JPR Williams, the Welsh full-back who reinvented his position, has died aged 74

| January 10, 2024 | Sport | No Comments

JPR Williams, the Welsh full-back who reinvented his position, has died aged 74

Gareth Edwards (à gauche) et JPR Williams (à droite), légendes du rugby gallois. MAXPPP

John Peter Rhys Williams, whose death was announced on Monday by his club Bridgend Ravens, redefined the role of fullback in the 1970s to invent a "total rugby" with the great Welsh generation which then reigned over the Five Nations Tournament.

Live and blessed with great athletic qualities, he breaks conventions and intercepts passes, plays with his feet, often at the wrong time, to destabilize the opposing game. With him, the back, until then rather static, becomes capable of scoring tries.

Williams had the chance to be part of a Leek XV at the height of his glory and won eight Tournaments between 1969 and 1979, including three Grand Slams in 1971, 1976 and 1978. With partners who had also become legendary : Gareth Edwards, Phil Bennett, Barry John and, at the end of his career, his namesake J.J. Williams.

He was then identified by sports journalists only by his initials "JPR". Flamboyant on the pitch, he is also flamboyant in his physique. Huge sideburns reaching the corners of his lips, hair blowing in the wind, an alert and mischievous eye, this player who does not have the build of a mover (1.85 m, 75 kg ) imposes its elegance.

Even his corkscrew socks become a genre. 'The world of rugby has lost one of its greatest players of all time, a man who revolutionized the fullback position during an international career of twelve years including 55 caps for Wales and eight for British & Irish Lions", greeted the president of the Welsh Rugby Union, Terry Cobner, who was one of his teammates during the Grand Slams of 1976 and 1978.

A story primarily linked to tennis

However, it was not rugby that JPR Williams favored in his youth, but tennis. Born in Bridgend, 40 kilometers west of Cardiff, in a family where the oval still holds a large place, it was on the courts that he obtained his first successes.

Both doctors, his parents intended him to follow in their footsteps but his father, a great fan of the oval ball, also made JPR and his three brothers play rugby on the family tennis court.

Rather than choosing between one or the other, the young boy pursues both. Welsh junior tennis champion, he is also selected to play rugby with the national under-fifteen team.

L'Oval only definitively gained the upper hand with his selection at the age of 19 for the Welsh B team's tour to Argentina. Before he turned twenty, he obtained his first international cap in the Five Nations Tournament against Scotland in 1969 at Murrayfield, with a victory.

"Break my bones, put together those of others"

Despite his success in rugby, he never lost sight of his medical career. From 1977, he reduced the time devoted to sport to pass his final exams as an orthopedic surgeon.

"I usually say that I spent half my life breaking bones on the rugby pitches and the rest. other half to glue those of the others back together in the operating room,” he said in his biography published in 2007.

He definitively bowed out of the national selection in 1981 but continued to play until 2003, notably for Tondu RFC in the small town of Aberkenfig, not far from his hometown. He will finally be able to play winger, his favorite position, even if he is known as one of the best fullbacks in the history of the game.

He then played regional cricket and became president of the Bridgend Ravens rugby club. "He was the rock of every team's defenses he played for, the inspiration for counter-attacks and the man who feared nothing and valued “A cause was never lost,” continued Terry Cobner, the boss of Welsh rugby.

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