A quick Google search will tell you that Cardiff has provided more Welsh internationals than any other club. Over four hundred internationals have played for Cardiff, almost three hundred of whom have been capped directly from the club.
Cardiff players have been selected for the Lions on sixty-two occasions, with forty-eight players sharing this total between them. No other club can boast such a record, though Leicester are Cardiff’s nearest rivals, with fifty-one selections via thirty-seven players. Though Cambridge University often claims that it has over sixty Lions, only around a third of these were selected while at the university.
Gwyn Nicholls (Australia, 1899) and Percy Bush and Rhys Gabe (Australia and New Zealand, 1904) were the first tourists selected from the Club. The highest number to be chosen was for the South Africa tour of 1968, when six Cardiff men received the call. This would have been equalled in 2009 had a shoulder injury not ruled Tom Shanklin out of what would have been his second tour, though the five players selected that year matched those chosen in 1950.
Many Cardiff players have shone in Lions’ colours. In addition to Nicholls, Bush, and Gabe, these include Bleddyn Williams and Jack Matthews in 1950, Cliff Morgan in 1955, Gareth Edwards, Barry John, and John Bevan in 1971 (the first and, to date, only series win in New Zealand), and Edwards again in 1974 (on the ‘Invincibles’ tour of South Africa). Sam Warburton captained the Lions that won the series against Australia in 2013 and dramatically drew with New Zealand in 2017.
Sir Gareth Edwards tops the Lions appearances chart for a Cardiff player with ten tests and thirty-nine matches in all.
Cardiff players have been selected for the Lions on sixty-two occasions, with forty-eight players sharing this total between them. No other club can boast such a record, though Leicester are Cardiff’s nearest rivals, with fifty-one selections via thirty-seven players. Though Cambridge University often claims that it has over sixty Lions, only around a third of these were selected while at the university.
Gwyn Nicholls (Australia, 1899) and Percy Bush and Rhys Gabe (Australia and New Zealand, 1904) were the first tourists selected from the Club. The highest number to be chosen was for the South Africa tour of 1968, when six Cardiff men received the call. This would have been equalled in 2009 had a shoulder injury not ruled Tom Shanklin out of what would have been his second tour, though the five players selected that year matched those chosen in 1950.
Many Cardiff players have shone in Lions’ colours. In addition to Nicholls, Bush, and Gabe, these include Bleddyn Williams and Jack Matthews in 1950, Cliff Morgan in 1955, Gareth Edwards, Barry John, and John Bevan in 1971 (the first and, to date, only series win in New Zealand), and Edwards again in 1974 (on the ‘Invincibles’ tour of South Africa). Sam Warburton captained the Lions that won the series against Australia in 2013 and dramatically drew with New Zealand in 2017.
Sir Gareth Edwards tops the Lions appearances chart for a Cardiff player with ten tests and thirty-nine matches in all.