From Odd-Shaped Balls by John Scally:

…the Welsh wizard, Gareth Edwards. He may not have been as beautiful as Elizabeth Hurley, but nobody has ever made a more determined attempt to make rugby the beautiful game. It was also appropriate that it was Edwards who was chosen as the player of the last millennium by a leading rugby magazine. Asked to comment on that selection, 'Willie John McBride said, 'When I get to the pearly gates and they say, "What are your qualifications for coming in here?" I'll say I knew Gareth Edwards.'

Such was Gareth's impact that when he played in an Under-Nines match, with the team leading by 30-6 at half-time, the coach told him to give the opposition a chance and pass the ball more. The young Edwards answered: 'Ah, coach, you're only wasting your time. If I pass it they'll just knock it on or drop it.'

Welsh players are proud of their ex-internationals on and off the field. It was reported to Gareth Edwards that a retired international had been caught with a call-girl early one winter's morning in a park. 'Now,' said Edwards, 'let's get this straight. Are you saying he was actually with a young girl at 6 o'clock in the morning, with frost on the grass? And he was 75?' The report was confirmed as correct. 'By God!' chortled Gareth. 'Makes one proud to be Welsh.'

Gareth is a big angling fan. He once said he would rather reel in a big salmon after a good fight than score a try for Wales. He described his biggest catch: 'It was fully 17 lb. It was bigger than Barry John.'

Prior to one Murrayfield international, he had a couple of days' fishing on the Tweed at Kelso. There he was, up to his waders and just under the main bridge at Kelso with all his gear when three jolly faces appeared on the bridge all festooned in the red and white of Wales. The Welsh fans were from Gareth's own territory of Cwmgors and gazed down in wonder before asking, 'Hey, Gar, boyo, what you'm doin' down there?'

Ever the gentleman, Gareth resisted the strong temptation to say, 'I'm signing bloody autographs, in' I?'

He regretted his reticence when one of them said, 'Gar, you'd score a lot more tries for Wales if it wasn't for those rusty kneecaps of yours from all that fishing.'

When there was a rumour that he had undergone major heart treatment in hospital, Gareth quipped, 'I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body.'

Call boys

In the mid-'70s, Wales decided on a signal to set scrums to tell the forwards which way the backs intended to move the ball so that the support players knew exactly where to go. The two flankers were Trevor Evans from Swansea and Terry Cobner from Pontypool. It was agreed that any word beginning with 's' for Swansea would mean the move was going left whereas an initial 'P' would indicate right. Eventually, confident that everybody understood, it was time to take the new ploy onto the practice field and Gareth Edwards was the man to make the call just before he put in the ball. He shouted, 'Psychology!' The Pontypool front row went left, the rest of the forwards went right and the result was chaos.

Loose men

Gareth Edwards sustained an injury playing against England. In the dressing-room afterwards Barry John asked him what he was going to do. Gareth said he wasn't too bothered because he had just discovered a wonderful female masseuse. Barry asked, 'What's so good about this particular masseuse?' Edwards innocently replied within earshot of the entire team, 'The beauty of this girl is that she'll drop anything for a rugby player!' 'Within weeks the masseuse had an expanded practice of almost 20 Welsh internationals!