Educated Bassaleg School (also a good cricketer playing for Wales). Went to Caerleon Traing College when he played for Newport in 1946. Captained Newport 1954-55 to 1956-57.
Played 27 times for Wales 1949-59, twice as captain in 1957. He played in 2 Grand Slam seasons in 1949-50 and 1951-52. He scored 22pts including 4 tries for Wales.
Went on 2 Lions Tours to Australia/New Zealand, 1950 and 1959 when he played in all back positions except scrum half. Top scorer in 1950 tour with 95pts - he played one test against Australia and two tests against NZ.
Played and captained Royal Navy, also played for Devonport Services, including their 1950-51 defeat by Newport at Rodney Parade 12 v 3, London Welsh, Monmouthshire, and Barbarians.
In 1955-56 captained Newport to Club Championship (losing only 5 of 40 matches) and 7's, and Monmouthshire to Welsh Counties Cup.
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RUGBY WORLD carried the following article on Malcolm after his playing days:-
"MALCOLM THOMAS is a man who was destined right from the start to reach the top in any activity. His Rugby career, which began with a secondary schools cap for Wales and ended with his second British Lions' tour nine years after his first, was most remarkable. So is his business career."
"The coterie of ex-Rugby players who live in our little corner of south Buckinghamshire - Malcolm's home is two or three miles from my own - know him as the genial sportsman he has always been, and enjoy the banter on the golf course. They also know that he is something pretty high up in Reed International, the big paper organisation."
"In fact, he is chairman and chief executive of Wall Paper Manufacturers Ltd which is the decorating products division of the organisation. There are 10,000 employees under his leadership, their turnover is £200 million a year, and Malcolm travels the world as he goes about his business. In his charge are companies like Sanderson, Crown Paints, and Polycell. The division have just sold 140 retail shops."
"He has achieved this position in 25 years, having started as a salesman in South Wales. As he is only 49 this month (April), one can say that his climb up the industrial ladder has been swift and sure, just as his try-scoring exploits were in the 1950s."
"Although he gave up playing in 1960 and now has little time even to watch the game - he goes to internationals whenever he can and watches television - Rugby has never been far from his thoughts. Like most Welshmen he is saturated with the game, and for that reason it is not really surprising that he achieved so much."
"Something else counted too - his wide-ranging adaptability. He is strongly built, nearly 6ft and in his playing days weighed about 13 stone. He could play anywhere behind the scrum and did. He played in every position but scrum-half for the Lions, and they even wanted to play him there once, too."
"He started at first-class level in 1945 for Newport, and eventually became their captain. He served for three years in the Royal Navy, captained the Devonport Services side, and was the youngest man ever to captain the Navy. In 1951 he led the Navy to their first Services championship since 1939."
"Meanwhile, Wales had capped him at the age of 19. Usually he played in the centre or on the wing, and in 1950 he scored the vital try that brought Wales the Triple Crown for the first time for 39 years."
"Malcolm was really one of the successors in the centre to the Jack Matthews-Bleddyn Williams reign, although, of course, his career overlapped theirs. He tells an amusing story of being picked to play for Wales at the expense of Matthews. In fact, Matthews played after all because Bleddyn Williams became injured. At the match three of the five Welsh selectors came up to Matthews in turn and said "Sorry you got dropped Jack, but I voted for you". "
"Malcolm went on to win 27 caps for Wales, being captain twice. In 1950 he went to New Zealand and Australia as a British Lion, and must be the only Lion to have gone there both by ship and by aeroplane, because he went again on the 1959 tour."
"He was not only a strong and accomplished runner, but he could kick goals, and on that first tour he was top scorer with 96 points, scoring nine tries, 18 conversions, and 11 penalty goals. He would almost certainly have been on the 1955 trip to South Africa had he not broken his leg in the season before the tour. When he was asked if he would be available for the 1959 tour, he replied: "Come off it. I'm too old." He was 30, and Wales wanted to put him up as captain. However, Ronnie Dawson of Ireland was made captain, and Malcolm, the oldest man in the party, scored 56 points."
"His selection for the Lions in 1950, the first naval man ever to be chosen, had taken the Navy by surprise. Apparently there were no Admiralty orders about men in the Service going on long Rugby tours - it was six months in those days - so Malcolm went off gaily on full pay."
"Between then and the time Lewis Jones, who was also in the Navy, was chosen to go out as a replacement, the Admiralty had caught up with the situation and ruled that a man should be on half pay while on tour. So the unfortunate Lewis Jones, who was a rating, was on half pay, and the officer, Malcolm, was on full pay."
"When he returned from that second tour Malcolm went into the management side of the business. He gave up playing Rugby, too, but he was not long out of the game. After three years with one of Reed's companies in Kent, he was sent to Hartlepool to open a new factory and become general manager. He coached Hartlepool Rovers as well as Durham, who were doing well in the County Championship at the time under Mike Weston's leadership. Then he was sent to Solihull to manage a factory in Birmingham, and so became coach to North Midlands."
