What sets the best sporting heroes apart is the way they make you feel. Which is why, when the final whistle arrives, there is such a deep and lasting sense of communal loss. Over and above his status as one of the greatest fly-halves to play rugby union and an enduring Welsh icon, the late Barry John will forever be the twinkling star of millions of youthful imaginations.
For better or worse the “King”, as they called him, played rugby from another dimension. He glided rather than ran and preferred to feint and tease rather than bump or smash. He was a clever kicker as well but, if circumstances allowed, his game was about spatial awareness, intelligence, evasion and angles rather than blunt‑edged orthodoxy. At his best he dealt in poetry rather than prose, an artful dodger in a world of leaden‑footed roundheads.
