Watcyn Thomas was a Welsh rugby union

Rugby union

Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...

 player who captained Wales

Wales national rugby union team

The Wales national rugby union team represent Wales in international rugby union tournaments. They compete annually in the Six Nations Championship with England, France, Ireland, Italy and Scotland. Wales have won the Six Nations and its predecessors 24 times outright, second only to England with...

 in the early 1930s.

Thomas was born in Llanelli

Llanelli

Llanelli , the largest town in both the county of Carmarthenshire and the preserved county of Dyfed , Wales, sits on the Loughor estuary on the West Wales coast, approximately west-north-west of Swansea and south-east of the county town, Carmarthen. The town is famous for its proud rugby...

 and educated at Llanelli County School and at University College, Swansea

Swansea University

Swansea University is a university located in Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom. Swansea University was chartered as University College of Swansea in 1920, as the fourth college of the University of Wales. In 1996, it changed its name to the University of Wales Swansea following structural changes...

. While still at school he was the first captain of the newly formed Welsh Secondary Schools XV in 1924. He then joined Llanelli RFC

Llanelli RFC

Llanelli Rugby Football Club is a Welsh rugby union club founded in 1875 and its senior team is one of the leading club sides in Wales. The club began the 2008-09 season at their historic home ground of Stradey Park in Llanelli, but moved in November 2008 to the new Parc y Scarlets in adjacent...

, moving to Swansea

Swansea RFC

Swansea Rugby Football Club is a Welsh rugby union team which plays in the Welsh Premier Division. Its home ground is St Helens Rugby and Cricket Ground in Swansea. The team is sometimes known as The Whites because of the primary colour of the team strip...

 in December 1927. A teacher by profession, he moved to St Helens

St Helens, Merseyside

St Helens is a large town in Merseyside, England. It is the largest settlement and administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens with a population of just over 100,000, part of an urban area with a total population of 176,843 at the time of the 2001 Census...

 to teach at Cowley Grammar School in 1929, and played rugby for Waterloo

Waterloo R.F.C.

Waterloo Football Club is an English Rugby Union team based at St Anthonys Road, Blundellsands, Merseyside. It celebrated its 125th season in 2007/08, having been founded in 1882 by brothers Sidney and Harry Hall and George Abercrombie. From 1882 until 1884 the club was known as Serpentine after...

 and Lancashire, captaining Lancashire to the championship in 1934-35.

After Llanelli's victory against the touring New Zealand Maoris, he won his first cap

Cap (sport)

In sports, a cap is a metaphorical term for a player's appearance on a select team, such as a national team. The term dates from the practice in the United Kingdom of awarding a cap to every player in an international match of association football...

 for Wales against England

England national rugby union team

The England national rugby union team represents England in rugby union. They compete in the annual Six Nations Championship with France, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, and Wales. They have won this championship on 26 occasions, 12 times winning the Grand Slam, making them the most successful team in...

 in 1927. Against Scotland

Scotland national rugby union team

The Scotland national rugby union team represent Scotland in international rugby union. Rugby union in Scotland is administered by the Scottish Rugby Union. The Scotland rugby union team is currently ranked eighth in the IRB World Rankings as of 19 September 2011...

 in 1931 he played for 70 minutes with a broken collarbone

Clavicle

In human anatomy, the clavicle or collar bone is a long bone of short length that serves as a strut between the scapula and the sternum. It is the only long bone in body that lies horizontally...

 and scored a try

Try

A try is the major way of scoring points in rugby league and rugby union football. A try is scored by grounding the ball in the opposition's in-goal area...

. As captain he led Wales to victory over England at Twickenham

Twickenham Stadium

Twickenham Stadium is a stadium located in Twickenham, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. It is the largest rugby union stadium in the United Kingdom and has recently been enlarged to seat 82,000...

 in 1933, overcoming the "Twickenham bogey" that had haunted Wales. However, after the match against Ireland

Ireland national rugby union team

The Ireland national rugby union team represents the island of Ireland in rugby union. The team competes annually in the Six Nations Championship and every four years in the Rugby World Cup, where they reached the quarter-final stage in all but two competitions The Ireland national rugby union...

 the same year, Thomas fell out with the selectors, who had selected a prop as flanker and a flanker as prop for the match. Thomas ignored this and played them in their usual positions, and never played for Wales again.

In 1936 he moved to Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

 to teach at King Edward VI School Aston

King Edward VI Aston

King Edward VI Aston School is a selective, all-boys' grammar school and specialist Sports College. The school, designed by Birmingham architect J.A. Chatwin, opened in 1883 and is still located on its original site, in the Aston area of Birmingham, England....

, and died there in 1977. An extension to a building at the school, opened in May 2008, is named in his honour.

Biography

• Hughes, Gareth (1983) One Hundred Years of Scarlet (Llanelli Rugby Football Club) ISBN 0-9509159-0-4