Bill Francis -
Wales RLHeritage No | 286 |
Date Of Birth | 01/10/1947 |
Place Of Birth | Featherstone |
Clubs | Salford Red Devils, Oldham RLFC, St Helens, Wigan Warriors |
Regions | Yorkshire |
Honours | Wales RL, Great Britain |
Managed | Wales RL |
Bill Francis was Wales' 30th captain, leading us six times, the first being against France in February 1977 against France, deputising for the injured Dai Watkins. Born in Featherstone, he qualified to play for Wales due to the grandparent rule. He won 19 Wales caps, which were all consecutive and included starring in the famous "Battle of Brisbane" in the 1975 World Championship. He appeared four times for Great Britain, twice in 1967 against Australia, and then the next were ten years' later, in the 1977 Rugby League World Cup against New Zealand and Australia. He was appointed as an interim joint head coach of Wales, alongside John Mantle, in 1978 for one game, where they also played. Bill made 400 first class appearances for Wigan, where he won Lancashire League, County Cup and BBC Floodlit Trophy winners medals. He went onto play for St Helens, Oldham (where he was player-coach) and Salford before retiring.
PLAYER FOR | P | W | D | L | TRY | GOALS | DG | PTS | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Great Britain | 4 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
Wales RL | 19 | 6 | 0 | 13 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 15 | |||
TOTAL | 23 | 7 | 0 | 16 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 15 |
Note: The statistics tab shows all of the player’s known appearances for this particular Wales side against international sides or other non-capped recognised first class matches. To see exactly how many full test rugby league caps for Wales (or any other country) that this player has, please click the “Test Summary” tab. Nines individual player records are not shown, please click here for full details about Nines. Please also note that clubs’ current names are used throughout this website, due to the database only being able to feed one name per club (e.g. Wigan will also be known as Wigan Warriors throughout all player profiles).