{"id":374952,"date":"2025-08-26T12:48:20","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T12:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/374952\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T12:48:20","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T12:48:20","slug":"best-in-the-world-rugby-star-disappeared-year-later-and-is-now-a-care-worker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/374952\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Best in the world’ rugby star disappeared year later and is now a care worker"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1999, Peter Rogers was seen by many as the best loosehead prop in the world, having destroyed a succession of scrums during Wales’ 11-match winning run under Graham Henry<\/p>\n

12:21, 26 Aug 2025Updated 12:23, 26 Aug 2025<\/p>\n

\"Peter<\/p>\n

The curious case of Peter Rogers remains one of Welsh rugby’s most intriguing puzzles.<\/p>\n

In 1999, he was widely regarded as the world’s top loosehead prop, having decimated numerous scrums during Wales’ impressive 11-match winning streak under Graham Henry. However, as quickly as his star had ascended following his move from South Africa, it plummeted. Within a year, his international career was over as he disappeared from the Test game.<\/p>\n

Rogers, who is now 56 and went on to become a care worker in Cardiff<\/a>, spent the last two decades trying to decipher exactly what went wrong, admitting it’s all the more perplexing considering his standing at the conclusion of the 1999 World Cup.<\/p>\n

“I think I was in almost every national newspaper’s Team of the Tournament,” he previously told WalesOnline.<\/p>\n

“I have still got all the cuttings now.<\/p>\n

“I was in the Sunday Times Dream Team, the Telegraph, all the rugby papers.<\/p>\n

“They had the world rankings in this one magazine and I was the No 1 loosehead in the world, with Os du Randt No 2. I was above the Ox!”.<\/p>\n

“I was like ‘Oh my God, it doesn’t get better than this’, because he was one of my heroes as a front rower.<\/p>\n

“I was on fire that year. There was no-one I feared.”<\/p>\n

Yet just a year later, his 18-cap Wales career came to an abrupt end and he transitioned to hooker at club level before hanging up his boots.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know what happened,” he confessed.<\/p>\n

“I have sat down and thought about it many times. I have searched for answers.”<\/p>\n

\"PeterPeter Rogers and Scott Gibbs of Wales celebrate victory over England(Image: Gary M Prior\/Allsport)<\/p>\n

Reflecting on his career, the player often found himself revisiting his transfer from London Irish to Newport<\/a> following the ’99 World Cup.<\/p>\n

“I tried to stay at London Irish. I was happy there,” he admitted.<\/p>\n

He even contemplated a return to club rugby in South Africa, with the intention of commuting back and forth for Wales games.<\/p>\n

“But I got ridiculed for it. They said that’s not going to happen.”<\/p>\n

The directive was clear: “I got told I had to come and play in Wales.”<\/p>\n

In retrospect, he believes this move marked the end of his career.<\/p>\n

“I would definitely say going there was the end of my career. It’s quite sad looking back,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I should never have joined Newport. Nothing against the club, it was just the circumstances.”<\/p>\n

He replaced fan favourite Rod Snow, which may have caused some tension within the team. “Rod Snow was their favourite and I took his position which could have caused a bit of a rift in the squad.”<\/p>\n

The team’s lack of a strong forward pack also posed challenges. “We didn’t have a decent pack of forwards that could scrummage competitively either.<\/p>\n

“We were picking blindside flankers in the second row.”<\/p>\n

His fellow players weren’t all full-time professionals. “I had a couple of locks behind me who were semi professionals, not even full-time pros.”<\/p>\n

Being known as a scrummager, he faced opponents eager to take him down, backed by their entire teams. “Having a bit of a reputation as a scrummager, I would go up against people who would try and bring me down, with a whole pack behind them.<\/p>\n

“I had a lot of people gunning for me.<\/p>\n

“I lived on being a scrummager and it was affecting my reputation.<\/p>\n

“Maybe I was a bit tired mentally and I lost a lot of weight as well. I probably overtrained. I went down to about 17st from 19st plus.<\/p>\n

