Fearless beach boy who ran with Lions
PETER JACKSON
THE MAN TRULY IN THE KNOW
PETER Morgan's day would begin at the crack of dawn on a Pembrokeshire shore with his faithful friend off the leash, ‘The Beach Boy' and a ‘hairy monster' called Ned.
The old Lion and his faithful Irish water spaniel were always out there on Broad Haven's majestic stretch of sand, a double act almost as familiar as the tidal ebb and flow of the Gulf Stream washing the very stretch of coast where as a small boy Morgan began the rugby journey of a lifetime.
He played the game the only way he knew how, daring to find gaps where nobody else could see any knowing he could always squeeze through because he had something priceless under the bonnet; a gear-box so finely engineered that it might have been nicked from the Ferrari assembly line in Monza.
From an early age, Peter Morgan began mastering such a multitude of skills that he could play anywhere behind the scrum. He did so in his native Broad Haven, on the beach every Sunday come hell or high water and then, at the zenith of his career, he did the very same for the Lions on the scorched grass of South Africa.
Morgan came from the same mould as a pair Welsh Lions who had dared to taunt the Springboks in their mighty shrines on the High Veldt: Barry John, briefly in 1968, and Phil Bennett throughout the invincible tour of 1974. Johnny Morgan's boy never pretended to be in their class as a fly-half but that didn't stop him doing things as a Lion beyond the scope of both Barry and Benny.
In his first four matches of the 1980 tour, Morgan started and finished in four different positions: centre against Eastern Province, full-back against Orange Free State, left wing against the Proteas, right wing against a South African Country districts' XV.
When it came to the Tests, the Lions preferred a Scot, Andy Irvine, at full-back, an Anglo-Scottish pair of wings in Bruce Hay and John Carleton, Paul Dodge and Ray Grav-ell as their Anglo-Welsh centres with a fleeting appearance from Clive Woodward.
Had as many substitutes been allowed then as now, Morgan would have appeared in all four Tests, quite possibly in four different positions. As part of the supporting cast, he swept all before him: Played seven, won seven.
It made him probably the only British or Irish player to start more than three times as often for the Lions as he did for Wales, a fact which lends weight to the damning verdict from Carwyn James.
The most perceptive of coaches accused the Welsh selectors, usually referred to in reverential tones as the Big Five, of ‘neglecting' Morgan. In the beginning, against Romania at the Arms Park in October 1979, they picked him at full-back, a selection so far out of left-field that nobody saw it coming, least of all Morgan who had hardly ever played there. His response provided dazzling evidence that the Big Five had made an inspired choice.
Like a thoroughbred cast among a bunch of selling-plaiters, he illuminated an otherwise forgettable match, a beacon of hope at a time when the Welsh game fretted over life without the newly-retired JPR Williams. Those who witnessed Morgan's debut included his neighbour John Edwards, one of the last great Fleet Street journalists who found a refuge in Broad Haven from the front line of momentous events in America, Vietnam and Northern Ireland.
“When Peter went onto the rugby field, nothing frightened him,” Edwards says. “I remember vividly watching this colossal Romanian charging for the line like a human block of flats with only Peter standing between Wales and a demoralising defeat.
“Peter brought him down and saved the day. He was as brave a rugby player as I ever saw. And every time he got the ball, you knew instinctively that something exciting was about to happen.''
Those charged with filling the void left by JPR were onto something with Morgan as a running full-back which made their subsequent decision stranger still. Perhaps they thought it was all too good to be true.
Whatever their reasoning, they never picked him at full-back again, a decision which partly explains why Morgan found his international career confined to 12 months, as if played out on an off-key concertina.
“From an early age, Morgan mastered such a multitude of skills he could play anywhere”
For all their apparent tone-deafness, the Big Five did pick him towards the end of the 1980 Five Nations, as a substitute for Gareth Davies against Scotland and the starting 10 against Ireland in Dublin a fortnight later. The Lions had already identified him as one of their four centres.
Post-tour, he appeared only twice for Wales: a wing replacement for Elgan Rees against the All Blacks and a starting centre against Ireland in the 1981 Five Nations. He deserved far better than a painfully premature exit with a set of ribs rearranged courtesy of a late hit. He recovered from that, then captained Llanelli in their famous win over Australia during their 1984 Grand Slam tour before the sledgehammer blow of a broken leg against Swansea. Twelve years ago Morgan survived something far more serious, a stroke just before he and his wife Helen set sail on a cruise.
By pure chance, it happened at Southampton where the city's university hospital had a special unit then pioneering the treatment of stroke victims. His friends swear that had Morgan been heading out of any other port not even he could have found a way of telling the tale.
A coal merchant who is said to have once delivered sacks of the stuff in his British Lions blazer, he then embarked on a career which endeared him to his lovely corner of Pembrokeshire more than his rugby.
He stood as an independent candidate for The Havens constituency of Pembrokeshire County Council and won election over and over again aided by his lifelong pal Geoff Williams, the former BBC Wales Head of Sport who smoothed the way as Morgan's election agent.
“We'd be knocking on doors for four-to-five weeks and over all those campaigns, only one constituent turned us away,'' says Williams. “That says everything about the unique bond Peter had with his community.
“And wherever he went, Ned went, too. The dog always had pride of place in the front seat of his master's car. The election agent would be relegated to the back seat.”
A former council leader, Morgan served for 16 years. Andy Grey, the ex-Pontypool scrum-half who runs the Saint Brides Inn in Little Haven and the local lifeboat station as operations manager, knew Morgan from those early days of touch rugby on the beach.
“Peter was a huge character with a huge heart, always prepared to do something for anyone in need. He had time for the young and the old. He loved The Havens and the whole community loved him in return.
“He could be abrasive but he was always approachable, always doing his best for those who needed a helping hand. He was never politically correct. He called a spade a spade and they loved him for that because he did it in a nice way.
“He was a beach boy at heart, a great friend and a great family man.''
Morgan and his curly-haired dog would still be out there on the beach now had something not gone seriously wrong one morning last autumn. When his master collapsed, Ned had the nous to find the nearest café and raise the alarm which led to surgery on a brain tumour.
Peter Morgan died last weekend at the age of 65, leaving Helen, daughters Nia and Lowri, grandchildren Seren and Dewi. And Ned…
