Monmouth, hotbed for the multi-talented
Brendan Gallagher continues his series looking at rugby’s great schools
HISTORY will show that the 2020-21 season is the one that got away and, like many schools, Monmouth School for Boys will forever wonder what it might have produced.
Every sign pointed to their best campaign since their unbeaten team of 2014-15 and as if to partly confirm that two of their standout players showed up well in the recent England 18 Group Development camp – centre Joe Jenkins and flanker Theo Mayall. Both have already been spotted by Premiership clubs with Jenkins at the Bristol Academy and Mayall with Worcester.
“We were very optimistic but I expect every school’s coach will tell you that about last season!” quips coach Paul Morris. “We will never know but Theo is coming back next year so hopefully he will enjoy one last school season and we have a very decent group generally so they could go well. Although there has obviously been no games this season we have worked very hard on core skills.
“Stacking up behind we have a couple of very strong year groups so the immediate future is quite promising… if only we and all the other schools can just get back onto action and enjoy an uninterrupted season.” Amen to that.
Monmouth is one of the oldest educational establishments in Wales but, situated as it is on the border of Wales and England it has always had a foot in both camps. Students are drawn from either side of Offa’s Dyke and are often dual qualified.
Initially lagging a little behind Llandovery and Christ College Brecon, Monmouth started to become a powerhouse team either side of World War 2 with a number of unbeaten sides and by the 60s could go toe-to-toe with any school in Britain, let alone Wales.
From 1962 onwards – and for many years afterwards – the school’s rugby was led by the formidable Rod Sealy who had previously been at Chichester HS. Sealy held sway as the First XV coach for the best part of 34 years while another huge influence in more recent decades was former Wales and Lions wing John Bevan.
Bevan arrived from Arnold School in Lancashire, ostensibly as an RE teacher and housemaster, but was soon persuaded to help out with the First XV. Although now retired, Bevan continues to assist coaching a couple of days a week.
One of the most distinguished Old Monmothians was future England full-back Tony Jorden, who captained the First XV a year ahead of the legendary Keith Jarrett, and was one of the best cricketers the school has produced. Jorden, a hostile fast bowler, took 28 wickets at six apiece in 1965 and opened the bowling for the Public Schools against the Combined Services. Another English cricketing fullback was Steve James who went onto even greater things as a cricketer with Glamorgan and England, scoring 47 first class centuries at an average of more than 40 in his long career. As a rugby player he continued to play for Lydney until his cricket duties made that impractical. James has since turned to sports journalism, which is another avenue that other old Monmothians have pursued. Chief among those would be Eddie Butler who was a member of the Monmouth Seven that won the 1973 and 1974 Festival tournaments at Rosslyn Park before playing for Cambridge University and Pontypool, a career which also saw him captain Wales. After that he wrote on the game for the Observer and Guardian and, of course, succeeded Bill McLaren as the BBC’s lead rugby commentator.
Acclaimed feature writer Martin Johnson who passed recently, was also a Monmouth old boy and took his knowledge of cricket and rugby into his writing career while Gareth A Davies, the Daily Telegraph boxing correspondent, captained both the First XI – a team including James – and the First XV.
Yet another rugby-playing author from Monmouth was John Gwilliam – the son of a Forest of Dean family – who was born in Pontypool which made him eligible for Wales, who he skippered to two Grand Slams in 1950 and ‘52. A formidable no nonsense No.8 and fanatical trainer, Gwilliam was a tough taskmaster but also turned into an exceptional teacher and eventually the long-time head teacher at Birkenhead school.
On his retirement from rugby in 1958 he wrote the authoritative Rugby Football Tactics, one of the more enlightened books of its kind.
A number of former students and players in more recent times have maintained that Monmouth tradition for producing strong individualists with more than one string to their bow. Top referee Wayne Barnes is an old boy while their most recently capped player is wing Hallam Amos, the last in a long line of Welsh rugbyplaying medics who somehow managed to combine his professional career with completing his training as a doctor.
Then there is flanker Richard Parks who went on to become a distinctly useful flanker with Pontypridd, Celtic Dragons, Leeds Tykes, Perpignan and Wales but became even better known after retiring with a shoulder issue and morphing into one of Britain’s best known modern day ‘explorers’.
His best-known exploit came in 2010 when he set himself the 737 challenge – to climb the highest mountains on the world’s seven continents and to also travel to the North and South Pole, all within seven months. He completed his marathon effort, which raised money for Marie Curie Cancer Care, two weeks early.