The greatest Lions: JPR Williams
In a series building up to the 2017 tour to New Zealand, we remember some of the greatest players to ever wear the Lions jersey.
So far we have acknowledged the legacies of Willie John McBride, Sir Gareth Edwards, Martin Johnson, Sir Ian McGeechan and Mike Gibson.
This week it is the turn of one of the game’s greatest ever full-backs, famous for his sidestep and sideburns, who dazzled the sport throughout his career with London Welsh, the Barbarians, Wales and the Lions. We’re talking about John Peter Rhys, better known as JPR, Williams.
Full-back before Williams made his mark on the game in the late 1960s was not a position renowned for the kind of audacious attacking play we see today from the likes of Ben Smith and Israel Folau.
Back then, wearing 15 on your back centred on defence; being strong under the high ball, and putting in the key tackles when required as the last man in defence. Those elements of course remain in the modern game, but they have arguably been superceded by a full-back’s ability to spot space and to exploit it.
Williams set the precedent. He went on only two Lions tours, in 1971 and 1974, and the mark he left on both is still remembered fondly to this day.
As a result he has one of the most impressive Test records with the Lions of any player, winning five Tests, drawing two and losing just once. To come away as a winner from two different series is a remarkable feat.
A tennis player in his youth, Williams studied medicine at the St Mary’s Hospital Medical School in London and won his first cap for Wales in 1969 at the age of 19 as the side went on to win the Triple Crown.
Two years later, he was on his way to New Zealand, on the back of a Welsh Grand Slam title. Looking back on the trips in 2008 talking to the Telegraph, Williams admitted that he could not believe his luck.
“Just imagine, I was a young sports mad medical student and I got to go on a four-month rugby tour when I could train or play every day, and every bit of food and drink was paid for,” he said.
“The Lions trips were the pinnacle, they were marvellous.”
Not that Williams was coasting. He started all four Tests in 1971 at full-back, the last time the Lions won a series in the land of the long white cloud.
Winning the respect of the New Zealand public is no mean feat but there was no shortage of admiration for Williams. His relentless aggression, ability under the high ball and use of the chip and chase made him a star.
Crucially it was Williams’ extraordinary drop goal from way out that levelled the scores at 14-14, ensuring a draw in the fourth and final Test and helping the Lions to clinch the series 2-1.
The kick was made all the more remarkable due to the fact that in Williams’ career, it was a complete one-off.
“As for my dropped goal in the final Test in 1971, it is absolutely true that I never kicked another in any standard of rugby,” he told the Telegraph.
“I had been practising with Barry and Bob Hiller that week and I never hit a ball truer in my life – it was still rising as it went through the sticks.”
Three years later, Williams travelled with the Lions to South Africa as a bonafide star of the game. His reinvention of the full-back position continued, not that his work as one of the Lions’ best attackers meant that he wasn’t afraid to get involved with the physical side of a bruising series.
Speaking to the Independent in 2009, Williams recalled his part in the now infamous ’99’ call.
“It was the first half and we were under a lot of pressure, and I’m not particularly proud of it now, but I remember sprinting about 40 yards to hit their biggest guy in the second row, Johnnes van Heerden,” he explained.
“As I went towards him, there were two players running the other way, Phil Bennett and Andy Irvine. At least I’d picked on the biggest guy.
“I met him on the train about three or four years ago when South Africa were playing Wales and he was coming down to present the jerseys to the South Africans, and he paid me a great compliment, he said it was the best punch he’d ever had in his life.”
The Lions finished the 1974 tour unbeaten, winning an astonishing 21 of their 22 matches. It might have been a perfect record had it not been for a controversially disallowed try in the final Test, ending in a draw.
“The amazing thing was that the South Africans were so elated that they’d drawn the fourth Test, and we couldn’t really understand that,” he added.
“I actually made the break and gave him [Fergus Slattery] the ball and he was over the line, took a long time putting the ball down and the referee blew up before he touched it down. Having said that, we had a rather dubious try through Roger Uttley earlier on in the game, so I think it was a fair result. But the Slattery try was definitely a try.”
Williams was still early into his playing career after 1974 and the call came again to tour with the Lions back in New Zealand in 1977. He turned it down to focus on his blossoming medical career, which resulted in him being made a Fellow by the Royal College of Surgeons in 1980.
Even though the chance to represent the Lions again remained a huge honour, Williams also knew that matching the achievements of 1971 would be hard to pull off.
His legacy at this stage anyway was remarkable. Possessing that key balance between competitiveness and mastery of rugby’s skills, Williams to this day is still widely considered as the finest full-back to ever play for the Lions. He continued to play for Wales until 1981, winning 63 Test caps.