Barry John
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Barry John (born 6 January 1945 in Cefneithin, Wales) is a former Welsh rugby union footballer. He is considered by many to be the greatest fly-half in the sport's history, and became known as "the King".[1] John was educated at the Gwendraeth Grammar school in the Gwendraeth Valley, North of Llanelli. He played his first international against Australia, on 3 December 1966. He replaced David Watkins who went north to rugby league when a student at Trinity College, Carmarthen. John formed a devastating combination in the Welsh team with the scrum-half Gareth Edwards. John was selected for the British Lions in South Africa in 1968. In the first test in South Africa he broke his collarbone and was forced to return home.
He was again selected for the Lions; this time for their 1971 tour to New Zealand. In the first Test, under the orders of the Lions coach Carwyn James (also from Cefneithin), John terrorised New Zealand's fullback Fergie McCormick with ruthless tactical kicking. The Lions won the test, and McCormick never played for the All Blacks again. Despite losing the second test, the Lions won the third test and drew the fourth to win the series. It was on this tour that John received the nickname "the King". He scored 30 of the Lions 48 points over the four Tests, and cemented his reputation as one of the game's greatest players.
One year later, at the age of only 27, with only 25 Welsh caps and 5 British Lions caps, Barry John retired from the game. His last match was against France in March 1972. John cited media attention as the key factor. The story goes that he finally had enough of the attention his ability was drawing when a young girl curtsied to him outside the opening of a local bank, obviously in reference to his nickname. Once Barry John had retired from rugby, he disappeared totally from the public eye.
As the authors of the official history of the Welsh Rugby Union, Dai Smith and Gareth Williams, wrote of him: "The clue to an understanding of his achieved style lies in what he could make others do to themselves. The kicking, whether spinning trajectories that rolled away or precise chips or scudding grubbers, was a long-range control, but his running, deft, poised, a fragile illusion that one wrong instant could crack, yet rarely did, was the art of the fly-half at its most testing. He was the dragon-fly on the anvil of destruction. John ran in another dimension of time and space. His opponents ran into the glass walls which covered his escape routes from their bewildered clutches. He left mouths, and back rows, agape."
Rodney Webb, the man who developed the modern rugby ball, also believes that John was the greatest kicker of all time.[citation needed] As he points out, these days the balls are coated in a laminate used on the hulls of giant oil tankers, have dimpled surfaces, unobtrusive lacing and multi panels. In the Seventies the balls soaked up water, swerved all over the place and were placed on muddy and sometimes uneven pitches (unlike many of today's professional rugby pitches) without the use of tees.
Barry John was inducted into the International Rugby Hall of Fame in 1997.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Wales profile
- Profile at International Rugby Hall of Fame website
- Portrait of Barry John by David Griffiths
- Profile at sporting-heroes.net
- 'Fame monster' forces Barry John to retire at 27
- Profile at nobok.co.uk
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