the most one-eyed Maesteg supporter might feel moved to applaud.

Here’s the thing about him, though: after he fell ill with the rare nervous system disorder which left him bed-bound for the final year or so of his life, it wasn’t the rugby that people kept coming back to.

It was his fundamental decency that those who knew him referred to, his good manners and respect for others.

Indeed, one fan took to Twitter over the weekend to recall Williams leading the applause after Donovan had taken a Maesteg try record while playing against Bridgend. The suspicion was Williams carried a touch of class around with him in his kit bag.

“He was quite simply a lovely guy – Bridgend through and through and a gentleman through and through, as well,” his former Bridgend and Wales team-mate JPR Williams told WalesOnline after the former back rower’s passing.

“It’s a sad loss to Welsh rugby and we will all miss him very much.”

The celebrated ex-Lion, who featured at full-back when Williams made his Wales debut in the game with New Zealand in 1980, continued: “I remember Gareth first as a man, but he was also a fantastic rugby player who could play at No. 8 or openside flanker.

“As an attacking full-back, I always knew if I made a break he would be there on my shoulder, supporting me and giving me options. He was a great team-mate.”

His courage was never more evident than during his prolonged fight against Multiple System Atrophy.

He knew the spiteful condition couldn’t be beaten, but the fortitude he showed and the grace with which he battled the illness were typical of him.

All who saw him play, then, will remember him as a top-class player.

But he was also an inspiration as a man.

As JPR says, a sad loss, indeed.