sport news OBITUARY: Eddie Butler's mastery of the mic meant he was bigger than just rugby trends now
Eddie Butler will go down in broadcasting folklore as the man who followed the toughest act in television sports commentary and took it to new heights.
That he succeeded against the odds by daring to specialise in a game long synonymous with Bill McLaren's Scottish burr made the achievement all the greater and the colourful Welshman's sudden death all the more shocking.
Typically, Butler did it by bucking the trend, aided and abetted by his mastery of the English language. In an era when too many commentators talk too much, he spent his words as if they were £20 notes, invariably finding one to capture the moment when others would use 20.
BBC rugby commentator Eddie Butler has died in his sleep aged 65 while fundraising in Peru
Such economy made him a master of the less-is-more school, his skill as a wordsmith leading to the broader canvas of Olympiads and other international events far beyond Rugby.
Butler's last scripted voice-over, on the global reaction to the death of The Queen, underlined his special status as a multi-dimensional broadcaster.
Nobody appreciated that more than the forthright England hooker Brian 'The Pitbull' Moore, his sparring partner and side-kick throughout an enduring Six Nations double act on BBC television which never failed to entertain and infuriate, sometimes in equal measure.
'Ed, I'm sorry I never told you how much I admired you as a broadcaster and as a man,' Moore tweeted. 'Well, it wasn't like that between us, was it? Sport has lost an iconic voice. I've lost a dear friend.'
Butler (centre) won 16 caps for Wales in his career and captained his country on six occasions
How cruelly poignant that he should die as he lived, pushing the boundaries ever higher, this time during a hiking adventure along the Inca Trail in the Peruvian Andes where he had been accompanying his daughter
