Rugby's Marlon Brando was a wild talent alright

A weekly look at the game’s other talking points

- BRENDAN GALLAGHER

The debate as to who was rugby’s quickest ever player is perennial and one of those always mentioned is former Harlequins, England and Lions flyer John Young who has recently passed away aged 82.

Young was just an 18-year-old schoolboy at Bishops Vesey’s GS when he won the AAA 100 yards title – the British Championships – in 9.9secs in 1956 on what amounted to a ploughed field at the White City which was always a graveyard for sprinters at the best of times, let alone after a week’s unrelenting rain.

The Pathe newsreel of the Championships centred on Chris Chataway and Doug Ibbotson in the three miles and the youthful Young, declaring that at last Britain had a world-class sprinter and suggesting that even at 18 a place on the GB team for the 1956 Olympics was nailed on.

Alas it didn’t quite work out like that. There was another outstanding win in an Invitation meeting the following week in 9.8 seconds but then came a nasty hamstring tear which needed resting and rehabbing. That tear troubled him for the rest of his sporting career. In the end he didn’t travel to Australia and in fact his athletics career was essentially over.

It’s difficult to judge how quick he might have become but all we can say is that the runner-up that sodden day at the White City, Titus Erinle from Nigeria – any relative of former Wasps centre Ayoola Erinle I wonder? – was a seasoned Olympian.

And in third place the highly-rated Roy Sandstrom took a Commonwealth Games gold medal with England in the 4x100 metre relay in Cardiff in 1958 and a silver medal with the GB sprint quartet at the European Championships that year.