Father Ted wrote:Like Itchy, my dad really rated Lewis Jones.
I went to CP when we played Leeds and dad must have been talking about Lewis and I remember asking him which Leeds player was Jones. He pointed him out and told me, again, how good he was. Reading about him today and he signed for Leeds in 1952 for £6000 being a Union Welsh International and Lions player. Billy signed for us in 1953 never having played for Wales for £3000.
Just shows what a miss to our game not being able to bring top class Union players to play League.
Totally agree Ted on the lack of ex Union players playing in RL. Obviously the vast majority were not a Jones or a Watkins but many of them did bring a bit of difference to the game and a new Welsh signing historically would always bring in a sense of anticipation.
I don’t watch as much Union as I used to do but I watched the Ireland v Wales game before our Penrith game and Wales were awful truly awful. I’d still like to think that there are some young Welsh lads out there who could make the transition to RL.
By the way I didn’t know that Jones had received such a big signing on fee. Obviously money well spent.