Bennett’s ex-Scarlets captain and Wales and Lions team-mate Delme Thomas stated:

“He was the best fly-half I have ever seen on a rugby field.”

Phil Bennett was such an exciting player to watch: I have never seen anyone before or since him with quite such a devastating sidestep. Seeing videos of him once more (and how lucky we are to have such miraculous technology unknown to our forefathers) led me to wonder about rugby at WHS. Did Taffy ever actually TEACH the sidestep? I used to love our rugby games afternoons because we did not only sessions practising individual skills but almost always spent much of the afternoon picking up sides and playing a practice game, which Taffy would stop now and then to talk about one or other points.

Among the exercises we did were certainly (and my era was from 58 to 65):

But I don't remember any specific training in the sidestep. I have a feeling (but memory may be failing me) that the sidestep was something that was supposed either to come naturally or not at all, and was therefore not something to practise specifically - though in retrospect that seems a bit odd. Of course, to beat most of our local opponents one only needed to do the basics as mentioned above, so in that sense a Phil Bennett sidestep was not really needed ... and yet?

I also don't recall any players famous in my time for their sidestep. Khalid Rashid was a super smooth and evasive runner; George Meredith was tricksy; Bill Coutts of course was one of the best fly-halves WHS ever produced - along with Adrian Thompson & Dave Waight - but I don't recall seeing even Bill do a sidestep. Well, it was players such as Phil Bennett in particular who made the sidestep more famous, so stunning was his mastery of it, so perhaps WHS boys who saw him on the telly AFTER he started playing were more keen to practise and use it than we were in the 50s and 60s!

R.I.P. Phil. Nobody who ever saw you play will ever forget you or your mates, a good many of whom could be considered as the best-ever players in their positions.