Rugby World UK – July 2019

100 Best Players

What they

say about AWJ

ROB EVANS

The way he’s led

this group has been

unbelievable. He’s

awesome. He’s a f***ing great

bloke. Probably the greatest

player Wales have ever had.”

GARETH ANSCOMBE

He is the glue that

holds us all together

and keeps us honest.

Week after week, he turns up

and puts his body through the

wringer. He’s going to go down

as one of, if not the greatest

Welsh player ever. He’s set

the tone and standard for

Welsh rugby for a decade.”

LIAM WILLIAMS

Even now, at the age

of 33, he trains like a

teenager. He’s always

sprinting between drills, always

the first to arrive, shouting,

hollering and dragging

everyone else along. I don’t

know what his secret is. We’ll

be walking around gasping for

breath and he’ll be fresh as

a daisy. He’s a machine. He

gives 100% at every session.”

GARETH DAVIES

You’d think that

having captained his

country to a Grand

Slam he’d be happy about it,

but he’d wanted to keep that

line intact (AWJ was annoyed

to have conceded a late try

against Ireland in March).

That shows how much of a

competitor he is, how much

PICS of a legend he is.”

Huw Evans Agency.

PANEL

Quotes from

Behind the Dragon

years younger than Simon Shaw was

when he retired. Neither Welsh nor Irish

players play as many tough games on

the spin as the English and so Alun Wyn

may have a season or two on the clock

before he retires, although I suppose

the alternative would be to go out with

Gatland, the two great men of the era

in Welsh rugby departing together.

When Alun Wyn began his career, he

moved between the blindside flank and

the second row. He was heralded by

Swansea and Ospreys coaches and

followers. I remember writing, after

what I considered to be a rather

unremarkable series of performances,

that I doubted if he would reach the very

top echelon of international players.

So much for that opinion. He has been

outstanding on three Lions tours and,

alongside Maro Itoje in 2017 in New

Zealand, he formed a remarkable

locking partnership. Two intelligent men,

two men for whom rugby life alone is

not enough. One born in West Wales,

the other in London of Nigerian parents,

but a pair who gelled wonderfully

together and, if anything, had the edge

on the All Black pair of Brodie Retallick

and Sam Whitelock in the Test series.

Test rugby in all its history, and in this

era as much as any previous era, is an

arena for experience, grizzled, grafted

experience. That experience gives you

motivation because you understand

how failure feels. It allows you to take

short cuts while the youngsters buzz all

over the field. It gives you a gravitas and

an aura about which opponents can fret.

And it gives rugby a good name. But to

have Alun Wyn Jones the character as

an example of what rugby can become

is better than any multi-million pound,

prime-time advertising campaign.

His strengths are his lineout ability on

his throw and the opposition throw; on

his grasp of rugby, even though the

view from the boilerhouse is sometimes

obscured. His days in the back row

made him an excellent handler of the

ball, a fierce carrier. He is a tremendous

scrummager. His power and wisdom in

the contact areas are immense too.

Which have been his greatest

combinations? The Jones-Itoje alliance

in 2017 was memorable; so too the

partnership he struck with Ian Evans

when Wales hammered England in 2013.

But for me the best partnership in

which he was ever a part was that with

Luke Charteris. The massive Charteris

could never shake off his sheer bad luck

through injury, but at his very best he

was one of the greatest locks I’ve seen

and in the 2011 World Cup, the pair were

dominant. It’s fair to say that Charteris

will never be rated as highly as he

should have been, and that Jones

maximised himself. But what a pair.

Where does Jones stand in the

pantheon? It is difficult to compare the

modern-era locks with the likes of Colin

Meads and Frik du Preez because in

those days they were much smaller

men, however fierce. But he certainly

stands alongside the likes of John Eales,

Martin Johnson, Paul O’Connell and the

remarkable Shaw. I would place Jones

and those four just one rung above

Gordon Brown, Nathan Hines, Victor

Matfield, Wade Dooley, Patricio Albacete

and Whitelock. All greats, mind you.

Jones can add to that raw class an

inspirational ability to lead and galvanise

a team. You really do wish there was

some mechanism by which these giants

could lend all their experience to the

administration of the game. So few truly

great players can be bothered with the

committee rooms. Frankly, the WRU

should appoint him immediately to the

board. He has too much knowledge

for it to be allowed to drift away.

Our top 100 will cause controversy. It

is meant to. We are not suggesting that

our choices are laid down in tablets of

stone. Everyone on rugby’s planet has

the perfect right to their opinion.

However, should you disagree with

our choice of top man, we would

uphold our right to ask where you were

on 16 March when Alun Wyn Jones

picked Wales up in two hands and took

them to the Grand Slam; and why you

apparently missed the 133 Tests before

Carry on... Trying to escape a CJ Stander tackle that, played by the lock of locks. n