It’s a question that often leads to much scratching of heads during pub quizzes across Wales.
Name the 13 Welshmen to play in Heineken Champions Cup-winning teams.
Tony Rees, Ieuan Evans, Nathan Thomas, Richard Webster, Allan Bateman, Andy Newman, Rob Howley, Gareth Thomas, Gethin Jenkins, Leigh Halfpenny, Nick Tompkins, Liam Williams and Tomas Francis since you asked.
Read more: Departing rugby player turned down Wales for his own well-being as he quits game
Still not a full XV of triumphant Welsh players in European rugby's top-tier tournament, then.
How different it could have been if Cardiff had got the job done all the way back in the inaugural season of competitive continental action, when an entire team of Wales-qualified players faced Toulouse in the final. Sadly from a Welsh perspective, the French prevailed 21-18 after extra time, reward for a performance notable for swift passing and speed in the backs and ruthless tackling.
Cardiff could have nicked it, though.
Twenty-six years on, we are still waiting for another Welsh side to reach the final, let alone win the whole shooting match.
With no region bagging a single success on the field in Europe this term, albeit that Covid ruined the campaigns of Cardiff and Scarlets in particular, the chances of one of rugby's most prestigious pieces of silverware finding its way to Wales seem more remote than ever, with ongoing funding issues leaving individual regions starting each campaign seriously disadvantaged.
But let’s return to Cardiff's class of ’96. What became of the team that started that day against Toulouse?
MARK ORDERS takes a look.
15. Mike Rayer
Once admitted he felt like crying as Cardiff went through a difficult spell during his playing days. Naming him in a dream team in his book Ring Master, Mark Ring says: “Like me, Mike is Cardiff born and bred, so we share a special bond. We often wondered how much wearing the blue-and-black shirt meant to others.”
Cut Rayer open and he would probably have bled blue and black.
The skilful and stylish full-back played 21 times for Wales and made 367 appearances for Cardiff. Has been Bedford’s director of rugby for the past 17 years.
As an aside, his name is used in rhyming slang for an all-day drinking session.
Most Cardiff supporters would readily toast Rayer.
14. Steve Ford
His was the union career that almost never was after the Welsh Rugby Union banned him for a dalliance with rugby league.
But the suspension was eventually lifted and Ford went on to enjoy an illustrious 15-a-side stint which saw him win eight caps for Wales and complete 258 games for Cardiff, scoring a club record 198 tries.
Played for Cardiff against the All Blacks in 1989 — and actually worked on the morning of the game. “I was fitting two bedroom carpets for my friend round his house,” he told WalesOnline last year. “I remember his dad coming upstairs and going: ‘You got a game today, Fordy?’
“I said ‘Yeah, the All Blacks!’ “
"So I fitted carpets in the morning and marked John Kirwan in the afternoon.”
Different times.
Ford lives in Cardiff and runs his own flooring company.
13. Mike Hall
A guy with an impressive CV which includes 42 Wales caps and two World Cups, in 1991 and 1995, the latter of which saw him captain the team.
The Cambridge University graduate qualified as a surveyor in 1991 and started his own company in 1994.
In 2006, he was involved with the development of the Cardiff City Stadium and the successful property developer also sat on the board of Cardiff City on two occasions.
A hard runner who was never short of confidence, Hall figured in the British and Irish Lions squad that toured Australia in 1989.
“My biggest regret at club level is that we did not win the Heineken Cup to be crowned kings of Europe when we should have,” said the centre in his book, Mike Hall: The Story. You can read more about Hall here.
12. Mark Ring
How didn’t he ever tour with the Lions?
Injuries didn’t help, but here was a 24-carat quality player, blessed with a razor-sharp rugby mind and extraordinary skills.
Settled at inside centre for Wales but was also a dazzling fly-half who played the game his way and entertained.
When he and David Bishop teamed up for Pontypool, they were arguably as potent a half-back combination in British club rugby at the time.
Ring later went into coaching, guiding Caerphilly to a Parker Pen final in 2003. Some would say Welsh rugby has failed to making the most of someone with such a keen rugby intelligence. "He sees things on a different level from other people," a former Wales international said of him last year.
Away from the game, Ring has run an entertainment and leisure team including skills camps and coaching days. In 2020, he turned to care work, offering companionship to patients.
11. Simon Hill
The wing scored two Welsh tries in 12 international appearances after making his Test debut against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo in 1993.
Hill spent nearly a decade at the Arms Park, playing in 241 games and scoring 115 tries before moving on to Bridgend in 2000. He also had a spell playing for the Cardiff Medicals, which gave a clue to what he was to do in later life as he ended up as a dentist.
However, in 2018, he received a suspended jail sentence and ordered to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work after admitting tax fraud.
10. Adrian Davies
Came up with a goal-kicking masterclass in the final against Toulouse with Davies supplying all Cardiff’s points.
