Brian Rees
| Full name | Brian Idris Rees | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date of birth | 28 August 1942 | ||||||||||||||||
| Place of birth | Neath, Wales | ||||||||||||||||
| Date of death | 29 December 2021 (aged 79) | ||||||||||||||||
| Place of death | Cardiff, Wales | ||||||||||||||||
| School | Neath Grammar School | ||||||||||||||||
| University | University of Cambridge | ||||||||||||||||
| Notable relative(s) | Geoffrey Rees (brother) | ||||||||||||||||
| Occupation(s) | Surgeon | ||||||||||||||||
| Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
Brian Idris Rees OBE (28 August 1942 — 29 December 2021) was a Welsh international rugby union player.
Rees was born in Neath and attended Neath Grammar School, where he learned his rugby. He won four blues while studying at Christ's College and captained Cambridge to a narrow defeat against the touring 1966 Wallabies.[1]
Moving to London to study at St Bartholomew's Hospital, Rees joined the London Welsh club and in 1967 won three Wales caps as a hooker in their Five Nations campaign. He made the 1968 Wales tour of Argentina, for which caps weren't awarded, then earned a call up for their 1969 New Zealand trip, but had to decline due to medical exams.[2]
A surgeon by profession, Rees became the lead cancer clinician at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff and was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2000 for services to medicine.[3]
Rees held the ceremonial position of High Sheriff of South Glamorgan in 2008.[4]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "Brian Rees obituary". The Times. 11 February 2022.
- ^ Hitt, Carolyn (1 January 2022). "'Legend' is an overused term but Brian Rees embodied the word". Wales Online.
- ^ Southcombe, Matthew (30 December 2021). "Wales rugby player, surgeon and teacher Brian Rees dies". Wales Online.
- ^ "Former Wales hooker Rees dies". BBC Sport. 30 December 2021.
External links
[edit]- Brian Rees at ESPNscrum
- 1942 births
- 2021 deaths
- Welsh rugby union players
- Wales international rugby union players
- Rugby union players from Neath
- Rugby union hookers
- Cambridge University R.U.F.C. players
- London Welsh RFC players
- High sheriffs of Glamorgan
- Officers of the Order of the British Empire
- Welsh surgeons
- Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge
- People educated at Neath Grammar School for Boys