Nigel Walker has expressed his immense pride at playing more than 100 times for his beloved Cardiff RFC as he reflects on his stunning career in the latest episode of the Cardiff Blues Podcast.
The electric wing, who switched from athletics to rugby as a 29-year-old, made 121 appearances for the Blue and Blacks prior to regional rugby and played for Wales just six months after his senior debut.
After a popular appearance on a recent RE:LIVE episode of a former game, Walker joined Mike Brown to take a walk down memory lane.
The former Wales international reflects on his athletics career that saw him compete in the Olympics, his switch to rugby and his life today as the national director of the English Institute of Sport.
But one overriding theme was how much Cardiff RFC and today Cardiff Blues means to him as someone who grew up in the city idolising the links of Gareth Edwards and Gerald Davies.
He said: “I was very fortunate to be part of an incredibly strong Cardiff side coached by Alec Evans and supported by Terry Holmes, a Cardiff legend, and Charlie Faulkner and we were very successful.
“When you are obsessed, and I am an obsessive character, and you’re meticulous about preparation and detail and you go to watch your club, just hoping for Gareth Edwards to score a try or Gerald Davies to jink down the wing or PL Jones to run over someone.
“When you eat, sleep and breathe it as I did as a Cardiff supporter, to get the opportunity to play for your club and to do things which supporters tell you has given them enormous pleasure and to know that, alongside your teammates, the hardcore of supports think you are something special it is bound to give you an enormous amount of satisfaction.”
Reflecting on his first Wales cap, he continued: “I’ve never been more proud or nervous. For somebody who used to pay to watch Cardiff rugby club play and struggle to get an international ticket, the same as everyone else and then to play for Wales within six months of the game, a self-confessed Welsh rugby nut, I just couldn’t believe it.
“That was due to my teammates at Cardiff, Alec Evans and the rest of the coaching staff because without them it wouldn’t have happened.
“Anything Cardiff rugby club or Cardiff Blues ask me to do now, if it is physically possible for me to do it I would do it.”
Anyone who watched Welsh rugby in the 1990s, will have fond memories of Walker’s immense pace and the dazzling solo tries he scored, whether a length of the field effort against Pontypridd, a Swalec Cup final stunner against Swansea or against France in the Six Nations.
But for Walker, one try stands out. The Heineken Cup quarter-final try that secured victory over star-studded Bath at his beloved Arms Park in 1996.
As the Independent wrote at the time: “Bath are not ones to sell themselves short. John Hall, their director of rugby, had anticipated this Heineken Cup quarter-final as the biggest match in their history. And in terms of commitment, skill and tension it lived up handsomely to its billing. Yet sadly for Bath, who played most of the attacking rugby and repeatedly stretched Cardiff to breaking point, they were beaten by an even more dogged defence from Cardiff, gifted place-kicking first by Jonathan Davies and then a replacement, Lee Jarvis, and one blissful moment of subtle attacking movement from Nigel Walker who scored their only try”
Walker reminisces: “I have a number of favourites but if pressed that is it. Cardiff v Bath, Heineken Cup quarter-final, the game had been sold out weeks before, Wales versus England and Bath were the premier team in England at the time and had been for some time.
“They had people like Jason Robinson and Henry Paul from rugby league, a whole plethora of England internationals.
“The atmosphere that day was unbelievable, the game was tense and Jonathan Davies got the ball, I saw the game, came on the short ball and burst through on the half-way line.
“I sidestepped Jason Robinson, Jeremy Guscott couldn’t get across in time and I plonked it under the posts. It wasn’t a length of the field try but the crowd went berserk, we won the game and we were going onto the semi-final. That’s the try for me.”
You can listen to the full podcast below!