As he embarks on a remarkable 35th season with Ystradgynlais RFC, Adrian Lock has a busy time ahead of him.
Although he is now in the veteran bracket and weighs in at 20 stone, the long-serving prop forward is ready to play every minute of every game for the first team.
“I’m the only tighthead here!” he explains. “We have got about seven looseheads, but no other tightheads. So I can’t come off. They have to go to uncontested scrums if I do.
“I played every minute last season and I will probably do the same again this year. In all fairness, the coaches are pretty good. They look after me. After I play on a Saturday, I don’t tend to train on a Tuesday, I just have a team run on the Thursday. That really helps keeps me going.”
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Reflecting on his time with Ystradgynlais, he says: “I have played at the club since the age of six. I started off my junior rugby at full-back, but I played against Taibach at U13s and had a terrible game. I dropped every ball. Afterwards the coach said ‘The best position for you is in the front row’. So that’s where I moved to and I’ve been there ever since.
“I started off at hooker and then went to prop. My first senior game was when I was 16 for the Seconds against Swansea Uplands away in 1998. Then, when I was 18, I made my first team debut in midweek up in Pontypool. I propped against Martyn Madden and he shoved my head back to Ystrad! But after the game he gave me a bit of advice. He said ‘We’ve all been there, you’ve just got to keep going’ and that’s what I’ve done.
“I am an old school prop. I have worked hard at my scrummaging over the years. Anthony Buchanan was here for about two seasons and that was a massive benefit, just to get my technical things right, my feet position, which I hadn’t been taught before. Garin Jenkins came to coach the club and he helped a lot as well. I can play both sides. I prefer loosehead, but I’ve been playing tighthead for the last seven years.”
Known throughout the game as Locky, he has been very much a one-club man, apart from a very brief stint some ten miles away down the Swansea valley.
“About five years ago, I wanted to go into a bit of coaching, so I went to Vardre down the road. But I just missed the club, I missed the crack with the boys, so I came back after 45 days!
“I just like the buzz of being around the boys and I’m so proud we have got so many junior teams playing from the age of U7s upwards. There’s not many teams can say that and I’m just very proud to be part of it. They are always looking to increase the profile of the club too, which is good.
“We are in Division Two West Central at the minute, but we can go further than that. We have got a lot of ex-players who are playing at a higher level. If they all came back, I honestly think we could be a Championship club.”
Lock, who works in a pharmaceutical warehouse in Baglan, added: “The game has changed a lot over the years. My father played in west Wales in the ’80s and you could get away with a lot of stuff on the field then that if you did it now you would be in jail for it! Even when I started, it was more the law of the jungle.
“I have made so many friends through the game. If I go out with my girlfriend, if I go to Cardiff to watch a match, everybody says ‘All right, Locky!’. She says ‘How do you know him?’. I just say “Well, I played rugby against him’.”
Now into his 41st year, he has no plans to hang up his boots anytime soon, with a major target on the horizon.
“The club record is 607 appearances and that’s a big thing for me. That’s held by a boy called Kevin Edwards who played in the 70s and 80s. I am on 578 now. I will hopefully get there at the start of next season. I will probably keep going for a while yet.”
So any thoughts about when you might finish, Locky?: “Not yet. I am enjoying it. I had a bad injury a few years back when I tore my hamstring. It was hard to come back from that and there was Covid and everything. But I have got the love back again now.”
