JPR gives Liam his seal of approval

IT’S akin to Lewis Hamilton acknowledging a good driver. Or Michael Gerard Tyson saluting a modern-day pugilist.

For sure, it should mean something for a rugby full-back to receive an endorsement from JPR Williams.

Williams, after all, set the standards for play at the back. “Indomitable before thundering forwards whose strength he could match with his own, he made crowds, all over the world, suck in their breath to see him leap to pluck a high ball from the air when opponents advanced on him,” wrote Dai Smith and Gareth Williams in Fields of Praise, The Official History of the Welsh Rugby Union.

“JPR was the JCB of Welsh rugby for a full decade.”

Or try these few words from Clem Thomas in 125 Years of the British Lions: The Official History: “He was the sort of full-back every pack of forwards dreams of having behind them, a competitor beyond compare.

“He was the only full-back that made the All Blacks forwards think twice about following up a high kick, by being underneath it.”

Who, then, is Williams’s choice to start at full-back in the Tests for the Lions in South Africa this summer – Stuart Hogg, Liam Williams or Anthony Watson?

He doesn’t take long to come up with his answer.

“I would go for Liam Williams,” he says. “Not only is he brave and good in the air, he’s also a very good counter-attacker. I like the way he plays.

“Hogg is good player who’s very quick and he can also captain the side. But maybe his defence isn’t as strong.

“And I think Anthony Watson is a winger, not a full-back. I’m of the old school in that I don’t believe wingers can play full-back. For me, Liam is a full-back rather than a winger.”

John Peter Rhys Williams enjoyed two epic tours with the best of British and Irish rugby – to New Zealand in 1971 and to South Africa three year later. Both were history-making.

The boys of ’71 remain the only Lions to win a series in New Zealand, while the class of ’74 went through their trip unbeaten.

There’ll be debate for ever and a day over which was the bigger achievement, though Williams again expressing his view with certainty. “I think ’71, because it had never been done before and it hasn’t been done since,” he says.

“They were slightly different tours in that in New Zealand we had only about 40 percent of the ball, so we had to be really slick in the backs.

“In South Africa we won plenty of ball, so it wasn’t so important for us behind the scrum. But they were two very successful sides.

“As I get older I’m getting more and more thankful that I played with lots of great players, because however good you are, it’s hard to shine if you’re not playing alongside good players yourself.”