Tony O’Reilly last night led tributes to Cliff Morgan, the former Wales and Lions fly half, who died yesterday after a long illness. He was 83.

Morgan was regarded as a genius of a player who, after his early retirement from the game, forged an equally successful career in radio and on television.

On the 1955 Lions tour to South Africa — the series was drawn 2-2 — O’Reilly, the Ireland and Lions wing who went on to become a business tycoon as chief executive of H. J. Heinz, and Morgan struck up a deep and lasting friendship.

“To have played with the man was a unique experience,” O’Reilly said. “But to have known him, to have been his friend, to have toured with him