Former Ireland and British and Irish Lions back row Fergus Slattery has died at the age of 77, his club Blackrock College have announced.<\/p>\n
Considered one of Ireland’s greatest players, Slattery won 61 caps between 1970 and 1984 and also captained the side.<\/p>\n
Slattery helped Ireland win the Triple Crown in 1982 and 1985 and represented the Lions in the 1971 and 1974 tours to New Zealand and South Africa. <\/p>\n
“Blackrock College RFC bows its head in gratitude, pride and sorrow as we remember one of our greatest sons,” read Blackrock’s statement. <\/p>\n
“There are players who wear a jersey and there are players who define it. Fergus defined ours.<\/p>\n
“To those who watched him play, he represented rugby at its purest.<\/p>\n
“An open-side flanker of extraordinary intelligence, courage and relentless competitiveness, he always seemed to arrive first where the contest was fiercest.”<\/p>\n
Blackrock added that Slattery played “with ferocity and grace, but without ego or theatre”.<\/p>\n
“Modest in demeanour, yet monumental in achievement, Fergus never sought admiration, but earned it universally from team-mates, opponents, supporters and generations of young rugby players, who dreamed of following in his footsteps.”<\/p>\n
The Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) president John O’Driscoll described Slattery as a “giant of Irish rugby who defined excellence in his era”. <\/p>\n
“His leadership, skill and unwavering commitment to the jersey set standards that continue to inspire generations of players,” added O’Driscoll. <\/p>\n
“Off the field, he carried himself with humility and integrity, embodying the very best values of our game.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Ireland and British and Irish Lions back row Fergus Slattery has died at the age of 77,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-714795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}