The life and times of Lyn Jones, one of Welsh rugby’s most colourful characters
LYN Jones has been one of the great characters in Welsh rugby and a man who has done so much in the game.
As a scavenging, footballing flanker, he won five Wales caps, while he played with distinction for Neath, Llanelli and Treorchy during the ‘80s and ‘90s.
Over more than two decades as a coach, he has had spells in charge of Neath, the Ospreys, London Welsh and the Dragons, winning trophies and titles along the way, with his current job seeing him in charge of the Russian national side.
Now he reflects on his rugby life.
Who was the best player you played with?
JONATHAN Davies was a special player for his attitude, his aggressiveness, his strength, his speed. He was quite a dirty player too!
You are talking about a time when there were holes everywhere, all over the field, and, with Jonathan’s vision and speed, you were going to score a try.
My job at Neath was just to keep the ball alive as often as I could, get it through another pair of hands and hopefully it would find its way to Jonathan. He would keep people motivated to remind them to get the ball to him! If we could do that, it gave us the best chance.
He was instrumental in helping Neath out of the doldrums. Everybody played a part, but sometimes you have to have a cherry on top of the cake and we were a different side when Jonathan played.
Another player who stands out is Brian Williams. The things he did was just stuff from superhero comics.
I had been playing for Neath for six weeks and my knees were killing me from going backwards in the scrum.
I had my back to the door in the changing rooms one day when Brian Thomas walked in and said ‘I’ve got a new playet to introduce to you. His name is Brian Williams, he’s a prop from Narberth.’
I turned round, I took a double look and I thought ‘That’s not the prop I am looking for.’
I was looking for someone who was 18 stone, 6ft 3ins and shaped like a cornflakes box. Brian was not any of those. He was about 13 stone.
Anyway, my first game with Brian was against Bridgend at the Gnoll.
I remember he beat me across the field to a maul and there were about ten players in there. It wasn’t going anywhere.
Then, out of the blue, Brian comes out of the maul and runs down the field. I am thinking ‘Who the hell is this player? How did he do that?’
Players who stood out for me did so because they did superhuman things, things I couldn’t do and I admired that in people. There were lots of very good players, but Jonathan and Brian were exceptional players.
Who was your most difficult opponent?
I joined the Scarlets for the first year of league rugby in 1990 and it was a couple of months into the season.
Rupert Moon had to go back to Birmingham to play for the Midlands division and Mike Griffiths, the other scrum-half, decided he wanted to go home to Pembrokeshire to play for his club again.
So, for one Saturday, the Scarlets were left without a No.9 and they asked me if I could go and play there. I thought ‘Oh hell,’ but I said OK.
We played Bridgend away and it was probably the game that set Rob Howley’s career on the right road!
I remember turning up and, before going on, Gareth Jenkins said to me ‘Remember now, Lyn, you are not a scrum-half, you are a flanker playing 9.’
That really dampened my spirits! I had a disaster of a game.
The first scrum, I put the ball in and Derek Bevan penalised me for not straight!
He knew before the game started what he was going to do. There was nothing wrong with it. The ball going into the scrum was perfect.
So my most difficult opponent as a player was Derek Bevan!
But really for me, when I was playing, the player who was unbelievable was Mark Ring.
He had everything. He had vision, he had balance, a step, he had the speed, he was a big lad and he had aggression. He was very difficult to play against.
Three knee operations made him a normal rugby player in the end. It was just tragic he had so many injuries that robbed people of so much entertainment.
What was your favourite ground to play on?
CARDIFF Arms Park was excellent. The atmosphere, the crowd, the surface. My third game for Neath was away at Cardiff. I was 19 and I was playing against Gareth Davies at the Arms Park. I just remember the excitement and the noise was mindblowing. That had all the ingredients.
I also liked playing at Newbridge, with that pitch up there at the Welfare Ground. It was always a flat, hard, fast track. St Helen’s, Swansea, was a nice ground to play on too.
