The last survivor of the Cardiff team that also beat New Zealand on their 1953/54 tour, he won 12 caps for Wales and played in three Tests for the British & Irish Lions on their 1955 tour of South Africa. Only John Gwilliam and Courtenay Meredith now remain from the Wales team that beat New Zealand 63 years ago.
He famously returned to the fray against the New Zealanders despite dislocating his shoulder in the second half. The doctor replaced the dislocation and Griffiths, then a 22-year-old student at St Luke’s College, Exeter, demanded to go back on the field.
Wales were losing when he left the field and Wales were reduced to 14 men against the tourists for 10 minutes. Gwyn Rowlands moved off the wing to cover Griffiths’ centre position and Swansea flanker Clem Thomas switched to the wing while he was getting treatment.
In the book by Huw Richards, “Dragons and the Al Blacks”, which tells the story of the 1953 game, Griffiths explained how the injury happened and what the doctors did for him on the touchline before his brave return to the field.
“I had the two centres coming at me with the ball. I don’t know where Cliff (Morgan) was, but Bleddyn (Williams) had to take the outside half,” explained Griffiths.
“I had to use what I used to call the ‘basketball defence’ where you pawed one of them to make him pass, but hoped to God you’d still be fast enough to get the other one. The problem was that when that happened you didn’t hit him, he hit you – on this occasion it as (John) Tanner.
“I couldn’t move my right shoulder or pick up the ball. When I told Bleddyn I couldn’t move my shoulder, he said ‘let’s have a look’ and then, ‘you’d better go off.’
“Nathan Rocyn-Jones, the WRU surgeon, told me to go and lie on the blanket on the touchline. I did as I was told and in a few seconds he put it back in.
“It was aching, but it certainly wasn’t excruciating. You have to remember that all the muscles and the bits around them were warm. At 22, I still had a young body and Rocyn-Jones was an expert orthopaedic surgeon, so it was simple for him to put it right back. I never had any trouble with it after.”
Wales just managed to hold out as the Al Blacks pushed for more scores and the return of Griffiths lifted the Welsh team and the 56,000 crowd at Cardiff Arms Park. As Dr Gwyn Rowlands, his Cardiff clubmate, admitted, “what he did was exceptionally brave”.
WATCH PATHE NEWS FOOTAGE OF WALES BEATING NEW ZEALAND IN 1953
The 13-8 win completed a dream double for Griffiths, who had been part of the Cardiff team that had beaten the tourists 8-3 at the same venue a month earlier. Even though he was a student in Exeter, Cardiff skipper Bleddyn Williams had asked him to come home to play with the Blue & Blacks in the build-up to the game.
Griffiths had hoped to make a possible four appearances against the All Blacks, but in the end had to settle for three. The South West Counties selectors decided against picking St Luke’s students for their game, but he did play for Cardiff, Wales and then the Barbarians.
“Bleddyn asked me to come up for four or five weekends before the game. It was a long way, and I had to get special permission from the principal to be away, but it was worth all the effort,” explained Griffiths.
Born in Penygraig on 27 November, 1931, Griffiths had none other than the former Wales and British & Irish Lions wing Willie Llewellyn as his next door neighbour when he arrived in the world. He learned his rugby at Porth County Secondary School and won a Wales Under 15 cap against England in 1946 at the age of 14.
In 1950, he made three appearances for the Wales Secondary Schools, winning against Yorkshire Schools (14-3) and England (37-3), but losing to France (9-6). In the same side were future Welsh scrum half Onllwyn Brace and one of Griffiths’ future Lions team mates, Russell Robins.
As well as being a talented rugby player, Griffiths also excelled on the track. He won the Welsh Schools Senior boys 100 yards title in 10.8 sec, scooped silver in the 220 yards and won the Welsh AAA Junior Men’s 100 yards crown in 10.4 sec. In 1955 he took the bronze medal in the Welsh AAA senior 100 yards in 10.5 sec running for Rhondda Valley AC.
