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The All Black prop at the centre of one of the most remarkable and mysterious rugby stories ever told has died at the age of 74.

Keith Murdock's death was confirmed by New Zealand Rugby on Friday.

His amazing story began nearly 46 years after a fateful night in Cardiff that changed his life forever, report WalesOnline.

In December 1972, the giant prop became the first All Black to be sent home from a tour following an incident in Cardiff.

(Image: REX/Shutterstock)

Hours after scoring the winning try to beat Wales 19-16 at the Arms Park on December 2, the moustached Murdoch punched a 29-year-old security guard following a heavy drinking session at the Angel Hotel in the city centre.

Peter Grant, the security guard from Cwmbran, was reportedly left with two black eyes following the incident that made front page news in Wales and New Zealand.

(Image: REX/Shutterstock)

“He tried to punch one of his tour officials and I stepped in to restrain him," Grant said at the time.

"They managed to get him away but then he came round from some pillars and punched me.

“They held me back to stop me getting at him. Our men restrained him, with one or two of the New Zealand players helping. It was ridiculous. We were there to protect the New Zealanders. This should never have happened.”

(Image: REX/Shutterstock)

Two days later, All Blacks manager Ernie Todd took the decision to send Murdoch home in apparent disgrace, insisting it was "for his own good".

What happened next gave birth to one of the most mysterious rugby stories ever told.

The 17st 4lb prop was put on a plane from Heathrow to New Zealand, via Sydney. He never arrived back in Auckland.

(Image: REX/Shutterstock)

It’s thought he switched flights in Singapore and instead boarded a plane to Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory, where he vanished.

Repeated attempts to contact him and bring him back into the New Zealand rugby fold failed.

Murdoch is believed to have moved to the Australian Outback, living a nomadic existence following seasonal work in Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory.

(Image: REX/Shutterstock)

In the years and decades that followed, numerous journalists tried to track him down for an interview with little success.

About five years after the 1972 tour, rugby writer Terry McLean found Murdoch working at an oil drilling site near Perth. The encounter was short.

McLean got off a bus and said hello, only to be told by a spanner-wielding Murdoch to get back on the vehicle. “I got back on the bus,” McLean wrote.

(Image: REX/Shutterstock)

Kiwi journalist Margot McRae then found him in 1990 living in the Queensland town of Tully, where he agreed to speak to her off camera.

“He was a deeply shy person, not very articulate. He felt it was better to be quiet than be embarrassed. He was not going to come home and be confronted by reporters,” she said.

(Image: WalesOnline/ WS)

A decade later, in 2001, Murdoch was called as a witness in an inquest into the death of a Aboriginal man in the Northern Territory.

The then 57-year-old had caught the 20-year-old breaking into his home in Tennant Creek, north of Alice Springs.

The young man’s body was found in an abandoned mine weeks later. Murdoch was never named as a suspect and said little at the inquest, where he again ignored the media.

It is not known where Murdoch disappeared to after that day. He was never publicly seen or heard from again.

It is unknown how he died, although it is being reported he passed away in Australia.