But everybody will tell you, there’s nothing like playing on your home ground, and in the 1980s that was The Gnoll for me. They were innocent times. You could express yourself as a player and as a rugby man. The atmosphere and the memories at the Gnoll were very special.
What was your favourite game as a player?
BATH, at the Gnoll, November 1986.
The first time I ever played for Neath against Bath was in 1983 and we lost 67-0 down at The Rec. They had a hell of a team, English internationals from 1 to 15.
But after that we didn’t lose to them. A couple of things stick in the mind from that 1986 game.
I remember standing at the back of the lineout looking at a young boy making his debut for Bath and thinking ‘You have got no chance of making it because you are too small.’
But Andy Robinson went on to have a very distinguished career for England and the British Lions!
Then there was Jonathan’s spectacular try. He did it again the following week against Bridgend and he told his opposite number Aled Williams what he was going to do!
You can’t coach it and you can’t mark it. It’s very special.
I mention Jonathan’s name a lot and deservedly so because he revolutionised rugby in the 1980s and gave us hope.
What about the best captain you played under?
PHIL Davies was a great captain and a great rugby player. I remember one game for Llanelli I was running across the field and, for whatever reason, I had fallen out of concentration. Phil came up behind me and screamed my name. I accelerated a bit after that!
I keep telling young players that story. Don’t fall asleep on the field and keep working hard.
It was Phil who actually explained to me what I was doing on a rugby field and why it was important for the team. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I was just doing it because I liked doing it and didn’t realise what the consequences were of my actions. So Phil sat down and explained them. He was always encouraging, always confident.
Turning to life after you hung up your boots, who is the best player you have coached?
SHANE Williams was one of the greatest players ever to play for Wales, without a shadow of a doubt.
I didn’t really coach him very much. You just gave him the licence to get on and play and enjoy. Probably the biggest decision I made was pushing him from scrum-half to the wing and then from the right wing to the left.
Gavin Henson was another player who didn’t need much coaching. You just put him in the right position and made the right environment for him. I thoroughly enjoyed working with him.
One of my memories is down at St Helen’s where Sean Holley and I were putting vaseline on Gavin’s legs before a game to make sure he didn’t get any on his hands.
I looked up out of the corner of my eye and Jason Spice couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He was just shaking his head disapprovingly towards me, mouthing something not very complimentary.
Barry Williams was a great captain for the Ospreys, a great leader who had so much to offer as a player. He was untouchable when the game opened up and I totally understood why the Lions picked him for the 1997 tour of South Africa.
Who was the most challenging player to coach?
JUSTIN Marshall was probably the toughest challenge. He was a very talented player, but a very selfish player as well, so it was a difficult time.
When the Ospreys then decided they wanted to sign Mike Phillips, that made life 10 times as hard and took a big focus away from my job. I spent most of my time dealing with that. That was a particularly challenging period which could have been dealt with a little bit more sympathetically. Marshall was selfish and wanted to play every game. He never made a mistake in his life and played the All Blacks way, which was fine, but he wasn’t playing with 14 other New Zealanders. He was playing with other people who saw the game slightly differently.
What has been your proudest moment in coaching?
PROBABLY when Wales beat England at Twickenham in 2008 when they had 13 Ospreys. That was such a proud time because the Ospreys were in their infancy. That’s right up there.
The Ospreys beating Leicester in the EDF trophy at Twickenham was special and so was winning the Celtic League for the first time, in 2005, with four games to spare. That was a hell of a night and a hell of a season. We played some scintillating rugby.
London Welsh winning the Championship final in 2013 was a miracle, it really was. That was such a fun, happy time at Old Deer Park, one of the better seasons in my career.
Going to the World Cup with the Russia was very special and even coaching the Welwitschias in Namibia, going to South Africa and winning a game in Johannesburg, which hadn’t happened for 25 years. That meant so much to them.
Magic moments. It’s why we coach, why we get involved, to see the happiness.