John ‘Jack’ Kyle was declared the Greatest Ever Irish
Rugby Player by the Irish Rugby Football Union in 2002. Born and educated in
Belfast, he played forty six times for Ireland and was part of the great Irish
team who won the Five Nations Championship in 1948, 1949 and 1951, including the
memorable accomplishment of the Grand Slam in 1948. He also went onto be
selected for both the British Lions and the Barbarians. It is a measure of his
love for the game that when his first class career came to an end he continued
to play on at a lower level until he finally bowed out in this match in April
1961.
This final game was a
friendly arranged between a select fifteen from his club side, North, against
Cooke. From the action caught on camera there is much to suggest that he could
still weave his magic. Not for nothing did the Belfast Telegraph once parody
the Scarlet Pimpernel lyrics concluding by saying, ‘That paragon of pace and
guile, that damned elusive Jackie Kyle.’