"In the close season he turned to cricket. He had played for Cornwall while he was in the Navy, and was in a Minor Counties championship game at the Oval as a fast bowler. He did not take any wickets, but he made top score in each innings. At one time during his career with Reeds he lived at Chalfont St Giles in Buckinghamshire and played cricket for Gerrards Cross. Every one of the eleven are now members at Denham Golf Club."
"But Rugby keeps cropping up everywhere. In the Reed organisation important positions are held by "Squire" D. T. Wilkins the England and Navy forward of the 1950s, and the inimitable Haydn Tanner, the great Welsh scrum-half who played just before and just after the last war. Tanner, in fact, introduced Malcolm to the Reed Group."
"Although he cannot watch much Rugby now. Malcolm holds very strong views about the way the game is going. "It is so much faster now, and therefore so much more dangerous, that I think some drastic action must be taken to stop the rough play that has crept in," he said. "We played hard in my day, but we got all the physical contact we needed without putting the boot in or throwing punches. Now it seems that the punch is accepted"."
" "I am concerned at the lack ot discipline which brings a nasty element into the rucks. The solution may be an extension of the differential penalty, and an increase in the value of penalties for serious offences. It could be 10 points, but clearly something must be done to check the rough play"."
"Malcolm talked to me in the large lounge of his very lovely home in Beaconsfield, from which he commutes every day - a long day, 12 hours usually - to his office in London. He and his wife Gwen will celebrate their silver wedding anniversary in December. It is quite a year of celebration for them. Malcolm's daughter Ruth, a secretary in High Wycombe, has her 21st birthday party this month. His son Paul is 19 and is studying production engineering at Birmingham University."
"Having been appointed to the main board of Reed International last year, there are few heights left for Malcolm to conquer, but he is as dedicated to his work as he was to Rugby Football."
" "I love it," he says. "I find it so interesting and of course it makes me travel. I go to almost every part of the world, except Japan, but, of course, I am always glad to get home"."
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In Newport's Centenary Season Malcolm contributed the following article for the Newport v Barbarians match programme on 1st April 1975:-
"MALCOLM C. THOMAS, Newport - Barbarians - Wales - British Lions,"
"recalls playing for the Barbarians"
"My selection to play for Newport in my first match against the Barbarians on 8th April, 1947, turned out to be more of a nightmare than a dream come true. On that afternoon many years ago, Newport took a beating to the tune of 19 points to 3 from an all-International star-studded Barbarian team, including such great names as C. B. Holme, Dr. Jack Matthews, Karl Mullen, Bleddyn Williams, Vic Roberts, Haydn Tanner and M. R. Steele-Bodger. Being hammered ball and all throughout the afternoon by Micky Steele-Bodger at open-side wing-forward caused the football reports to go unread in the Thomas household on the Wednesday following the game."
"Playing for and against them on many occasions after that date only served to polish an image which represented and still represents the best in world rugby. The short tours abroad have done much to spread their fame worldwide. Having played with the present Chairman, Brian Jones, on his very successful 1958 trip to South Africa under the astute managership of the President of the Barbarians, Herbert Waddell, only served to underline the great pleasure that players derive from playing for and against this great Club."
"But Herbert has been foxed. In 1952 he was running the Barbarian Golf Tournament at Penarth Golf Club on the Sunday following the Cardiff match (John Phillips, the Newport hooker, once did the first hole in 91 with a billiard cue) when B. M. Gray, the Richmond wing, rushed on to the course with the telephoned news that mining subsidence at St. Helens, Swansea, would mean the transfer of next day's match to another ground. Telephoned offers at intervals throughout the day of Ystalyfera, Seven Sisters, Pontardulais were all rejected and it was late in the afternoon before a Scottish leg found the pull too much to accept. It was as well that Dolly Gray played so well in the win over Swansea next day."
"On the first match of that tour, the brilliant Lewis Jones mesmerized the Penarth defence, scoring 19 points on his 21st birthday, and the captain gave the last conversion kick of the match under the posts to Jimmy Nelson, of Ireland. He kicked the only goal of his long rugby career and Lewis missed a chance in a lifetime."
"And it was at dinner following a Barbarians' game at Cardiff that Dr. Jack Matthews told the story of my first cap. After what seemed a lifetime in the Welsh centre berth with his Cardiff partner, Bleddyn Williams, he was dropped for the French game. Bleddyn was injured in the week before the match and Dr. Jack was brought back into the centre. On the boat on the way to Paris, four of the then "Biq Five" individually indicated to him their pleasure at his return to the side and each assured him that he was sorry Jack had been dropped, with the words "but I voted for you". "
"Unquestionably the finest debut of a young player against the Barbarians at Newport was that of Garfield Owen in 1954. At a few hours' notice he was whisked from Junior rugby at Pontyclun to stardom at Newport on Easter Tuesday, and thence to the Welsh team and the Barbarians in the next season."
"The sight of this internationally famous side taking the field at Newport today will evoke many memories of matches and players past and with the laws now allowing their flair full reign, there is an abundance of fun and enjoyment to come in the future. May the friendship between the Barbarians and Newport continue to flourish."