Why we all love the magician fly-half

Jasper Maskelyne was an intriguing man whose exploits during the Second World War walk a fine line between myth and legend.

He followed in his family’s footsteps as a stage magician but it was his involvement in the Second World War as part of a Camouflage Unit that sees him stand out from the ordinary.

Of course this growing status was greatly helped by the book Magic: Top Secret, which came out in 1949. This book was not shy about extolling the virtues of Maskelyne. However, recent research argues that the book only served to perpetuate the myth of his conjuring abilities and hide his marginal role in this little-known branch of the military.

If we are to believe his account, Jasper Maskelyne’s team turned ordinary trucks into tanks and vice versa. He is also believed to have created a mockup of the night-lights of Alexandria conveniently located far enough away from the Suez Canal to fool German bombers into attacking the wrong target. He even claims that his ghost armies directly led to the victory in the battle of El Alamein, as it fooled Rommel into believing the Allied attack would come from an entirely different point.

Yet it seems that Brigadier Dudley Clarke, the head of the A Force Deception Department in Cairo, actively encouraged Maskelyne to talk up his achievements in order to mask the true inventors of dummy machinery and to encourage this practice among the Allied High Command.

This is a great shame. I want to believe that this man worked on a large scale and helped contribute, or even played a huge part, in the Allied victory in North Africa. I am a sucker for a well-performed magic trick and even though I am fully aware of the fact that illusion is at play, I suspend my disbelief as I want to be dazzled.

It seems that rugby is no different. We all warm to a good magician. David Campese, for example, had many failings as a player but his ability to deceive his opponents with his footwork wizardry ensured his place in the hearts of fans all over the world – as well as his native Australia.

But there’s one position, it seems, where magicians seem to be in abundance. Flyhalf, first-five-eighth, stand-off, outside-half. Call it what you want, my beloved number 10 position appears to contain a disproportionate amount of magicians.

It appears fly-halves can be divided into two camps. The first is the metronomic goal-kicker fly-half. Johhny Wilkinson was perhaps the King in terms of his boot’s influence on a game. We’re not just talking about kicks at goal but the controlling kicks within open play that beat down an opponent.

These players had other positive attributes but they are remembered for their boots rather than their hands or footwork. Grant Fox, Naas Botha, Ronan O’Gara, Gareth Jenkins, Morné Steyn, Rob Andrew are examples of players who won many a game for their teams but their contributions will be remembered for what their kicking feet did.

The second camp, and definitely a crowd favourite, are the magician fly-halves. These players may not have had the solidity of the aforementioned group but they had that special sparkle in their eye when they played that made you doubt as to what their next move was going to be.

Wales and New Zealand are probably the only places where the nickname The King does not conjure up the image of Elvis Presley. That name only leads them to think of Barry John and Carlos Spencer respectively.

You can go through any team and it won’t be difficult to pick out a magician. Mark Ella for Australia, Argentina has Hugo Porta, Scotland has Gregor Townsend, England has Danny Cipriani, Wales fleetingly had Gavin Henson, South Africa have a few but why not plump for the young Handré Pollard who ended the seemingly indomitable reign of Morné Steyn.

France had Thomas Castaignède and the Pacific Island teams do not count as they like to have magicians all over the park.

As Hugh Jackman and Chrisitan Bale demonstrated in The Prestige, every good illusionist has to have a noticeable flaw. Mark Ella did not have a great kicking game but his running and passing were a joy to behold. Andrew Merthens couldn’t tackle but his kicking and passing game saw him take away the King’s staff for much of his career.

Obviously there are fly-halves who have tried to bridge these two camps and so stand out. Or they did such extraordinary things like Phil Bennett’s two great sidesteps that culminated in the ‘greatest try of all time’.

Daniel Carter springs to mind in the modern era and Johnathan Sexton has the makings of that type of player. Michael Lynagh took over from Ella and so naturally it is easy to place him in the goal-kicker’s camp but that is harsh in my opinion. Just as it would be to say Stephen Larkham wouldn’t sit well in the company of Hugo Porta, Bennie Osler or Jack Kyle.

It is tempting to say the first camp is boring but reliable and the second camp is exciting but flaky. Of course there is an element of truth to those assertions just as stereotypes always reflect some kind of reality.

But it is too easy to paint in broad strokes. My favourite player is Andrew Merthens. That is not to say I rate him above Daniel Carter. Besides, I have never been a fan of that practice of ranking players.

I think, though, when a player has noticeable failings, it makes us more inclined to warm to them. Players who are rounded with no noticeable failings are magnificent to have in your side but they don’t get the creative juices flowing to wax lyrical over them.

Just as we tend to focus too much on the boot of the goal-kicking fly-halves, so too do we tend to focus too much on the strengths of the magicians. Even though Carlos Spencer humiliated Canterbury with his giant sleeve of tricks, I still loved to watch him play. He enjoyed his rugby and that made me enjoy watching him.

Yet for every banana kick or knee kick that went right, you could probably point to a forced pass that went wrong or a mad scientist experiment that blew up in his face.

The problem was that we wanted players like Carlos Spencer to be reliable kickers as well as revealing sleights of hand and pulling doves out of box kicks that changed the nature of the game.

Quade Cooper is a player who also got a lot of flack for his failings. For every time he stood up flat in the line and released a player with a long-ranged bullet pass inside, people like to point to a missed tackle or an intercept like Carlos Spencer did in the 2003 with his cut-out pass gleefully accepted by Stirling Mortlock.

Watching him for the Reds in 2011 was like watching a breathtaking action movie. You just sat back and enjoyed the show and forgot all about the implausible plot and corny dialogue.

I think one of his best games was in Dunedin in 2013. Australia lost that day but the Wallabies scored 33 points and just before half time Quade Cooper threw a delightful pass to Ashley Cooper. He kicked with aplomb and hit back at his critics.

He was made vice-captain and even though they lost the first game up against England, they went on to thump Italy and Ireland and secured victories against Scotland and Wales.

Say what you like about the man, I do believe being a professional rugby player is no easy task. There may well be some who make it look easy but then they have never had to deal with the pantomime villain tag.

Rugby is a sport for different shapes and sizes and specific positions can be played in a number of ways. I for one am happy for the contribution that rugby magicians have made to the game and though, much like Jasper Maskelyne, the myth that grows about them may not resemble reality but do we not all want deep down to believe that we have witnessed some kind of magic?