Former Wales International Alun Carter dies aged 59

Former Wales International rugby player Alun carter has died at the age of 59.

His former club, Newport RFC wrote on X "we are saddened to learn that former Black & Amber, Alun Carter, has passed away."Alun made 145 appearances for the club between 1990 and 1996 during which he earned 2 caps for Wales."We send our sincere condolences to Alun's family and friends at this difficult time."

As a boy, Carter captained of the 1983 Welsh Schools Grand Slam winning team,

He played more than 300 games in his 15-year senior career, before hanging up his boots in April 1999.

In that time he played for Pontypool, SO Millau, Newport and South Glamorgan Institute / UWIC.

He played under Ray Prosser for Pontypool and Ron Waldron for Wales.

After leaving the field, he went on to become a leading sport analyst, working alongside ix Welsh national coaches in Kevin Bowring, Sir Graham Henry, Sir Steve Hansen, Mike Ruddock, Scott Johnson and Gareth Jenkins.

He also joined Henry’s British & Irish Lions back room staff for the 2001 tour to Australia.

He went on to become team manager at Worcester Warriors once again working alongside Ruddock for five years and then became director of rugby at Pontypool between June 2014 and January 2015.

For the past four years he had been a Lecturer and Employability Lead in Sport Performance Analysis at Cardiff School of Sport and Health Sciences at Cardiff Met, where he returned to help develop the next generation of sporting analysts in much the same way as Lyons had done 30 years earlier.

The WRU said they "send sincere condolences to the friends and family of Alun Carter."

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