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Wales Online
Wales Online
Sport
Katie Sands

Everyone's watching the official best Wales rugby try ever after Phil Bennett's death

Rugby fans everywhere will have their own personal favourite memories of Phil Bennett during his stellar playing career, but it's safe to say his iconic Wales try against Scotland in 1977 will top the list for many.

The Wales, Lions and Llanelli legend has died aged 73 and scores of tributes have flooded in for the man considered to be Welsh rugby's greatest fly-half of all time.

Many will be revisiting Bennett's career highlights to remind themselves just how much of a genius he really was, while he was also a true gentleman away from the field.

Turn back to 1977, Wales had travelled north to Murrayfield looking to clinch a Triple Crown but came away with a moment which would live on for decades. Bennett's iconic try began in the Welsh 22 before a scintillating team move saw the fly-half cross for what commentator Bill McLaren described as the try of the tournament at the time. The Llanelli No. 10 had jinked and jived his way through the Scottish defence to help Wales win 18-9 and clinch the Triple Crown for Wales that day.

Really, it wasn’t so much a try as a rhapsody, involving stunning audacity, dazzling invention and sublime skills, spanning 23 seconds and seeing a Five Nations defence utterly shredded. And, remember, the blokes doing the shredding were amateurs who trained for just two nights a week. Read more here on how that try defined an entire decade.

The magnificent score was voted the greatest ever Welsh try by fans in a Welsh Rugby Union competition in 2020 - surpassing Scott Gibbs' famous try against England at Wembley in 1999, among other memorable scores.

“I didn’t score that many tries for Wales," Bennett once said. "I got one against Ireland at Lansdowne Road and then two against France in 1978 when we won the Grand Slam, but they were both five-yarders.

“So, the try against Scotland is the one that gets talked about the most when I meet people. It clinched the Triple Crown and in those days the Triple Crown was more of a respected achievement than perhaps it is today.

“Wales were going through some tough times economically back then. Factories and mines were closing and people were losing their jobs. Yet, the commitment to watching Wales play was still incredible.

"I can remember on Saturday morning in Edinburgh, standing on a balcony in our team hotel and looking out along the length of Princes Street and seeing a sea of supporters, dressed in red shirts or scarves, or rosettes. I realised how much effort they had gone through and I thought: ‘We can’t let these people down’."

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