Peter Jackson (22 September 1930, in Birmingham – , in Solihull) was an

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

international who played on the wing for Coventry and Warwickshire for many years. He earned the nickname '

Nijinsky Vaslav or Vatslav Nijinsky (12 March 1889/18908 April 1950) was a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer of Polish ancestry. He is regarded as the greatest male dancer of the early 20th century. Nijinsky was celebrated for his virtuosity and f ...

' after the Russian ballet dancer. He was devastating when he had the ball to hand and could sidestep or outpace a defender with equal facility. He scored three tries in the

1957 Five Nations Championship The 1957 Five Nations Championship was the twenty-eighth series of the rugby union Five Nations Championship. Including the previous incarnations as the Home Nations and Five Nations, this was the sixty-third series of the northern hemisphere ru ...

and helped England to their first Grand Slam since the Twenties. In 1958 against at

Twickenham Twickenham ( ) is a suburban district of London, England, on the River Thames southwest of Charing Cross. Historic counties of England, Historically in Middlesex, since 1965 it has formed part of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, who ...

, he demonstrated his mastery of the feint to score a dazzling match-winning try. He was capped twenty times in all for England. He then amazed the

All Blacks The New Zealand national rugby union team, commonly known as the All Blacks, is the representative men's national team in the sport of rugby union for the nation of New Zealand, which is considered the country's national sport. Famed for th ...

on the 1959 Lions tour, scoring 16 tries in 14 games, including four test matches. He was described by one journalist as 'the zaniest runner of all time'. Peter Jackson suffered a stroke in the early months of 2003, was hospitalised and would suffer another stroke in the summer of 2003. He died in hospital in March 2004.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, Peter 1930 births 2004 deaths Aldershot Services rugby union players British & Irish Lions rugby union players from England England international rugby union players English rugby union players Rugby union players from Birmingham, West Midlands Warwickshire County RFU players 20th-century English sportsmen