The Welsh preponderance reflected the fact that the principality was enjoying one of its periods of domination over the other northern unions, having just achieved the Grand Slam. Great players like Williams and fellow centre Matthews—nicknamed ‘Iron Man’ by the New Zealanders ‘because of my tackling, I think’, he mused recently—and flying winger Ken Jones made the Welsh back line irresistible. ‘I once beat Ken in a 100m sprint,’ Matthews recalled, ‘and when my time was beaten later on, I had to remind the new record holder he was running in spikes and we ran in flat shoes.’
Other Welsh Lions of 1950 included the Terrible Twins from Neath, lock forwards Roy John and Rees Stephens, as well as utility forward Don Hayward, prop John Robins and fly-half Billy Cleaver. Hooker Dai Davies and flanker Bob Evans became vital team members while the ever-cheerful Cliff Davies provided the baritone for the Lions choir.
Despite the tour having an English manager and selector, England had just three representatives, including captain Ivor Preece, which was not really surprising as English rugby was then in the doldrums, while Scotland had five and Ireland nine.
‘The Welsh and Irish got on great,’ said Williams, ‘but really we all gelled right from the start, all the nationalities, and maybe it was because so many of us had been used to getting along with strangers during our time in the services.’
The best known Scottish player of the day, the great back row forward W.I.D. ‘Doug’ Elliott, was invited to be a Lion but could not make the tour as he was a farmer and would miss the harvest, as was also the case with another Scottish invitee, Hamish Kemp. Doug Elliot did ask if he could join the tour for part of the trip, but was refused. The Lions Committee wanted total commitment in those days, and he never did make a tour. He was ‘a great character who was missed’, in Jack Kyle’s words. The leader of the Scottish contingent in 1950 was the barrel-chested flank forward Peter Kininmonth, while his fellow Scot, scrum-half Gus Black, was noted for his long and accurate passes which attracted the attention of an All Blacks team anxious to stop the Lions’ backs from cutting loose. It says everything about his destructive opposite number, Pat Crowley, that Gus Black survived just two Tests before giving way for the third Test to Gordon Rimmer, who in turn was injured during the game and replaced by the Welsh utility back Billy Cleaver, before Rex Willis took over at No. 9 for the final Test—Crowley destroyed them all.
Both the team captain and its star player were Irish. A fine hooker, Dr Karl Mullen had been captain of Ireland’s Triple Crown-winning sides of 1948 and 1949 and was first choice to captain the Lions. Firm and fair and with a surgeon’s bedside manner about him, he would go on to become one of Ireland’s leading gynaecologists, and with his wife Doreen would be at the heart of Irish society for many years. Doreen died in 2008 and Dr Mullen is now living quietly in Ireland.
Due to injury, Mullen missed a good number of matches but had a sound replacement as captain in Bleddyn Williams, while Dai Davies was such a success at hooker that Mullen stood aside for the team’s benefit even after recovering. Incidentally, both Davies and the lightning-quick flank forward Bob Evans were policemen, the latter an inspector with Newport C.I.D. All those young doctors and policemen—yet it was somehow a trouble-free tour…
Bleddyn Williams would become one of the legendary figures of Welsh and Lions rugby, and at the age of 85 his memories of the tour and before are pin sharp. But he nearly didn’t make the 1950 Lions tour at all.
As he recalled:
In the final Welsh trial before the Five Nations in the early part of January, Malcolm Thomas, who also came on the Lions tour, and I were in opposition. He tackled me and my leg was caught in such a position that I tore the ligaments in my knee. I was in plaster for some time, and though they picked me for the Lions, I still had to prove my fitness, which I managed to do in a match for Cardiff against Bath.
The great thing for me was that we went out by boat taking more than five weeks so that I was able to do all sorts of exercises with weights and by the time we reached New Zealand I was in pretty good shape. It also helped that we had so many doctors and trainee doctors around—Jack Matthews was a qualified GP, and Jack Kyle and Bill McKay qualified later, while Karl Mullen became a gynaecologist and Ginger Osborne was a dentist.
I got injured against Otago and missed the first Test, but it was only a pulled hamstring though I made it worse by playing on with the injury—there were no replacements then, of course, and you stayed on the field unless you had to be carried off.
That old law will mystify modern rugby fans used to the ‘revolving door’ replacements of modern matches, but Jack Matthews remembers that ‘no substitute’ rule ruefully: ‘On the tour I think we finished with only 14 men on the pitch in about 20 to 30 per cent of the matches we played. You just had to carry on.’
Matthews himself was almost the victim of some skulduggery by an alleged Irish selector, who threatened him with expulsion from the Lions.
On the morning of our 1950 Triple Crown game against Ireland, I went to ‘spend a penny’, so to speak, and this fellow just said ‘If you play well today you won’t make the Lions tour, as I’m a selector and will see to it.’ I ignored him and went out and played my usual game. We won 6–3, and I never heard another word.
One of the ‘doctors in the making’ on that tour was one of Ireland’s all-time greats, fly-half J.W. ‘Jack’ Kyle, whose inventiveness sparked many a try-scoring move by the backs. Kyle and his fellow Irishmen proved a big hit off the field, and combined with the lads from the Valleys in many a singsong.
‘We had won the Grand Slam in 1948,’ recalled Kyle, ‘and Wales had just won it, so naturally between the two countries we had the bulk of the party.’
Kyle’s experiences of being selected were typical of the time. As a medical student at Queen’s University in Belfast, he had already played for Ireland and was reckoned to be the outstanding fly-half of the day. He had hopes for receiving the selectors’ call but in the end found out he had been chosen for the tour from a newspaper.
‘My father, who was also John Wilson Kyle like me, was reading the Belfast Telegraph when he noticed a report saying ‘the following have been selected…’ and there was my name,’ said Kyle. ‘I know plenty of Lions who found out the same way.
In those days there was absolutely no question of any money or benefits accruing from playing rugby. My dad frequently said to me ‘You’re not going to earn your living from rugby, son, you had better pass your exams.
When he read of my selection, fortunately I wasn’t in the house. He read out the report and noted the fact that I would be away for six months and miss a full term, and then turned to my brother Eric and said ‘Does that brother of yours ever intend to qualify?’
I actually did take a few books and hoped to get advice from the other doctors on the tour like Karl Mullen, but I can’t remember doing much reading and we only had one session where Karl tried to teach me a bit about midwifery and gynaecology.
That may have been the only occasion when midwifery was learned on a rugby tour. As for gynaecology…
As a qualified GP, Jack Matthews’ position was much worse—he had to pay a locum thousands of pounds to fill in for him while he was away so that he didn’t lose his practice. Matthews said: ‘My son was two at the time, and my wife said I could go on tour, but she wanted a maid to help out at home, so I had to pay for her, too. And all we got was seven shillings a day expenses and we even had to buy our own blazers.’ The clothing allowance was also frugal—a Lions tie and two BIRUT badges which the players had to sew on themselves.
Jack Kyle did acquire something substantial from that tour—a brother-in-law,