HAPPY St David’s Day!
Wales has provided Saints with some all-time great players and club legends over the decades, with the Red Dragon breathing fire in the Red V over the decades.
Most recently back-to-back Grand Final winner Regan Grace from Port Talbot carried on the great Saints Welsh flank tradition of compatriots Roy Mathias, Frank Wilson and Steve Llewellyn over the years.
Saints have mined a lucrative seam in South Wales over the years - and no Saints team during the best years of the 50s, 60s and 70s was ever short of a Welshman.
So in the footsteps of Reg Blakemore, Gyn Moses, Don Gullick and George Parsons in the 40s and 50s came John Mantle, John Warlow, Mervyn Hicks, Kel Coslett, Graham Rees.
Saints continued to scout there, bringing up Bobby Wanbon from Aberavon, Mel James from Swansea, and then into the 80s Roger Owen from New Dock Stars, Stuart Evans from Neath and Jonathan Griffiths and Scott Gibbs from Llanelli and Swansea respectively.
Just for fun, here’s a Saints Welsh XIII selection drawn from the last 70 years.
There are plenty of good players who have been omitted so please feel free to submit your own XIII in the comments section or via mike.critchley@nqnw.co.uk
A Saints Wales XIII
1. Glyn Moses.
2. Steve Llewellyn.
3. Scott Gibbs.
4. Frank Wilson.
5. Roy Mathias.
6. Jonathan Griffiths.
7. Bob Prosser.
8. John Mantle.
9. Reg Blakemore.
10. Mel James.
11. George Parsons.
12. John Warlow.
13. Kel Coslett.
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