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Article: 'This statue proves Welsh were the first to play rugby'.(News)
- Article from:
- Western Mail (Cardiff, Wales)
- Article date:
- June 10, 2005
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Forget William Webb Ellis - an amateur historian says he has proof an early form of rugby was played in Wales up to 900 years ago.
Dr Russell Rhys, 80, ex-GP for Caerleon, has found part of a medieval sculpture which he believes shows an oval ball about to be drop-kicked.
If correct, his finding would confirm that a forerunner of rugby existed in Wales eight centuries before English public schoolboy William Webb Ellis is said to have first picked up a ball and run with it at Rugby School.
It could also provide the missing link between the Romans' ...