Colin Charvis

Colin Charvis (born 27 December 1972) is a former professional rugby union player.

A back row forward, Charvis was equally adept as a flanker or at number 8.

Charvis was born in Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire, on 27 December 1972 to Lloyd and Lynne Charvis, and grew up in the nearby town of Aldridge.

Charvis is of Jamaican heritage through his father.

After playing football in his early years, Charvis began playing rugby at the age of 11 when he started attending Queen Mary's Grammar School in Walsall.

At age 18, he began studying at the Polytechnic of Central London, where he was coached by former London Welsh RFC player Glan Richards, who convinced Charvis to join the club.

He stayed at London Welsh until 1995, when he moved to Swansea RFC, under the management of Mike Ruddock.

Charvis played for Swansea for eight seasons, making a total of 168 appearances and scoring 62 tries.

Charvis won his first cap for Wales on 1 December 1996, when he came on as a substitute in a 28–16 loss to Australia at Cardiff Arms Park.

He scored his first tries two years later, scoring twice in a 43–30 win over Argentina at Stradey Park in Llanelli on 21 November 1998.

He followed this up with another try in a 34–33 win over France at the Stade de France in the 1999 Five Nations Championship.

He also featured in the 1999 Rugby World Cup and captained Wales in the 2003 Rugby World Cup in Australia.

In 2000, Charvis was implicated in Grannygate as he had been first capped for Wales in 1996 while apparently ineligible.

However, by the time the scandal broke he had completed the required three years residency period and no further action was taken.

He went on to become team captain for a period and toured Australia with the British & Irish Lions in 2001.

Born in Sutton Coldfield, England, he captained the Wales national team from 2002 to 2004, and also played for the British & Irish Lions on their tour of Australia in 2001.

In March 2003, the club went into administration, and Charvis was offered a redundancy package on 21 March.

He was released the following week amid hopes for a contract offer from the newly founded Neath–Swansea regional team, as well as the Gwent team coached by Mike Ruddock, who had brought Charvis to Swansea.

After Wales's elimination from the World Cup, having not received an acceptable offer from any of the five new Welsh regional sides, Charvis signed for French second-tier side Tarbes on a contract that would take him through to the end of the 2003–04 season, when he was expected to return to Wales; During the season, he expressed his intent to continue playing for Wales; however, although he was part of the squad for the 2004 Six Nations Championship, his desire to continue his international career proved a stumbling block, and by the end of the tournament in March 2004, initial talks with three of the regions had reached an impasse.

Despite interest from at least three unnamed, top-flight French sides, Charvis signed for Newcastle Falcons in England in June 2004.

He missed three months of the 2004–05 season after suffering a broken foot in January 2005, but returned for the last three games of the season.

After captaining the team in those matches, he was named as Newcastle's full-time captain for the 2005–06 season, taking over from co-captains Jonny Wilkinson and Ian Peel.

With his contract due to expire at the end of the season, talks began over a new deal but by May 2006, rumours surfaced that negotiations had broken down.

No deal was forthcoming, and on 26 May 2006, it was announced that Charvis would be leaving Newcastle.

After a move to the Newport Gwent Dragons fell through over the summer, Charvis was reportedly considering retirement; however, he did ultimately sign for the Dragons on a one-year deal.

He made his debut for the club in a pre-season friendly against the Cornish Pirates, coming on as a second-half substitute in a 20–6 victory.

Coach Paul Turner said after the game that he expected Charvis would play at least 15 games for the Dragons that season.

He ended up playing 26 times, mostly at flanker but also at number 8, and scored three tries.

Charvis became the world record try scorer for a forward in test match rugby on 24 November 2007 v South Africa at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff with his 22nd international try.

He appeared in both Tests and following the tour, Charvis was named in Gareth Jenkins' 41-man preliminary summer training squad for the 2007 Rugby World Cup.

He made the final 30-man squad in August after playing in the Test against England and made substitute appearances in both summer matches against Argentina and France.

Charvis made a try-scoring substitute appearance in Wales's opening Pool B match against Canada, and made the starting line-ups for the remaining pool clashes with Australia, Japan and Fiji.

In November 2007 Wales caretaker coach Nigel Davies included Charvis in his starting line-up for the inaugural Prince William Cup match with South Africa.

Despite the 34–12 defeat to the reigning world champions Charvis scored his 22nd try for his country, making him the leading try scorer among all Welsh forwards (as of 2021).

He is one of only four forwards to score over 100 international points (John Eales, Carlo Checchinato and Takashi Kikutani are the others).

Charvis was appointed to a player/coach role at Newport Gwent Dragons in July 2008.

However, because of injuries amongst the playing squad Charvis returned to the team, and as a result of his excellent form he played a number of matches during the 2008–09 season, but then retired as a player in order to be full-time forwards and defence coach.

He was the second most capped player for Wales and the most capped forward with 94 caps until overtaken by Martyn Williams on 13 March 2010.

In 2011 he was overtaken by Takashi Kikutani of Japan on the List of leading rugby union test try scorers.

In 2015, a DNA testing project suggested that Charvis had genuine Welsh ancestry that he did not know about.