Obituary: Terry Price

Terry Price, rugby player: born 1946; capped eight times for Wales, rugby union; five times for Wales, rugby league; once for Great Britain, rugby league; died 7 April 1993.

IT WAS only a fortnight ago at the mammoth National Schools Sevens that the name of Terry Price came up in the conversation I was having with the coach who had just helped guide Strade to the final of the Open tournament. 'Terry Price?' Wyn Evans said. 'Now there was a rugby player. One of the greats.'

Evans, it transpired, had played on the wing for the then Llanelli (or Llanelly, as it was spelt in those days) Grammar School in 1962, and with a little help from Price had gone on to triumph in the annual sevens feast at Roehampton. The Welsh boys were in the middle of a run that concluded the following year with a hat-trick of titles, a record that stands to this day in the senior of the competitions organised by Rosslyn Park.

Price was still a student at Leicester University when he was first selected for Wales to face England in Cardiff in 1965 and it turned out to be quite a season as the Welsh, with Price at full- back, went on to collect their 10th Triple Crown and the championship.

England and Scotland had already been beaten when Ireland visited the Arms Park and here Price converted the first Welsh try. Later, he dropped a spectacular goal from 50 yards, and after the Irish had closed the gap to three points, he sent over a towering penalty to wrap the game up.

Such precocious talent was also recognised by the Lions on their tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1966, but Price was all too soon to be lost to rugby league. In Paris the following year, at the age of 22, he made his last union appearance for Wales in a 20-14 defeat at the hands of the French.

In eight championship matches he had scored 45 points for his country, but Bradford Northern secured his signature in July 1967 for the then princely sum of pounds 8,000. The contract guaranteed him pounds 2,000 a year for four years. Price then went on to make five appearances for the Welsh rugby league side and he also toured Australia and New Zealand again, this time in a paid role, with the 1970 Great Britain party, emerging as top scorer with 117 points.

At the end of his contract with Northern, American football beckoned and the last thuds of that mighty boot were heard when Price played for the Buffalo Bills as a place-kicker.

(Photograph omitted)