Tommy David
Welsh rugby union and rugby league footballer
Thomas Patrick David (born 2 April 1948) is a Welsh former dual-code international rugby union and rugby league footballer who played in the 1970s and 1980s. He was born in Pontypridd, and played representative rugby union (RU) for Wales and the British Lions and rugby league (RL) for Wales. He was selected for the 1974 British Lions tour to South Africa, and at the time played club rugby for Llanelli RFC. He also played for his home-town club Pontypridd RFC, and while at the club was part of the 1976 Grand Slam winning Wales team. In 1981 he switched codes to rugby league, representing Cardiff City Blue Dragons.
Rugby career
Thomas David commonly known as Tom or Tommy, was given the nickname "Tom the Bomb", and was noted for his diving, try-scoring prowess, which would be used to great effect in Pontypridd's 1975/76 season. David was a fitter by trade, but would later become a company director.
David was a keen rugby player as a youth, and represented his school, Hawthorn Secondary Modern before joining Pontypridd. In 1972 he switched to Llanelli, and was chosen to face New Zealand when the All Blacks played Llanelli as part of their 1972/73 tour. The game saw a historic win for Llanelli, beating New Zealand 9–3. This was the first of two encounters for David against the same touring All Blacks as he also played flanker in the Barbarian side of 1973 who were victorious against New Zealand at Cardiff Arms Park.
The public source identifies “Tommy David” as welsh rugby union and rugby league footballer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Tommy, David and Welsh.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Tommy David”, the useful work is to connect “welsh rugby union and rugby league footballer” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3525028. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1948, 1974, 1976 and 1981.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tommy David” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.