Graham Price stands as one of the true greats of Welsh rugby. Here is a man who started 12 successive Tests for the Lions on three separate tours, as well as winning two Grand Slams and four Triple Crowns with Wales.
Yet, if fate had taken a hand, he could have ended up playing for the Springboks! All will be explained on that front as we go along. As it turned out, he was to win 41 Welsh caps at tighthead prop between 1975 and 1983, the bulk of them as part of the legendary Pontypool front row, alongside Charlie Faulkner and Bobby Windsor.
He kept on playing for his beloved Pontypool into his late thirties and has remained closely involved in the game as columnist for Wales On Sunday, a role he has filled for some 35 years now. So there could be few more fitting candidates to receive a Lifetime Achievement award from the Welsh Rugby Writers Association. Price was presented with that trophy this week by his old pal Eddie Butler, following in the footsteps of previous recipients like John Dawes, Clive Rowlands and John Taylor.
Now 70, he has some tale to tell when we catch up for a chat, starting with how was it that he was born in Moscar, Egypt?
“My father, Eric, was in the services,” he explains. “He had joined the army at the outbreak of WWII in 1939 and then stayed in after the war. He was posted in Egypt and my mother and sister were out there with him. So that’s where I was born.
“During the war, he actually served in East Africa and he didn’t really want to come back to the UK. He wanted to stay over there and settle somewhere like Cape Town. So it could have been Graham Price ending up playing for the Springboks!”
Outlining his family roots, he continued: “Both of my parents were Welsh. My father came from the farming community in mid Wales. Then he moved away and went to work down the mines in Treorchy. He met my mother there. Her family was from Cwmparc.
“They moved to London where my sister was born. Then, at the start of the war, my father joined up and eventually ended up in Egypt, which is where I came along.
“I was only there a matter of weeks because we were evacuated when the Suez crisis blew up. We were in Bicester for a while and then my father came out of the army and joined the Military of Defence Police.
“His first posting was in Wiltshire, but my mother wanted to come back to be closer to her family in the Rhondda, so he went to work at the Royal Ordnance factory in Glascoed, between Usk and Pontypool. I was five at the time.”
Piece went to primary school in Usk and then attended Jones’ West Monmouth Grammar School in Pontypool, taking up rugby at the age of 12. His talent was soon apparent and he was selected to play for the Welsh Secondary Schools, while also representing his country in shot and discuss. Then, in 1970, while still a schoolboy, he made his debut for Pontypool.
“When I first joined the club, they weren’t doing so well. They were right down the bottom of the Western Mail merit table. But then Ray Prosser took over as coach and, gradually, over the next few years, we progressed from being the bottom club to winning the Welsh Championship.”
A key element of that transformation was the formidable foundation provided by the front row of Price, Windsor and Faulkner, who were to go on to enjoy such success together for Wales as well.
“The reason we were so effective together was because of Ray Prosser. More than anything, he was a motivator, he made us play to the best of our ability. He wasn’t one of those table thumpers, he was a very straight talker.
"It wasn’t just at Pooler, we knew he would be keeping an eye on us when we played for Wales. I can remember him saying to me many times ‘You came back half a pace in that first scrum. Don’t you go bringing those bad Welsh team habits back to Pontypool!’ He was so good at keeping our feet on the ground.
“Bobby had come from Cross Keys, while nobody knew anything about Charlie when he came along. He was actually 32 when he joined the club and then 34 when he got into the Welsh team. It was amazing. It couldn’t happen nowadays, but he was just so motivated.
“We were a well balanced front row. We were all of a similar height and we could go down low in scrum. The thing we would do is get to the mark and form up as quickly as possible, forcing our opponents to get down when they weren’t ready, which meant we had an advantage and would get them on the back foot.”
While they were so compatible as a rugby unit, the trio were quite different off the field, with Price a quieter individual than his larger-than-life front row colleagues.
