Fearless flier redefined full-back play and gave rugby peerless moments

WALES great JPR Williams will go down as perhaps rugby's finest fullback and yet his storied sporting career might easily never have happened.

- Nick Purewal

The sideburned-sidestepper who first felled the All Blacks and then the Springboks on successive Lions tours has died, aged 74.

Tributes have poured in from across the globe at the passing of the peerless No15, who just so happened to have a day job as an orthopaedic surgeon.

Born and raised in Bridgend before later being schooled in London, he had a real chance of becoming a tennis professional. His doctor father had other ideas, however, and told him to "get a proper job", as Williams himself later recalled.

So, seek a suitable career he did, and his exploits in medicine allowed him to pursue rugby as a passion - one that earned him 55 Wales caps and eight with the Lions.

At the vanguard of Wales's glory era, William helped the Lions to what still remains their sole Test series win in New Zealand in 1971, and then was on hand as the tourists toppled South Africa in 1974 to boot.

Later, he combined his work as a surgeon by turning out at local club Tondu, still in the back-row into his 50s.

He died yesterday and is survived by his wife and four children.