JPR Williams stunned locals when he played in Warrington

Celebrated Welsh rugby legend JPR - John Peter Rhys Williams - died on Monday, aged 74, sparking an outpouring of tributes and memories.

For former Warrington Wolves captain and Wales international Nicholas, the day JPR graced the turf at Warrington Rugby Union Club’s Bridge Lane ground is remembered fondly.

JPR, whom Nicko described as a ‘quality player who was really tough’, was top-of-the-bill in a star-studded London Welsh Vets line-up which faced Warrington’s over 40s team, the Vikings, on October 25, 1986.

“London Welsh had a lot of galacticos - JPR, John Dawes, Gerald Davies, they had a great side – and I ended playing for them in games, all over the place,” said Nicholas, who lives in Stockton Heath is president of Wales Rugby League.

“I brought them up to Bridge Lane to play the Vikings, over 40s. And the Warrington people couldn’t believe it when they saw the line-up with the galaxy of stars that turned up.”

So much so, that Jon Jones, chairman of Alfred Jones (Warrington) Ltd, who was 24 at the time, decided he was going to get in on the action.

Nicko picks up the tale: “This young guy, Jon Jones, who used to have Alfred Jones Cash and Carry, he’d only come to watch the game.

“When he saw the line-up and that JPR was playing he went and got changed. He had only aim, and that was to tackle JPR. He ended up doing that, tackled him, and then he went off.

“He said ‘I can always say I tackled JPR Williams’.

“JPR once told us he had an approach to play rugby league from Hull KR.

“He was an orthopaedic surgeon, and they offered him a place at the hospital in Hull.”

But JPR never made the move into the 13-a-side code, which was professional at the time while rugby union wasn’t – officially.

Nicholas did take him and his London Welsh teammates to Old Trafford though to watch an historic rugby league Test match.

“That particular time when we played them, we ended up going to watch Great Britain and the Australia Kangaroos at Old Trafford and they were made up,” he said.

“I don’t think JPR had seen a live game of rugby league before that. There was 30 to 40 of us that went to the game, somebody in the media spotted JPR because they came and grabbed him and took him into the studio and he ended up being interviewed on TV.”

The crowd which JPR was part of that day, 50,583, set a record for an international match on British soil.

Nicholas also recalled his connection with JPR when he played for Cardiff City Blue Dragons in the 1981/82 season, which followed his nine years playing for The Wire.

“When I had a few games for the Blue Dragons, I had an injury and JPR, who was an orthopaedic surgeon, worked on the injury for me.”

Nicholas and JPR had been teammates on the Captain Geoffrey Crawshay’s Welsh XV 1972 tour to Cornwall, led by the 1971 British Lions captain John Dawes and featuring further star players of the era like Phil Bennett and Tommy David.

Mike Nicholas, stood far right, and JPR Williams, sat second from left, in the Crawshay's 1972 tour squad (Image: Book: From Swn-Y-Mor to Seattle)

It was only a month later that Nicholas signed for The Wire.

Reflecting on JPR’s career highlights why Jon Jones wanted to tackle him at Bridge Lane in 1986.

JPR was one of Wales’ most celebrated players during his country’s 1970s golden era.

The tough-as-teak full-back gained a worldwide reputation for his fearless defensive play, rock-solid safety under a high ball and attacking prowess that saw him excel alongside fellow household names like Gareth Edwards, Barry John, Phil Bennett and Gerald Davies.

The JPR moniker took effect in 1973 to distinguish him from Wales team-mate John JJ Williams, and it was a rugby career highlighted by him winning 55 Test caps across 12 seasons, being an integral part of successful 1971 and 1974 British and Irish Lions Test teams and taking his place among a small group of Welshmen to win three Grand Slams.

Socks always around his ankles and long sideburns resplendent, he was as popular among rugby supporters as any of his illustrious peers, while away from rugby circles, he became an orthopaedic surgeon and was a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons.

It could, though, have been a different sporting story altogether, given Williams’ prowess as a junior tennis player.

Born near the mid-Glamorgan town of Bridgend on March 2, 1949, Williams attended Bridgend Boys Grammar School and then Millfield School in Somerset, underlining his tennis potential by playing in and winning a British junior competition at the All England Club, Wimbledon, beating former Great Britain Davis Cup captain David Lloyd.

But rugby union was to be his calling, which he dovetailed with a career in medicine, qualifying as a physician in 1973 after studying at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School, London, by which time he was firmly established as a trailblazing full-back.

“I used to say that I spent half my life breaking bones on the rugby field, then the other half putting them back together in the operating theatre,” he said in his 2007 book JPR Given The Breaks – My Life In Rugby.

In terms of his club career, JPR was part of a great London Welsh team across the late 1960s and early 1970s, as they beat all-comers with a thrilling brand of rugby that gained its ultimate reward when seven players from the Exiles – JPR included – were selected for the Lions’ 1971 New Zealand tour, led by Welsh coaching mastermind Carwyn James.

Williams went on to play a major role in the four-match Test series, including landing a decisive drop-goal in the final All Blacks clash, which underpinned a 14-14 draw and ensured a 2-1 Test series triumph, a feat that has not been matched since by any touring Lions team to New Zealand.

“I never saw him kick a drop-goal before then,” remarked Nicholas.

JPR had been capped by Wales as a 19-year-old two years earlier, and by the time his decorated international career ended when he retired in 1981, he had carved himself a permanent place in Welsh rugby folklore.

JPR Williams at Wimbledon in 2023 (Image: PA Wire)

His ability to turn defence into attack through a fearless physical approach won him countless admirers, and Wales knew they could rely on a rock-like player whose bravery under a high ball often showed little thought for his own safety.

Self-preservation was never high on his agenda, as illustrated to full wincing effect when he prevented a certain and likely game-changing try for France wing Jean-Francois Gourdon during a Five Nations match in 1976 by fearlessly barging him into touch at the corner as Gourdon sprinted flat out.

In rugby’s current era, the shoulder-led challenge might well have seen Williams concede a penalty, but it was a moment of raw-boned physicality that inevitably took its place in Welsh rugby’s history books.

Williams’ high pain threshold was graphically underlined during Bridgend’s game against the 1978 touring All Blacks Having joined the Welsh club two years earlier, he was a key player to their hopes of upsetting New Zealand at the Brewery Field.

But during the game he was stamped on the face by New Zealand prop John Ashworth, leaving Williams requiring 30 stitches – his father Peter, who was a doctor, applied the touchline needlework.

“He could have lost his eye. But his dad stitched him up and he went back on. Amazing,” said Nicholas.

That single episode, as ugly as it was, epitomised a player who appeared not to show pain, whether of the physical or mental variety.

Williams captained Wales five times by the time he stepped down from Test rugby – he also went on a second Lions tour, another successful one, to South Africa in 1974 – and boasted a remarkable record of never being on a losing Wales team against England in 10 Tests.

He gained an MBE for his contribution to the sport, and such was his superb natural fitness that he continued playing into his early 50s for village club Tondu, often in the back row, before finally hanging up his boots in 2003.

Like many of his international rugby peers, Williams has done much for charity, highlighted by him climbing Mount Kilimanjaro that saw a six-figure sum raised for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

Williams, who worked as a consultant at the Princess of Wales Hospital, Bridgend, leaves his wife Scilla and four children.