“I wasn’t dominating like I was at international level and when the downhill spiral comes it goes quick.<\/p>\n

“It got to me I guess. My confidence did go down. It was a combination of a lot of things.<\/p>\n

“My age was against me as well because I was 30 when I won my first cap.<\/p>\n

“But the main thing was joining Newport. It was a mistake.<\/p>\n

“I should have joined a different club, a club which focused more on scrummaging.”<\/p>\n

That was precisely what Rogers had grown accustomed to during his stint in South Africa, having ventured there during his early twenties.<\/p>\n

Born in Maidstone, he relocated to Bryncethin, close to Bridgend<\/a>, as a young child alongside his father Philip – a Welsh-speaking prop hailing from Trimsaran who had attended Sunday School<\/a> with Jonathan Davies’ mother.<\/p>\n

Rogers discovered rugby whilst at Llandovery College, initially playing hooker – the position he occupied for Maesteg<\/a>, Bridgend and predominantly Glamorgan Wanderers whilst pursuing accountancy and finance studies at the University of Glamorgan in Treforest.<\/p>\n

During the final stages of his university years in the early 1990s, he forged a pivotal relationship.<\/p>\n

“There were some South African exchange students that I became friends with and I just went over there for a holiday,” he explains.<\/p>\n

“I ended up staying for nine years.<\/p>\n

“I was only going to be there for the summer, but I joined the Pirates club in Johannesburg. They asked me to stay on and we were getting paid!”.<\/p>\n

It was at the Pirates where he made his crucial positional change.<\/p>\n

“They had a well-established hooker in the first team, so they threw me in at prop and it went pretty well,” he says.<\/p>\n

“I was about 16st when I went over and I ballooned up to about 19st within a year.<\/p>\n

“When I went home to Wales, people who remembered me from when I played as a youngster would say ‘Oh, how did you get so big out in South Africa, let me think!'”.<\/p>\n

“But categorically I can say there was nothing untoward.<\/p>\n

“I naturally ballooned with over-eating.<\/p>\n

“Honest to God, I was eating steak for breakfast everyday.<\/p>\n

“I had never seen steak in Wales really and there I was eating it every morning with eggs.<\/p>\n

“I got into weight training as well. That was huge out there.<\/p>\n

“I noticed the extra weight was helping me. I could scrummage. South Africa is the home of scrummaging and I learned so much out there.<\/p>\n

“We would have 90 minute live scrummaging sessions, from one corner of the pitch to the other.”<\/p>\n

Then, in 1998, a pivotal moment arrived.<\/p>\n

“I had done quite well in the Vodacom Series and I was building up a reputation as a destructive scrummager,” he shared.<\/p>\n

“All of a sudden, an agent rang me unexpectedly and said Graham Henry was going to be coaching Wales and he’d identified me as a player of interest.<\/p>\n

“I think he had seen me play when he came across with Auckland for a game against Transvaal.<\/p>\n

“It sounds like he had called every single agent and said he wanted whoever is Welsh playing anywhere in the world to come and bolster the Wales squad.<\/p>\n

“Anyway, the agent said he’d help me find a club and I ended up at London Irish.”<\/p>\n

\"PeterPeter Rogers, Wales<\/p>\n

However, this sparked a bit of an international tug of war between Wales and England for his services.<\/p>\n

“Graham had come to watch my first two games for Irish. He was in the crowd,” Rogers revealed.<\/p>\n

“But then our coach, Dick Best, told me Clive Woodward was interested.<\/p>\n

“England were a decent team and Wales were terrible.<\/p>\n

“So I kind of had second thoughts when Dick said about Woodward being interested.<\/p>\n

“There was a chance of it happening, because I was born in Kent and my mother was English.<\/p>\n

“But then my dad said to me ‘You can’t play for England, you just can’t’.<\/p>\n

“I was injured at the time and the message from Woodward was they would get back to me when I was fit.<\/p>\n

“Wales said ‘We will sign you now’ and I went with them.<\/p>\n

“Look, I have got no regrets whatsoever. I don’t think I could have put that white jersey on, to be honest.<\/p>\n

