'Chester Mornay Williams' (born 8 August
1970 in
Paarl,
Western Province,
South Africa) played
winger for the South African national
rugby union team the
Springboks from
1993 to
2000. Williams also played rugby for the
Western Province in the
Currie Cup. He is best known as the star winger of the Springbok squad that won the
1995 Rugby World Cup and was nicknamed "The Black Pearl".
Williams is only 1.74
meters tall with a playing weight of 84
kilograms, a small man by rugby standards. He was the first non-white player to be included in the Springboks squad since
Errol Tobias in the early 1980s. The selection of non-white players wasn't a common thing in South Africa before
1992 because of the country's policy of
apartheid.
He made his debut for the Springboks at the age of 23 against
Argentina on the 13th of November 1993 in
Buenos Aires, a game that the Springboks went on to win 52-23 and in which he also scored a try. Williams was on the Springboks team that won the
1995 Rugby World Cup, notably scoring a try against in pool play. His Boks career, hampered by knee injuries in 1996 and 1997, ended with a 23-13 win against
Wales on the 26th of November 2000 in
Cardiff. In total he played 27 games for the Springboks, scoring 14 tries.
In
2001 Williams was selected as the coach of the
South African sevens team that won bronze at the
2002 Commonwealth Games and ended runners up in the
World Sevens Series. He remained sevens coach until 2003.
Also in
2002 Williams released his controversial autobiography, simply titled "Chester", in which he claimed that he was shunned by some of his team mates in the 1995 Springbok squad and even called racist names.
Williams was mentioned as one of the possible successors to Springbok coach
Rudolph Straeuli after he resigned in
2003, but when the job was given to
Jake White in
2004 he became coach of the
Cats Super 12 team instead. He remained coach until July
2005 when he was fired after achieving only limited success. However, in
2006, he was brought back into the South African coaching ranks as the head coach of the national "A" side (a developmental side for the Boks).
[1]
He was named as the new coach of the
Pumas, the team representing
Mpumalanga in the Currie Cup, on 7 September 2006. He signed a two-year deal with the team, effective 1 October.
[1]
External links
★
References
1. Chester to coach the Pumas