After leaving school he went into the RAF to complete his National Service and twice played for them at Twickenham in the Inter-Services Championships against the Army and the Royal Navy. He played alongside international players such as Jim Greenwood, the Scottish back row man who would join him in South Africa on the Lions tour, England’s Bob Weighill, who went on to become secretary of the RFU, and Peter Yarranton, who became President of the RFU and chairman of the Sports Council.
He also ran for the RAF and played for them in France and Germany. After National Service he returned to Cardiff for a year before heading to St Luke’s, where he was part of the famous side that became the first in British rugby to score 1,000 points in a season.
He played twice for Devon in the 1953/54 County Championship alongside fellow students, and Welsh internationals, Glyn John and Bryn Meredith. He made his Cardiff RFC debut at the tender age of 18 in an 8-3 win over Pontypool and went on to make 140 appearances for the clubs, between 1949-1960, scoring 74 tries.
He was the eldest of four brothers who all played for Cardiff. J.M Griffiths was a wing who played for the Rags,
Ritchie, a centre who won six Welsh Secondary Schools caps over three season, played 35 times for the senior side and David, a full back, played 11 times for the Rags and 1st XV before switching to Bridgend. David played at full back for the East Wales side that drew 3-3 with the 1967 All Blacks.
Vice-captain to Peter Goodfellow at Cardiff in the 1956/57 season, he also played for Llanelli in the 1960/61 season and made 13 appearances for the Barbarians, including six on the 1957 tour to Canada and against the 1953 All Blacks.
His Wales debut came in an 8-3 defeat against England in Cardiff in 1953 when he was one of six newcomers to the side. He went on to score three tries in the next three games in the Five Nations Championship as Wales finished second to England the season after winning the Grand Slam.
Five of his first six caps for Wales were on the wing, with the rest coming at centre. His three Test caps for the Lions in South Africa all came on the wing.
Although not an original selection for the 1955 tour, he was called out to take over for the injured Scotalnd wing Arthur Smith and the sick Alun Thomas. He arrived on 18 July and made the most of his time on tour.
He scored in his first two games, against Transvaal and Rhodesia, and ended up with three tries in 12 games. He missed the victory in the first Test, but was picked to partner Ireland’s Tony O’Reilly on the wing for the next three internationals.
The Lions won the third Test, but lost the second and fourth games to leave the series tied at 2-2. Those were the only defeats Griffiths tasted in his 12 games in a Lions jersey.
After the Lions tour he went to Loughborough University to specialise in Physical Education. He spent a short time in teaching, launching his career at Tonypandy Primary School, he moved into business management.
“I went with the Barbarians to Canada in 1957 and was duty officer the day we visited the factory of Canada Air, then the biggest overseas maker of aeroplanes for Britain,” he told Huw Richards. “The personnel manager was very nervous about having these rowdy rugby players visiting his factory, but it went so well, with the players meeting the people who worked there, that he invited me back for lunch the following day.
“I went back, met him and talked and came away thinking, ‘He’s got a good job.’ I hadn’t heard of personnel managers before – in the Rhondda the colliery managers did everything. I came back to Britain and started going to classes at the tech.”
His career shift saw him begin at the British Steel Corporation, in Llanwern, before joining the Thomson Group. He was the Personnel Manager at the Western Mail & Echo and then, from 1967, at Times Newspapers, in London.
From newspapers he switched to the world of pharmaceuticals, joining Warner Lambert USA. He eventually became a main board director at the FTSE 100 company, Amersham. He worked all over the world for them – Mexico, Brazil, France, Japan – before returning to Wales, an twin homes in Penarth and Newport, Pembrokeshire, in 1993.
He spent two years s an executive director of the Institute of Welsh Affairs, became a board member for the Civic Trust for Wales and a trustee of the Welsh Rugby Charitable Trust.
The Welsh Rugby Union offers its sincere condolences to Gareth’s wife, Anne, and his family.
