Sir Gareth Edwards(1947–)

Gareth Owen Edwards was born at Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen, the small mining village in the upper Amman Valley on the Carmarthenshire-Glamorgan border, on the twelfth of July 1947, eldest son of Glanmor Edwards, a coalminer at the Steer colliery, and Annie Edwards. He was raised at Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen, was schooled at the local primary school and at Pontardawe Grammar School, where he was identified as a promising rugby-and-athletics prospect at fourteen by the legendary Welsh schools coach Bill Samuel, and on Samuel's recommendation took a scholarship to Millfield School in Somerset for the sixth form, where he sat alongside the future West Indies cricketer Viv Richards and the future Welsh-and-Wales prop Mervyn Davies.

He played for the Welsh schools at fifteen, made his senior debut for Cardiff Rugby Club at nineteen in 1966, and was selected for Wales at twenty against France at the Stade Yves-du-Manoir on the first of April 1967, the youngest Wales captain in history when he was named captain at twenty in 1968. He played fifty-three consecutive Test matches for Wales from his debut to his retirement on the eleventh of March 1978 at Cardiff Arms Park against France, the longest unbroken consecutive-Test sequence by any player in any Test rugby team in history (the record has stood for forty-seven years). The fifty-three caps included the Wales Grand Slam-winning teams of 1971, 1976 and 1978, the Triple Crown teams of 1969 and 1977, and seven Five Nations Championship titles.

He toured with the British and Irish Lions three times: New Zealand in 1968 (lost the series), New Zealand in 1971 (the unbeaten Lions tour that won the Test series 2 to 1, the only Lions Test series win in New Zealand in the history of the institution), and South Africa in 1974 (the second unbeaten Lions tour, won the Test series 3 to 0 with one draw against the apartheid-era Springboks). The 1971 and 1974 Lions tours are by general agreement the two greatest Lions tours in the history of the institution; Edwards's partnership at half-back with Barry John (1971) and Phil Bennett (1974), and the support play of Mervyn Davies, JPR Williams, Gerald Davies and Willie John McBride, are the central single Lions back-line of all time.

On the twenty-seventh of January 1973 at Cardiff Arms Park in the opening match of the Barbarians' tour against the New Zealand All Blacks, Edwards scored the try that has been universally remembered ever since as the greatest try ever scored. The play started with Bennett's three-step sidestep on the Barbarians' own 25-yard line, ran through JPR Williams, John Pullin, John Dawes and Tom David in a continuous handling sequence across the full length of the field, and ended with Edwards's diving finish in the All Blacks' corner. The BBC commentary by Cliff Morgan (the seven-second commentary line, this is great stuff, Phil Bennett covering, chased by Alistair Scown, brilliant, oh that's brilliant, John Williams, Bryan Williams, Pullin, John Dawes, great dummy, David Tom David, the half-way line, brilliant by Quinnell, this is Gareth Edwards, a dramatic start, what a score) is the most-quoted single rugby broadcast in television history. The try is on every modern list of the greatest single sporting moments of the twentieth century.

He retired from rugby at thirty in 1978 with the fifty-three caps, twenty Test tries (Wales record at his retirement), three Grand Slams, two Lions series wins, and the Cardiff Arms Park try-of-the-century. He was named the BBC Wales Sports Personality of the Year in 1973, was awarded the MBE in 1975, the CBE in 2007, and was knighted in the 2015 Birthday Honours List for services to sport. He was voted by the readers of Rugby World magazine in 2003 the Greatest Rugby Player of All Time. The Edwards name in modern Welsh sport carries the weight of the fifty-three consecutive caps and the Cardiff Arms Park try of January 1973.