Nigel Owens column: People say we'll never see the likes of Phil Bennett again but I hope we do - on and off the field

It was Phil Bennett who first invoked my own love of rugby. Without him, I guess, I might not have got involved in the sport and would never have ended up with the privilege of refereeing the World Cup final and indeed the 100 Test matches.

So it's entirely your fault, Benny! Ha.

It started back in the spring of 1977 when, as a wide-eyed six-year-old, I watched mesmerised as he scored that incredible jinking try against Scotland up at Murrayfield to clinch the Triple Crown for Wales. There was that wonderful commentary from TV rugby legend Bill McLaren and I note the try has subsequently been voted as Wales' greatest. Rightly so too, even ahead of Scott Gibbs' epic Wembley score versus England.

After he scored, I remember Benny holding this old brown leather ball, as it was back then, right underneath his chin. I had a ball like that and went straight outside to the field behind our house in the village of Mynyddcerrig pretending to be Phil Bennett. We had a couple of donkeys in the field, Chocolate and Fudge they were called, and I was darting in and out of them, pretending they were Scottish defenders, to replicate the try again and again.

It was only a small village and, to be honest, as youngsters three of four of us would go onto the streets to play football, rather than rugby. Goalie out, that sort of thing. But it was that Benny moment that captured the imagination of rugby for me. I tried playing the game, ended up refereeing and was fortuitous enough to do 100 internationals and, of course, that great World Cup final between New Zealand and Australia at Twickenham in 2015.

It was Benny's brilliance which had made me fall in love with rugby in the first place.

Read more here on how that try defined an entire