Edward James will be laid to rest this week in his beloved Llanelli, an occasion bound to evoke memories of arguably the hissiest of all hissyfits in Anglo-American sport. A centre who played in the same Scarlets’ back line during the Fifties as Carwyn James of Lions fame, he followed his unrelated namesake all the way to the presidency of Llanelli RFC, the inauguration coinciding with the last year of amateurism.

As rugby braced itself for the onslaught of professionalism, President James could have told the Scarlets from personal experience that it would not be a bed of roses.
He had wit...