Jayson Levey

Jayson is a front row forward, a member of the leadership group, and the sort of player every coach wants more of: solid, dependable, and exactly where he is needed.

We went looking for the colourful backstory on Jayson for this page and came back with one word, repeated by everybody we asked: solid. It turns out that is the highest compliment a front row forward can receive. Nobody ever described a great prop as flashy. If the scrum goes quiet and the ball comes out the right way, somebody like Jayson has done a very good job, and nobody has noticed. That is rather the point.

What the team sheets do tell us is that he is versatile. This season Jayson has worn the number 1, the number 2 and the number 3 shirt, so he has now played every position in the front row. Loosehead against Chepstow, hooker at Ferndale, tighthead against New Tredegar and Penarth, and a spell off the bench against Merthyr for good measure. Point him at a shirt and he puts it on. A coach could hardly ask for more, and at least one of them has probably checked whether he can play on the wing too.

That kind of reliability is what earns a place in the leadership group. Leading does not always mean being the loudest voice on the pitch. Often it means being the player the others can rely on without thinking about it, who does the job whichever shirt he has been handed, and who makes the team a little more solid simply by being in it.

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