One of the stars of a famous British Lions victory in New Zealand has revealed he was set upon and punched by an angry All Blacks fan as he walked from the field.
Brynmor Williams helped set up the try which helped his 1977 touring team to a 13-9 win over the All Blacks at Lancaster Park.
In a newly-released book – Rugby Lives: The Untold Stories of 26 Welsh Internationals in Their Own Words – Williams has opened up about being assaulted by an All Blacks fan as his team celebrated on the turf of the Christchurch ground after referee Brian Duffy whistled for full-time.
Williams told author Simon Thomas the win was something he would never forget as “a supporter came up and punched me”.
“We were jumping up in the air and I was in Peter Wheeler’s arms,” he said.
“People forget that there were only about 20 British supporters in a ground of 50,000 people. It was all New Zealand fans.
“This one supporter clearly didn’t like the fact I was celebrating and hugging people. He tapped me on the shoulder and flipping whacked me on the jaw!
“I was knocked off my feet and he jumped on top of me and started punching again. Peter Wheeler and JJ [Williams] came running in and dragging him off me.
“It was quite an ugly minute and a half.”
The halfback – who played both test footy for the Welsh rugby and rugby league teams - said the rough justice dished out to him was a hot topic inside the Lions’ dressing room once players had regathered.
Coach John Dawes – who captained the Lions team which won a test series against the All Blacks in 1971 – made the decision to keep the incident quiet, Williams said.
It was a decision which he said in Rugby Lives that he was “fine” with.
“If that happened today it would be an international incident,” he said of the post-match assault.
“It showed how important rugby was to New Zealanders, I think, and just how crazy it was out there on that tour.
“They couldn’t bear the thought of losing and the Lions were the biggest scalp on the planet at that time, having won out there in 1971 and then again in South Africa in 1974.”
The incident hadn’t dampened his excitement of being part of the famous win, which he recalled as being “awesome”.
During the encounter, he had helped create the only try scored in the test to legendary Welsh wing JJ Williams.
“It was the biggest day of my life,” he told Thomas.
“To be walking off the field having beaten the All Blacks, there’s not too many Welsh people can claim that. It was fantastic and just an amazing, amazing experience to be a part of that.
“We had all played our hearts out. Graham Price was kicked and beaten, I was kicked and beaten.
“So that second test victory was everything and the delight was incredible. It was absolutely unbelievable. It means a massive amount to me now, still.”
Three weeks earlier Williams had earned his first British & Irish Lions test cap in the opening clash against the All Blacks at Athletic Park.
The All Blacks triumphed 16-12, thanks in part to an intercept try from wing Grant Batty.
Williams recalled that it was “heartbreaking because we were the better side. We should have won”.
Williams was named in the Lions touring squad after Welsh great Gareth Edwards decided not to tour.
Comparing it to modern rugby, Williams said the tour was very much a throwback to the amateur era.
The team played 30 matches during an almost four-month stay in New Zealand.
He recalled, “it rained almost every day for three and a half months. It was the worst winter in a hundred years”.
“We had 50p a day to buy a cup of tea and a sandwich on that tour.
“You would get it at the start of a week. There would be someone on the table with the money giving it out. That’s the way it was.
“But you weren’t doing it for the money. It was the honour of playing for the jersey.”
Williams made his debut in the opening match of the tour, a 41-13 win over Wairarapa Bush in Masterton.
His feelings of having had a strong first-up match were dulled when he read a local media report of his showing.
“I was sharing a room with Graham Price at the time and he went out to get the local paper,” Williams recalled in Rugby Lives, which has been published by Y Lolfa.
“I was looking forward to reading the report of the game because I thought I had done a good job. I’ll never forget, he came back into the room and said, ‘They won’t like you very much down here, Bryn’.
“He unfolded the paper and there on the back page was the headline, ‘Is this the worst scrumhalf ever to visit our shores?’.”
Any upset Williams might have had with the local newspaper’s harsh critique - and the latter assault - was buried by the time the 1977 Lions flew back to the UK.
In a heart-warming gesture, veteran All Blacks halfback Sid Going gifted his rival in the opening test encounters of the series two of his test jerseys.
“After the second test, my opposite number, Sid Going, asked me if I would like to swap jerseys,” he said.
“I would have loved to because in any Welshman’s rugby life, the two jerseys you want first are Wale and Lions and the third you want in your collection is the great All Blacks jersey. I was no different. That’s what I wanted badly.”
But each player in that Lions squad were only given two jerseys to last for the whole tour.
Williams wanted one to be kept in his family, the other for his club back home and had to apologise that he couldn’t swap.
“Anyway, the tour took its course and on my last night in New Zealand there was a knock on my hotel room door at the Royal Hotel in Auckland. It was Sid with two All Blacks jersey.
“He didn’t want anything for them. He just wanted me to have them. It was such a lovely, lovely experience.”
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