Williams first came to note as a rugby player when he joined first-class Welsh team Llanelli. He had previously played for Bryncaerau, but after the cessation of rugby with the outbreak of World War I, he joined the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and was posted to the front. During his service in the War, he was wounded on three occasions, and came to the notice of his battalion commander Lord Howard de Walden, who after the war named a racehorse, Brynfleet, after him.