“It was bad enough going back to visit my mates in Bryncethin with the South African accent I had acquired!”.<\/p>\n

Rogers initially donned the iconic red shirt for Wales A against Scotland and Ireland during the opening two weekends of the 1999 Five Nations.<\/p>\n

Forming the front row alongside Garin Jenkins and Ben Evans, matters progressed smoothly for both him and the squad, whilst the senior team suffered defeats in their opening two matches.<\/p>\n

“I remember Wales A had a full-on scrummaging session against the Wales first team down in Sophia Gardens,” he said.<\/p>\n

“And, oh my God, we pulverised them. It was embarrassing.<\/p>\n

“We marched them back about ten yards at one stage.<\/p>\n

“Then we all went up together for the France game, me, Garin and Ben.”<\/p>\n

\"PeterPeter Rogers, the former prop who now works as a carer in south Wales, is still looking in great shape(Image: Paul Fears Photography\/ The Events Room)<\/p>\n

It proved to be an unforgettable Test debut for Rogers in Paris, as Wales secured a thrilling 34-33 victory to kick-start their remarkable 11-match winning streak.<\/p>\n

He was also part of iconic wins against England at Wembley and South Africa, alongside a series victory in Argentina.<\/p>\n

Wales were unstoppable, particularly when it came to the set piece.<\/p>\n

“We demolished everyone,” said Rogers.<\/p>\n

“Garin (Jenkins) and I used to talk about scrummaging a lot. We lived and breathed it and we used to smash people.<\/p>\n

“I was so passionate about scrummaging. I still am today.<\/p>\n

“I would do analysis and get as much footage of tightheads as I could.<\/p>\n

“But it wasn’t just the front row. In Chris Wyatt and Craig Quinnell, we had two second rows that were hungry to scrum. It was all of us.”<\/p>\n

Following their successful streak, Wales entered the World Cup on home turf riding high, but were knocked out by eventual winners Australia. It was a tournament Rogers believes Wales could have won.<\/p>\n

Peter Rogers in action at the 1999 World Cup<\/p>\n

However, it was not meant to be, with the squad subsequently entering a period of decline in 2000 that mirrored Rogers’ own diminishing form. After less than a year at Newport, he moved to Cardiff, where he played in 58 matches over three seasons, eventually transitioning to the position of hooker.<\/p>\n

“My age was against me,” he reflected, considering the latter part of his career at Arms Park.<\/p>\n

“I remember we played Neath and I was up against a young Adam Jones and Duncan Jones, with Gareth Llewellyn charging behind them.<\/p>\n

“They were really ready for the scrum and they did us quite badly.<\/p>\n

“Dai Young came into training after that and said he realised he wasn’t up to playing rugby at that level anymore.<\/p>\n

“It’s my age, he said, and he looked at me. I thought I’m next then!”.<\/p>\n

After hanging up his boots when he left Cardiff in 2003, Rogers briefly came out of retirement to play for his hometown club, Bridgend, in 2007.<\/p>\n

After retiring from professional rugby, he concentrated on his property business, while also coaching the Royal Welsh Army team.<\/p>\n

However, his life took a different turn as he retrained to become a social carer, assisting the elderly.<\/p>\n

“Some of the family members of the people I visit will recognise me from the rugby and ask me why I’m doing it, but I love it.<\/p>\n

“It’s been another turnaround in my life,” he said.<\/p>\n

His work as a domiciliary carer led to Rogers\u2019 involvement with Love of The Game – a campaign aimed at reducing concussion-related issues across sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see the challenges that living with dementia throws up,” he said. “I became fascinated by it and that led to me doing a masters degree in dementia studies at the University of West London. I wanted to expand my knowledge and see what academia is saying about the condition. So I enrolled in this course, self-funding my degree, while still doing 20 hours a week in social care.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 1999, Peter Rogers was seen by many as the best loosehead prop in the world, having destroyed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15,14260],"class_list":{"0":"post-374952","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-wales-rugby-team"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115095149463517947","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}