Gerry Thornley, rugby correspondent, offers his impressions of one whose passing has left the game palpably quieter and duller

The sudden death of a larger-than-life sporting character will always send a shock wave through that individual's sport and the loss of Mick Doyle is no exception.

There could only ever be one "Doyler", and not alone did he remain an enduring personality in Irish rugby for four decades, his list of achievements was such that, as Brian O'Driscoll commented yesterday, he simply qualifies as one of the legends of the game.

A lengthy and unusually varied club career and a coaching career that involved successful Leinster and Irish sides as well as a Lions selection, is quite a curriculum vitae by anyone's standards. He left an impression alright, as he tended to do with anyone who ran into him.

Doyler will undoubtedly be remembered as someone who lived life to the full, a bit of a rogue really, with a glint in his Kerry eyes and a ready chuckle. He liked a glass of red wine occasionally, he loved telling rugby stories (one would imagine he'd have struggled to stay away from the game), but as Ciaran Fitzgerald said, his public persona camouflaged "a very intelligent man".

"He wasn't a very big player . . . but he had great pace, he read the game very well, and he studied the game very well," recalled Noel Murphy, who was alongside Doyle in the Irish back row when he scored a try on his debut against France in 1965.

Murphy recounted them playing together for a Mickey Steele Rogers selection against Cambridge, who were warming up for the varsity match and had Mike Gibson in their ranks. Gibson warned them against using any of the back-row moves Ray McLoughlin had introduced with Ireland, as Cambridge were going to employ them against Oxford.

"We were losing 3-0 or something when we had a scrum and Doyler called one of the moves. Mike heard him but as he was heading in . . . to warn us off using it, Doyler raced past and scored under the posts."

Though he retired from international rugby at the relatively young age of 28, it wasn't long before Doyle became one of the most innovative coaches of his time.

It's often overlooked that he coached perhaps the most successful Leinster side ever. True, he was blessed with an exceptional group of players, half-backs John Robbie and Ollie Campbell exerting a profound influence, and he gave them their heads. Leinster won all but one of his 26 games in charge from 1979 to 1983, claiming four interpro titles at a time when interpro titles meant something.

In cahoots with his good friend Mick Cuddy (and they remained in cahoots for ever more) he took over the Irish team in controversial circumstances in 1985 when Willie John McBride was ousted after one year in charge. But, irreverent and highly quotable, to most of us in the media as well as the Irish players at the time, Doyler really was a breath of fresh air. I'm pretty sure his "give it a lash" philosophy isn't apocryphal. He really did use those exact words.

Despite the Triple Crown/championship success of 1982 and championship win of 1983, the following year had seen Ireland whitewashed, with the ensuing break-up of that team. Campbell, Moss Keane, Fergus Slattery, Willie Duggan and John O'Driscoll had all retired.

He certainly knew talent when he saw it. Amid some uproar, Doyle brought in five new caps (Brendan Mullin, Michael Bradley, Willie Anderson, Philip Matthews and Willie Sexton) for the creditable 16-9 defeat to the Grand Slam Wallabies of Mark Ella and co, as well as Brian Spillane and Nigel Carr for the Five Nations opener against the champions Scotland in Murrayfield.

But his approach was encapsulated by his bold decision to restore Paul Dean at outhalf. "He gave us a belief that we could do anything, whether we could or not," recalls Dean. "We had a very good, strong side that year, all the guys were thinking on a similar wavelength and we were given licence to do so by Doyler."

If 1985 had been his concluding year, history might have judged his reign even more kindly. As it was, Ireland were whitewashed again in 1986 but regrouped a year later to win two out of four. But for an unlucky 16-12 there might, and perhaps should, have been a second Triple Crown.

Ultimately, Ireland underachieved in the inaugural 1987 World Cup, when Doyle suffered a heart attack. He would reinvent himself as a fresh, hard-hitting - though at times a bit too hard-hitting - columnist in the Evening Herald.

The title of his second autobiography, Zero Point One Six: Living in Extra Time, was a typically cheeky response to the brain haemorrhage he suffered in 1996. In the last year or so, he seemed to be bounding back to his normal self, and through all his tough times, he never seemed to be in a bad mood.

As Trevor Ringland said yesterday, "Irish rugby will be a lot quieter and duller without him."