BJJ News | I ssue 6 | M arch 2015
These were the days of the amateur game. Analysis with By the 1990s, 80% of his patients were suffering from HIV/ slow-motion replay would be taking the whole thing far too Aids. seriously. I recall an interview with a dedicated investigator He took us to lunch, at the golf club – “expat. indulgence” who asked him about his preparation – whether he lead with -- but I was unable to steer the conversation towards the his left foot when approaching a defender from the right,-goal-posts. He would smile - perhaps a recollected match and how did he plan to wrong-foot full backs, &c &c . The – quickly to fade, without a semblance of nostalgia. The reply was typical. “To tell the truth I don’t know a great deal games of yesterday’s childhood were set aside together about the game. I just sort of play it.” There was no sarcasm with his OBE, the Grand Slam for Ireland (1948) the Triple in the remark. He played with the instinct of which he Crown (1949) the home countries Championship (1951); an expressed ignorance. Bob Scott, the great All Black fly-half, Honorary Doctorate from Queen’s University, membership against whom Kyle scored a famous try at Dunedin on the of the International Rugby Board’s Hall of Fame, and a British Lions tour of 1950, lifetime achievement award said: “Of all of them there from the Royal Academy of has never been, nor ever Medicine of Ireland. was, anyone to touch him.” The number of his patients So it was when he in Zambia, with ever y type abandoned both Rugby of surgical need, was greater and Ireland, in favour of even than those who cheered his proper (or daytime) his genius from the terraces job. Trained as the most of Lansdowne Road or general of surgical Twickenham. A literate and practitioners, he left these quietly religious man, Kyle islands for the Copperbelt would read poetry before a of northern Zambia to be match if he wasn’t taking a the only surgeon in a 500nap, which he often did before bed missionary hospital, a game. Even on the pitch he in Chigole, near Kitwe, had a relaxed, almost somnolent close to the Congolese air, until, as Frank Keating Fig. 2 In action against England border. There he worked described, “with a dip of his hips for 37 years. His work and an electric change of gear, was by modern standards he would leave the floundering uncomplicated and cover, rooted like trees, as he “general.” Just as a fly-half, touched down under the posts”. he was clever enough rarely He took the Rubaiyat of Omar to get into surgical trouble, Khayyam on the Lions tour. He but instinctively to find his said the greatest compliment way through anatomical he ever received was from the difficulties. Irish poet Louis MacNeice who, I visited him in Chigole, when asked if he could make in the late seventies. He one wish, replied: “I would like s h owe d m e ro u n d t h e to have played rugby like Jackie wards and discussed cases, Kyle.” Fig. 3 With Brian O’Driscoll (lef t) at Ireland’s in spite of my personal One of the sadnesses of a Grand Slam victor y, Cardiff, 20 09. Jack Kyle wish to talk about rugby. long life is that so many of those was a member of the only other Irish Grand He described his work with who would have cheered the Slam team in 1948 typical modesty: “I’m just like loudest are themselves already an old country surgeon in rural Ireland, 60 or 70 years ago – dead. Cliff Morgan, many of whose opinions are set down nothing remotely sophisticated, I’m afraid”. here, predeceased Kyle by a few months. He too, excelled There were cases of hernia, spinal fracture, vascular injury, in the years following his stardom on the pitch. A man of caesarean section, tibial fracture, undiagnosed tumours and immense natural generosity, Cliff leaves a son who is an osteomyelitis. Problems of pathology paled into pathos. eminent orthopaedic surgeon. A uthor
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Michael Laurence Past- President, World Orthpaedic Concern mikelaurence81@gmail.com
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