Great 9s and 10s.

The idea came from a conversation with a work colleague while fund raising for Help for Heroes in Swansea. He said how come Wales always produce great halfbacks? My reply was its because of the outside half factory making reference to the Max Boyce song from the seventies. It was then the idea popped into my head. People have got complete sides to sign a shirt, but a collection of signatures from certain positions, well thats a new one!

Originally the idea was to go back to 1970 and the task at hand began. Searching the WRU archive, Google, Wiki and rugby club web pages I started.

First 10 to sign was Paul Turner, Newport Gwent Dragons coach. I emailed the Dragons and explained what I was doing and they invited me down to see Paul. The day was a bit rushed as he was about to leave for their game against Edinburgh, but he signed and we were off.

The first 9 was Gerald Williams. I had seen Gerald on TV the week before I met him. He was pointed out by a police officer who was in his lab on one of the police camera action programs. So, I phoned South Wales Police HQ in Bridgend and asked to be put through to Mr Williams, and they did! I met Gerald a few days later and he signed. While there, Gerald gave me Rob Howleys number but I never had the courage to cold call him, but I did meet him later.

So from there my travels started. I have been from Cliff Morgans house on the Isle of Wight to Leeds Uni to see Gareth Davies. With the help of Caroline Morgan at the WRU I was able to meet with the current team members along with Rob Howley and Neil Jenkins. I have met with players like Gareth Edwards and Rob Jones through the Scrum V studio team to meeting Brynmor Williams at a service station, to having a drink with Barry John and Lloyd Williams.

Thats how it all started. The list of players are as follows:

9: Onllwyn Brace, Lloyd Williams, Clive Rowlands, Gareth Edwards, Terry Homes, Brynmore Williams, Andy Moor, Gerald Williams, Chris Bridges, Robert Jones, Rupert Moon, Rob Howley, Dwayne Peel, Gareth Cooper, Mike Phillips, Martin Roberts, Richie Rees

10: Cliff Morgan, David Watkins, Barry John, Phil Bennett, Gareth Davies, Paul Turner, Bleddyn Bowen, Jonathan Davies, Lee Jarvis, Arwel Thomas, Neil Jenkins, Stephen Jones, Nicky Robinson, James Hook,

Dan Biggar

Each shirt winner will also receive a photo album with pictures of the players at the signing of the shirts

Cliff Morgan has also donated a book written by a friend of his Paul Verdon, LEGENDS OF WORLD RUGBY, A book of the worlds great players from the amateur era. It is number 93 of a limited number of 530 copies produced. It has 75 original signatures of greats from Hugo Porta of Argentina to JPR Williams.

Start date for the raffle is March 1 ^st 2011 and to run until 8 May 2011 and the presentation on May 16. It has taken 18 months in total to complete these shirts. All the proceeds are going to two charities, Macmillan Cancer Support and Help for Heroes.

The raffle is online and will run until 8 ^th May 2011. Tickets can be bought at www.rogavi.com on the sports page.

The picture was taken this morning at the Wales training camp. The WRU are going to put a link on their web pages. Had a great time with the boys, they were very relaxed and really looking forward to Saturday.

If you know of people who might be interested in buying some raffle tickets to win one of these great shirts please tell them where to get a ticket.