Throughout his distinguished career for Wales and the Lions as the finest hooker of his generation, Bryn Meredith, right, never once got the chance to scrum down against the All Blacks.
He ought to have done so during the second of his three Lions tours, to New Zealand in 1959 when everyone considered him the best among the four home countries, everyone except the Lions’ selectors. They automatically downgraded Meredith by giving the captaincy to another hooker, Ireland‘s Ronnie Dawson.
An automatic selection for the four-match series against the Springboks in 1955 and again in 1962, Meredith knew his fate before leaving for New Zealand. “Unfortunately the captain was a hooker,” he said. “I said to myself: ‘If I was captain, who would I pick? I’d pick me’.”
The best man for the job in 1959, Meredith had to wait another four years for his one and only crack at the All Blacks, during his brief stint coaching Newport immediately after his retirement a few months earlier.
When survivors of the Black-and-Ambers most famous match like Brian Jones and Dennis Perrott talked of old times after last week’s funeral of their captain, Brian Price, Bryn Meredith was there, still going strong in his 94th year. No New Zealand captain can have paid a Welshman a more heartfelt tribute than the one the late Sir Wilson Whineray penned for Newport’s definitive history book:
“In the final analysis we were beaten by a side of dedicated individuals, wonderfully prepared by Bryn Meredith, each man knowing his part in the team pattern and playing for victory with unswerving resolution. Those are the very qualities that we recognised, admired and sought ourselves.”