A No. 10 who had the gift of time, he cut his teeth as a teenager with Neath in their late 1980s pomp — “I was scared of half of my own team-mates,” he later told us — with his career also taking in a spell at Cambridge University. He then joined Cardiff. His nine Wales caps arrived between 1990 and 1995.
He quit playing while at Richmond through injury, later coaching Esher before becoming a director at London Welsh.
Away from rugby, the chartered surveyor went on to become director of client care for Paragon building consultancy.
9. Andy Moore
He’s another one Ring includes among his ‘dream’ selections in Ring Master, saying of him: “Underrated in my view. He had great skills and a great attitude.”
Just four Wales caps for Moore, but he had a quick service and impressed for Richmond, Neath and Treviso after leaving Cardiff. The Oxford-educated No.9 worked in construction after finishing playing, while he is also an accomplished rugby commentator and summariser.
1. Andrew Lewis
Controversially penalised at a ruck seconds from time, with Christophe Deylaud nailing the penalty that won the final for Toulouse.
It was hard not to feel sorry for Lewis. “There is no way that was a penalty,” contended Mike Hall later.
The loosehead pop proved a fine servant for Cardiff rugby and won 29 Wales caps.
Later, he carved out a successful career with wealth management services company Brewin Dolphin, starting out in a trainee capacity before rising through the ranks to now be a divisional director at the Cardiff office. He's since moved on to investment management service provider Brooks Macdonald, where he is a senior investment director.
2. Jonathan Humphreys
Rare was the game that Humphreys didn’t finish battered and bruised and a bit more besides. There were better hookers in the world than Humph, but few were braver and few tried as hard as he did. Heart and soul barely covered it.
He led Cardiff and he led Wales.
Moving into coaching after a playing stint with Bath, he had jobs with the Ospreys, Scotland and Glasgow Warriors before taking over as Wales forwards boss.
3. Lyndon Mustoe
The Chepstow-product had been part of a mean Pontypool pack that contained such names as Andrew Dibble, Garin Jenkins, Chris Huish, Dean Oswald and Vince Davies. Mustoe moved to Cardiff in 1993-94 and played more than 150 games for them over a six-year stay.
He won 10 Wales caps.
Believed to have worked in the construction industry in Newport.
4. John Wakeford
Here's a gent who was 6ft 8in and touching 18st when it wasn't overly fashionable in Welsh rugby for too many to be built along those lines. Wakeford played for South Wales Police, Bristol and Caerphilly, as well as turning out 89 times for Cardiff between 1993 and 1997. There were also two caps for Wales. Outside of rugby, the amiable giant was a police officer in the south Wales force for 31 years before moving into security on retirement. He now works as a tax advisor.
5. Derwyn Jones
Cardiff dominated the lineout against Toulouse, not least because of the efforts of the 6ft 10in Jones and his fellow second-row lighthouse Wakeford.
The pair helped supply their team with a healthy supply of possession.
Jones played 164 games for Cardiff and won two Welsh Cup medals and played 19 times for Wales. He started out as a policeman with the Gwent force. On retiring from the game due to back problems, he went to Leamington Spa as a schoolteacher.
He returned to Wales to become team manager with the then named Cardiff Blues before moving across the M4 to the Ospreys.
These days he works as a player representative with the likes of Rhys Webb, Josh Adams, Jac Morgan, Adam Beard and Gareth Anscombe on his books.
6. Emyr Lewis
Not for nothing was Lewis known as Tarw — Welsh for bull — with his charges making him a hard man to stop. He gained 41 caps for Wales between 1991 and 1996. Perhaps his most memorable moment came when he kicked ahead for Ieuan Evans to score against England in 1993.
But he also played with distinction on the club scene — first with Llanelli, where he established himself as a rampaging ball carrier, then with Cardiff, for whom he played 174 matches over eight years, scoring 25 tries.
Went on to work in the photocopying industry, as an accounts manager for Sharp EU, while also featuring regularly as a pundit on TV and radio. You can read about his new life and deep religious faith here.
7. Owain Williams
A hugely popular character, Williams sadly passed away at the age of 56 last year.
Won just the one cap for Wales, against Namibia at Windhoek in June 1990, but he was an absolute stalwart on the club scene, playing more than 500 games over 18 years. You can read a moving interview he gave to WalesOnline in 2020 about his life here.
Away from rugby, the father-of-four had a job with a difference, being in charge of the set construction for the TV show Casualty. All his post-playing health issues were battled with typical bravery.
8. Hemi Taylor
Cardiff’s skipper against Toulouse after joining from Newbridge in the 1992/93 season, the New Zealand-born back-rower gained 24 caps for Wales and spent spent five seasons at the Arms Park, playing 123 times, before moving on to Penarth. Outside the game, he ran the Moorlands Hotel pub, in Splott, Cardiff, prior to heading for west Wales, taking on a sheep and cattle small-holding. You can read about his life on the farm here.
