SAS THE LION WHO BECAME AN HERO

BLAIR MAYNE was not a big man by modern standards. He weighed a touch over 15st and stood 6ft 2in. Today that would make him ideal for the back-line. In the late 1930s, Mayne locked the scrum for Ireland and the British & Irish Lions.

Mayne, like most men of his era, probably never lifted a dumbbell; his strength was natural. Like his agility, athleticism and temperament. He was not a man who buckled under pressure; on the contrary he flourished. He was one of those rare people whose clarity of thought and decision-making was sharpened by stress. He proved it in his brief international rugby career, as he did in the war that denied him the chance to be remembered as one of the greatest players to have represented the Lions.

Had it not been