Regan Grace is a rarity: a Welshman with a 100 per cent win record in his national jersey. Scoring a try in the 36-35 victory over Queensland Reds was a glimmer in a series of misfortune. Injuries are inevitable for athletes. Some avoid the worst of it; others appear unfairly afflicted. Grace is the latter.
A rapid, jinking runner who took the unexpected route from Port Talbot to St Helens and rugby league, it is three years since he switched to union and Racing 92. Except Grace never played in Paris. He has made eight appearances in the 15-man game: the uncapped warm-up match for Wales in Australia, two for Bath, four for Cardiff and one for Sale Sharks.
In a part of the world that has witnessed peak Grace, he is rebuilding once more. Training for training’s sake and “a bit lost” without a club — Cardiff released him, and no new deal was forthcoming in Wales’s apparent death spiral — he joined Sale Sharks for pre-season thanks to WillGriff John.
Grace goes over for the second Wales try in their 36-35 victory over the Queensland Reds in Brisbane before celebrating with gusto, below
MATT ROBERTS/GETTY IMAGES
MATT ROBERTS/GETTY IMAGES
There was interest from the 13-man code but Grace stuck with union, and training turned into a trial, a start in the Premiership Rugby Cup and an unused bench spot in the Gallagher Prem against Exeter Chiefs. He will be at Sale until at least February.
At St Helens, for whom Grace scored 89 tries in 143 games, they recall him as fondly as Kel Coslett and the other beatified Welsh Saints. A ruptured achilles in the summer of 2022, just after the announcement of his code switch, ended Grace’s time in Merseyside. Several months into his Parisian rehabilitation, he tore it again while jogging.
“I know that all the staff there knew how hard I tried to make it work, because when I snapped my achilles the second time there, the staff were literally crying,” Grace, 29, says. “That’s the part of my career which [leaves me] gutted.”
We are speaking at Carrington on the day of Sale’s Christmas lunch. There is a £10 Secret Santa, and a song by youngsters mocking the coaching staff. There are also league fixtures to prepare for: away to Northampton Saints on Saturday, and home to Harlequins on Boxing Day. Having spent so many years in Super League, which runs from February to October, Grace is not accustomed to such Christmas overlaps.
Grace evades a challenge by Luke Briscoe, of Leeds Rhinos, to score one of his 89 tries in 143 games for St Helens at Headingley in 2020
MARTIN RICKETT/PA
There is time to head south to his mother’s house in Wales, along with four siblings, and nieces and nephews. Port Talbot is born of steel and entertainment, and Grace is one of their favourite sons. The ARTwalk offers a guided tour of street art and murals in the town, honouring Michael Sheen, Richard Burton and Sir Anthony Hopkins. Grace has one at Aberavon Quins, his old union club.
Grace was 14 when Sheen performed his three-day epic The Passion of Port Talbot around the town, among the thousands who turned out to watch. “He’s obviously a great bloke because I’ve seen that he’s given away a lot of what he owns now for charity and stuff and helping out people in Wales,” Grace says. “I’d love to meet him.”
The fame does not stop there. “Paul Potts, he’s not from Port Talbot, but he lives there,” Grace says of the Britain’s Got Talent-winning opera singer. “He’s got the nicest house in Port Talbot.” That would be Sunray, known as “Mugs Villa” because Val Jones built it from gambling proceeds.
Port Talbot’s entertainment is not limited to Burton’s cathedral voice, Hannibal Lecter and Nessun Dorma singers. It has produced rugby talent in both codes. Johnny Ring went from Aberavon to Wigan in 1922 and was the club’s leading tryscorer until Sir Billy Boston took flight. Mike Nicholas was the most colourful character in a Warrington influx from the area.
There was animus in those years, when league scouts turned amateurs professional. It remained even when Grace was coming through. “I found that playing as much as I could and playing both games helped me with each game more than training did,” he says. “Sometimes I’d miss training to play league or vice versa. But the one club that was quite forward thinking was my home club, Aberavon Quins. They always supported me. If I had trials in rugby league, they’d take me to the trials because my mum didn’t drive.”
Grace’s feats with St Helens have earned him a mural in Port Talbot where he is immortalised alongside Michael Sheen, Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins
LEWIS STOREY/GETTY IMAGES
In 2014, St Helens signed Grace and Calvin Wellington, a close friend. Had he not taken that contract as a 17-year-old, Grace could have tried to advance with Ospreys in union, and maybe work in industry like generations before him. Tata Steel brought a close to steelmaking in Port Talbot last year, cutting thousands of jobs. There should be a new electric arc furnace in the town by the end of 2027.
“A lot of my friends work in the steelworks and stuff,” Grace says. “There’s also companies involved in the steelworks like the JES Group, and they’re bringing on loads of people with apprenticeships for welding and stuff like that.
“They’re good friends of mine and when I’ve been out of contract, they’ve been messaging me like, ‘Oh, if you ever do need to work or whatever, you can always come back and we’ll try to help you out that way.’ I feel like they try to stay positive and try to keep going, and just be as creative as they can in bad times. When things are not very certain, they just keep going.”
Grace has kept going amid the uncertainty, too. His call-up for Wales’s tour to Australia in the summer of 2024 provoked tears once he realised it was not a prank. His dream had been to play for his country, not for a particular club, and he started in the uncapped game at Brisbane’s Lang Park, a historic league venue.
“I thought I’d missed the boat and I thought I’m never, ever going to get a chance to get there, and I was starting to doubt myself — am I going to be able to get a chance to get to Wales?” Grace says.
Grace made two of his eight appearances to date in the 15-man game with Bath
PATRICK KHACHFE/GETTY IMAGES
He scored but also played through injury. “In the first, like, 15 minutes I ruptured my hamstring. And then I kept telling myself, ‘If you come off, you’re not going to have another chance to play for Wales,’ because I’d literally done nothing in the first 15. So I was like, ‘Just stay on as long as you can, unless you can’t walk, then come off’. I just stayed on as long as I could.” More than 70 minutes, mostly on one leg.
Grace feels young in his body and cites GPS data to show he still has the speed that excited league and made him an untapped promise for union. You would need a heart of stone not to wish a prolonged chance for him.
“If I looked at all the injuries I’d have, I probably would have thought I’d never get through that,” he says. “But I’m quite proud looking back, reflecting on the fact that I have got through it all and stayed positive, and that’s pretty much all you can do, really, in those situations. Or just walk away from the game.
“That question’s been given to me loads of times; do you want to walk away? I don’t, because I still actually love rugby. So as long as my body allows, I’m going to keep going. I know I’ve still got plenty in the tank.”
Northampton v Sale Sharks
Gallagher Prem
Saturday, 3pm
TV TNT Sports Extra