Is fly-half still rugby’s most important position?
IT’S REMARKABLE how much a line and a circle on a player’s back can signify. For decades, the fly-half has been a tactical, attacking and emotional focal point, carving the unshaped clay of their team-mates into a sculpture made in their own image. Successful teams are remembered by their ten. Sit back and listen to the roll call: Kyle, John, Bennett, Porta, Fox, Lynagh, Stransky, Larkham, Wilkinson, Carter…
They inspired a generation of modern fly-halves, as Toulouse’s Zack Holmes remembers: “Larkham, Wilkinson and Carter, they were the big fly-halves when I was growing up. They were the talisman of the team. They touched the ball a lot, probably the most of anyone, and their involvement drew me to the position, the responsibility of it. You just got involved in the game all the time.”
Yet the power of the all-controlling fly-half didn’t necessarily always lead to the greatest spectacle. Wasps fly-half/centre Jimmy Gopperth says: “We used to see ten-man rugby, especially when