“Bobby and Charlie used to rib me about having gone to Grammar School and University. I get my own back when I am doing my after-dinner speaking. I tell the gag that we had a combined IQ of 138 and I provided 126 of it! We were quite different as people, but on the field it really worked. We went on to have five really successful years playing for Wales, winning Triple Crowns and Grand Slams galore."
Their first international match together was against France in Paris in 1975 when Price and Faulkner made their Test debuts. It was an unforgettable day as a Welsh team featuring six new caps won 25-10, with Price putting the icing on the cake by claiming a thrilling injury-time try following a long range kick and chase. As Nigel Starmer-Smith famously said on commentary, “They will never believe it in Pontypool”.
It really was a score forged upon the fitness levels demanded by Prosser, with Faulkner and Windsor the first two forwards up in support to congratulate their front row colleague after he touched down. Price was immediately established in the side and his form over the next couple of years saw him selected for the 1977 Lions tour of New Zealand. It was a call up that meant so much to him.
“I used to wake up in the early hours of the morning and tune my transistor radio in to listen to commentary of the Lions playing in New Zealand on the 1971 tour, playing on famous grounds such as Lancaster Park, Carisbrook and Eden Park. Then in South Africa, there was Ellis Park and Newlands.
“Playing for the Lions was something I couldn’t aspire to, that’s something other people did. So the fact I ended up getting on there was really overwhelming.
“The 1977 tour was a tremendous experience for me. It was the finest three and a half months of my rugby life. I was determined to play in the Tests but I knew that would mean displacing Fran Cotton who had played so well on the 1974 tour of South Africa.
“I did that, with Fran moving to the loosehead, and then at the end of the tour they picked the whole Pontypool front row to start against Fiji. It’s the only time a front row from one club has played a Test for the Lions and we are all very proud of that. I don’t suppose that will happen again.
“Looking back, we were unfortunate in the way we lost the series to the All Blacks. We had so many opportunities that were left untaken. If we had taken them, who knows what would have happened.”
Having started all four Tests in ‘77, Price was to maintain that ever-present record on two more Lions tours - to South Africa in 1980 and then back to New Zealand in 1983 - making a remarkable 12 successive starts.
“When you look at the players who had the previous records, you had Willie John McBride, who played 17 Tests, Gareth Edwards played 10, It’s bloody amazing really when you think I have my name alongside them. It seems quite humbling really.”
Away from rugby, Price studied building construction at Nash College, in Newport, and then civil engineering at the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology, going on his first Lions tour while still a student.
Work-wise, he was employed by the Pilkington Group as a building maintenance engineer in their fibreglass factory and then became deputy manager for Cwmbran Shopping Centre, before taking a career change as he set himself up as an independent financial advisor.
And, of course, since 1986 he has been a columnist for Wales On Sunday, with his work in the media recognised, along with his magnificent playing record, by the Lifetime Achievement award he picked up at the Welsh Rugby Writers Association’s 50th anniversary dinner at the Arms Park.
“It was a real honour to receive the award. It has been a great journey since that first game for Wales in Paris, scoring the try which keeps getting re-shown. Then I have enjoyed doing the column for Wales on Sunday, it has been nice to keep in touch with the game.”
A father of three, with six grandchildren, Price spent much of his time in Pontypool, but moved to Croesyceiliog, near Cwmbran, a few years ago. Speaking from his home, he tells me just what rugby has given him.
“I think it helped me become a bit more confident. I was very quiet and shy back in those days. Prosser used to take the p*** and say ‘Pricey, shut up will you, I can’t get a word in edgeways!’
“So rugby gave me a confidence that I didn’t have before. But the big thing I got out of it which I really enjoyed was travel. It gave me the opportunity to go to places in the world I would have never have been able to visit in normal circumstances - South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Japan. So I have got a huge amount to thank rugby for.”
Don't miss Graham Price's views on the Wales tour to South Africa this summer. He writes a regular Wales Online column in association with
