Ask John Perkins about a rugby career which brought him 18 Wales caps in the mid-1980s and he is disarmingly frank.
“I was never a great player," he declares. "That’s not false modesty, it’s just realism. I was small for a second row, 6ft 2ins. I never had blistering pace, my ball skills were not great. I always say I had the eye-hand co-ordination of a chicken with its head cut off! But one thing I did have was a fair amount of determination and I was prepared to do what I was told to do.”
That steely resolve eventually took Perkins to the international stage at the age of 28, in 1983, and for the next three years he was a virtual ever present in the Wales team, forging a highly effective partnership of contrasting strengths with Bob Norster. While Norster was the supreme athlete in the middle of the lineout, Perkins was the man contesting ferociously at the front, bringing his physical presence to bear both there and at the coal-face of scrum, ruck and maul.
