Jackie Kyle 1926-2014
The greatest fly-half of them all
Huw Richards
November 28, 2014
Ireland's Jackie Kyle is lifted from the field in 1958 © PA Photos
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An old Welsh story tells of a group of friends sitting in a pub and debating who was the greatest outside-half.

"It's obviously Phil Bennett, nobody could sidestep like him", says the first, only to be assailed by a host of counter-claimants.
"No. Barry John. Nobody else could ghost like Barry."
"What about Cliff Morgan ? Nobody else could make a break, or kick, as well as him."
"You're forgetting Jonathan Davies. Nobody swerved like him."
Finally the last of their company speaks up. "There was once one who could sidestep like Benny, ghost like Barry, break and kick as well as Cliff and swerve like Jonathan."
"Who was that?"
"Jack Kyle."

No death at close on 89 can come as a complete shock, but Jack Kyle, like his great successor Mike Gibson, had an air of agelessness. Seen at 72 waiting behind the Lansdowne Road stand for a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of Ireland's first Grand Slam, he looked almost young and fit enough still to be playing.

 
"Should some celestial time machine ever enable Ireland to field a midfield in which Kyle services a centre pairing of Gibson and O'Driscoll, the rest of the world would have to watch out"
 

And he seemed ageless as a player as well, lasting in Ireland's colours from the end of the Second World War until 1958, in the process claiming a then all-time record 46 caps and with his six Lions appearances becoming the first man to play in 50 matches between the major rugby nations.

Contemporary accounts speak to us of a complete outside-half, a supreme technician who always knew not only what to do but when to do it. Cliff Morgan recalled his father taking him as a schoolboy to see Kyle play for the Barbarians at Penarth and telling him, "That's who you want to look at, and study and emulate."

To the All Black legend Bob Scott, a sharp and perceptive watcher of other players, he was "extra special on and off the field. Of all of them there has never been, nor ever was, anyone to touch him".

Kyle was capable of the spectacular, drawing applause from French opponents as he undid them with 'a fiesta of side-steps' in 1953. But he was often an unobtrusive presence, one of those selfless players who brings the best out of others. It is no fluke that Bleddyn Williams, Jack Matthews and Ken Jones performed as a unit with more consistent brilliance on the 1950 Lions tour of New Zealand and Australia than they ever did for Wales. Morgan, recalling his somehow catching Jones, an Olympic sprinter, for a try-saving tackle, attributed it to the "wisdom which enabled him instantly to take in every factor of the game".

Former Ireland international Jackie Kyle, England v Ireland, Five Nations Championship, Twickenham, England, February 11, 1956
© PA Photos
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The veteran New Zealand critic Terry McLean reckoned that "Kyle's football always had the air of genius about it, whether he was shuffling past a marker, grubber-kicking, or fooling the opposition into a false sense of security". The last was perhaps his greatest trick, epitomised by the try which in 1951 salvaged a 3-3 draw in Cardiff which secured Ireland's third outright championship in four seasons. Morgan, a debutant that day, recalled that "Just when I had been lulled into a false sense of security, Jack suddenly took off and went past to score a try which saved the game".

Kyle's death breaks one of the remaining links with what, until the triumphs of recent years, could be seen as the all-team peak of Irish rugby, the team which claimed three championships in four seasons between 1948 and 1951. He was the ringmaster of that team, working from the possession supplied by a classically aggressive Irish pack.

Off the field he was a quietly religious, literate man who enchanted McLean by taking the Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayam with him on the 1950 tour. A doctor, rugby fame could doubtless have eased his way to comfortable and lucrative appointments. Instead he chose to spend his working life as a medical missionary in Zambia where until 1992, Frank Keating found, he was the only surgeon in a 500-bed hospital.

The 'greatest Irish rugby player' debate had a justified run-out last season with the retirement of Brian O'Driscoll. Comparison between eras and positions is tough, although it is one of the quirks of Irish history that Kyle, like Gibson and Willie John McBride, was an Ulsterman, leaving O'Driscoll as the greatest product yet of the Irish Republic.

Greatest? Perhaps. Certainly Ireland have had none greater, nor anyone more universally liked and respected. And should some celestial time machine ever enable Ireland to field a midfield in which Kyle services a centre pairing of Gibson and O'Driscoll, the rest of the world would have to watch out.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd

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