Johnny Thomas (rugby) Johnny Thomas (rugby) John Thomas ( – 25 September 1954), also known by the nicknames of "Johnny", and "Johny", was a Welsh rugby union, and professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1900s, 1910s and 1920s. He played representative level rugby union (RU) for Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, and at club level for Maesteg RFC and Cardiff RFC, as a full-back or scrum-half, i.e. number 15, or 9, and representative level rugby league (RL) for Great Britain, Wales, Glamorgan and Lancashire, and at club level for Wigan, as a or , i.e. number 6 (number 10 in a 15-player team),
Scrum (rugby union) his job was to feed the ball into the scrum. Wing forwards were frequently accused of obstructing the opposing scrum-half, and this contributed to the International Rugby Football Board, later known as the International Rugby Board (IRB) and now as World Rugby (WR), outlawing a two-man front row. Until the second half of the 20th century there were many configurations of scrum; including 3-2-3, 3-4-1 and 3-3-2. The 1906 Springboks became "the first national team to utilize the 3-4-1 formation". South Africans credit Springbok Fairy Heatlie for developing the 3-4-1 formation in 1901 at the Villagers Rugby Club in Cape