The Great Number Tens Book

Former Australian international Michael Lynagh has been named at fly-half in a rugby union dream team paraded on the Internet. The competition for the No 10 spot in the select 15, picked in a "Player of the Millennium" poll conducted on the Net, must have been hot, though. A plethora of Great Number Tens have graced some of the world's famous stadiums and this book remembers them in a distinctly colourful way. National journalist Frank Keating is a talented writer and his silky style does ample justice to some of the best fly- halves in the sport's history. Welsh wonders Barry John, who wrote the foreword, and Phil Bennett, plus Australia's Mark Ella and Scot John Rutherford, are just four No 10s to have displayed their marvellous skills on the international stage. Most of the glorious careers recalled in this book were finished long ago, but Keating brings them all back to life in a storybook form which includes quotes both from and about the stars themselves. No publication of this kind is complete without its photograph collection and this one includes a picture of the first try to be shown on television, when the fledgling BBC covered the 1938 Calcutta Cup. For the statistically minded, there is an appendix which lists "A century of fly-halves" with the details (year and opponents) of the matches each played in. This is a nostalgic and sublime look at some of rugby union's greatest playmakers and characters. Like the players themselves, it is extremely entertaining. --Martine HunterRead More