In the closing minutes of Wales’s Five Nations meeting with France at Cardiff Arms Park in March 1976, the home side were resisting an onslaught by the visitors when the French wing Jean-François Gourdon found some space on the touchline by the north stand. Gourdon was then hit by a shuddering shoulder charge from Wales’s full-back, JPR Williams, that all but sent him spinning into the crowd. Williams raised his fist in triumph and Wales held on to win 19-13 and complete a seventh grand slam.
In truth, Williams’s tackle was far from legal, but the incident remains an indelible image in the minds of Welsh rugby supporters – that and a photograph of the Bridgend No 15 with blood pouring from his face after being trampled by a visiting All Blacks boot. International rugby in the 1970s was not for the squeamish, and JPR survived by being not just supremely skilful, but as hard as nails.
Williams, who has died aged 74 from bacterial meningitis, would forever be known as JPR, the three most evocative initials in the sport. Only France’s Serge Blanco could rival him as the greatest full-back in history. When the law-makers of the international board prevented the ball from being kicked directly into touch in 1968 it gave the opportunity for Williams and others such as Scotland’s Andy Irvine to forge a template for how a modern attacking full-back should play.
The source of Williams’s famous hardness is surprising. Unusually for top-class players in Wales, he came from a comfortable middle-class home. Williams once told of how he turned up at a Wales Schoolboys’ trial in a Rolls Royce. His upbringing, he said served as an incentive “to prove to my mates that I was tough and one of them”.
John Peter Rhys was born in Bridgend to Peter and Margaret, both doctors. Margaret had been born in Rochdale, so young John could have played for England, but that was not a subject much discussed in the Williams household.
It was on the lawns of Wimbledon rather than the muddy fields of Cardiff Arms Park or Bridgend that Williams first made his mark as a sportsman of renown. As a 17-year-old, he won the 1966 British junior tennis title at Wimbledon, beating David Lloyd in the final.
He was gaining a reputation at rugby in Bridgend, where his father was the club president and doctor. By this time Williams had left Bridgend grammar school for Millfield school in Somerset, where future Wales scrum-half Gareth Edwards was a pupil.
From Millfield, Williams went to St Mary’s hospital in London and had a spell at the London Welsh club. He chose to continue playing the amateur sport rather than tennis and concentrate on his medical studies, his father having told him that he would not make a living as a professional sportsman.
He was still a teenager when he was called into a Wales squad to tour Argentina in the summer of 1968. There were great expectations of the new boy John Williams, as he was then known, when he made his full Wales debut against Scotland at Murrayfield the following February.
Wales had a new coach, their former captain Clive Rowlands. Barry John at fly-half scored the final try in Wales’s 17-3 win. Something was brewing in Wales and the 70s were a golden age. Once Phil Bennett, alongside Edwards, established himself as Barry John’s natural heir and once JPR was joined by the wings JJ Williams and Gerald Davies, Wales became an unstoppable force in northern hemisphere rugby. At the heart of their team was JPR, instantly recognisable with his Elvis-Presley style sideburns, flowing hair and socks often pulled down to his ankles.
What set him apart was his success as an attacking player which, allied to that rock-solid defensive play, made him a permanent fixture in the Wales side between his 1969 debut and 1981, when he retired from international rugby. He burnished his reputation on the successful British Lions tours to New Zealand in 1971 and South Africa in 1974, playing in all four Tests on each. Williams had been on a Wales tour to New Zealand in 1969 when they were humbled by the All Blacks in two Tests so the 2-1 series win by the Lions two years later came as a big relief.
In Auckland he settled the series with a long-range drop-goal in the final Test. It came as a surprise to his team-mates, but England’s Bob Hiller, his full-back understudy on that tour, had apparently joked to him that he could not consider himself a proper international until he had dropped a goal.
In South Africa three years later, Williams was heroic again as Willie John McBride’s team prevailed in an often brutal series win over the Springboks. The Lions’ call of “99” often signalled all-out punch-ups, and the sight of Williams racing upfield to thump the much larger South African lock Moaner van Heerden was a memorable one, though, as Williams confessed later it was not something of which he was particularly proud.
Williams won 55 caps for Wales, five of them as captain in 1978-79; in 1977 he was appointed MBE. In between those Lions victories he scored the final try in the Barbarians’ famous victory over the All Blacks at the Arms Park in 1973, and after retiring from the international stage played club rugby for Tondu as a back-rower until 2003, when he was 54.
He met Scilla (Priscilla) Parkin at medical school, and they married in 1973. His principal post as a trauma and orthopaedic surgeon was at the Princess of Wales hospital, Bridgend (1986–2004). Williams rarely joined the ranks of retired players who became pundits, but he was always happy to talk about a stellar career, particularly the 11 games against England, in which he always ended on the winning side.
He is survived by Scilla and their children, Lauren, Annie, Fran and Peter.
• John Peter Rhys Williams, rugby player and orthopaedic surgeon, born 2 March 1949; died 8 January 2024
