Rugby Folklore

By Matt Elliott

From superstitions to send-offs, All Black nick-names to on-field battles: Rugby Folklore is a miscellany of stories, quotes, and facts that are part of the fabric of New Zealand rugby.

New Zealand has played, celebrated and commemorated rugby like no other country. We took to the game in extraordinary numbers in the late nineteenth century. Rugby was the game for all. It became a sport in which names like Grizz, Tiny, Guzzler, Pinetree, Rimu, and the Paekakariki Express have made us feared and revered as the greatest rugby nation on earth.

Rugby Folklore is a book about matches won and lost, rivalries built and legends made. From on-field controversies, rugby songs, and what makes an All Black to Hika's great try, 'Bring Back Buck' and wind at Athletic Park so strong that Don Clarke watched a ball kicked for touch sail back over his head.

Covering the earliest days of club-rugby through to the modern-day All Blacks, this collection of interesting facts, unforgettable quotes and tall tales will you leave you looking on our national game with pure unbridled pride ... and a little disbelief!

'Remember that rugby is a team game; all 14 of you make sure you pass the ball to Jonah.' - Fax to the All Blacks during the 1995 RWC

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Nov 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781775491774

Matt Elliott

Matt Elliott is one of New Zealand's busiest authors, writing across genres for readers of all ages. His best-selling biography of comedian Billy T James was the basis for both a television biopic and cinema documentary. A winner of the Book of the Year and Best Non-fiction Book awards at the New Zealand Children's Book Awards, he has previously written four rugby titles. He lives in Birkdale, on Auckland's North Shore, and this year coached his local college's Fifth grade (Open weight) rugby team.Visit: mattelliottnz.com

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INTRODUCTION

In New Zealand, we have played, celebrated and commemorated the game of rugby like no other country. Men took to the game in extraordinary numbers in the late 1800s, with hundreds of clubs being formed around the country. It was a game that could be played by those of all physiques — the stout bloke, the beanpole, the sprinting whippet, the mischievous little fella — and all occupations. Rugby has been called ‘our game’, and for decades, rightly or wrongly, has dominated the national landscape.

The game has a verbal history. Tales of deeds on the football field have always been shared, from the well-publicised moments of All Black brilliance, through to the achievements of provincial teams, the fables from close-knit club sides and even family stories associated with the game.

In my own family there is a story about my grandfather, James (Jim) Ford, who was watching a game from the bank at the old Athletic Park in Wellington. A cold wind was howling in from Cook Strait, and rain was lashing the ground. Jim had a hipflask inside his coat, and he and his cousin were sharing warming nips of whisky poured into the lid of the flask. A bloke in front of Jim turned around and said, ‘I’ll give you a shilling for a nip.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Jim.

He poured the nip and the bloke said, ‘I wouldn’t mind a bit of water with it.’

Jim tilted his head and a trickle of rain ran off his hat and into the nip of whisky, greatly amusing all around him.

Jim was once sent off in a club match, but the referee can’t have viewed his indiscretion with long-lasting disdain. He later let his daughter marry Jim.

On the other side of our family, a great-uncle, Ted Searle, was a member of the Southern rugby club in Te Kopuru. Having been sent off in a game for robustly questioning the referee’s knowledge of the rules, he was subsequently banned from even entering the club gates. (The referee was a local stock agent and frequent visitor to the Searle farm.) To watch a match, Ted had to sit on his horse outside the ground with his son, Ken, on the horse, too. However, when the club was in need of funds from its members, the ban was suddenly forgotten and Ted was welcomed into the fold again.

Stories such as these were our family folklore.

*

As a boy, I began to create my own rugby history stories. In my first year of Intermediate, I won a class speech competition using the All Black career of Bryan Williams as my topic.

Then, a year later, on the bus home from school one day, I had tucked under my arm my prized adidas All Black ball. (Recently bought for about $30 from a sports store in Auckland’s Queen Street, having saved and saved for it.) I sat down next to an old man near the rear of the bus. He asked, with a slight English accent, if he could see the ball, and when I handed it to him he rolled it around in his big, leathery hands.

As we talked, he said, ‘Did you ever hear of George Nepia?’

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘My grandfather has told me what a great player he was.’

‘He was the best player I’ve ever seen,’ said the elderly gent.

‘Did you play?’ I asked.

‘I did, but then I went and played league in England. I played against George over there.’ He had, he said, only recently returned to New Zealand.

I often wonder just who that man was.

A childhood friend of mine bought, at my request and payment, a duty-free transistor radio when on a trip overseas. It was a prized possession, for listening to cricket while sitting on the back lawn in summer or to rugby in my room on wintry afternoons.

I remember, a few years later, rushing out of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Auckland after Sunday Mass to sit in our big Holden Kingswood and listen on the car radio to the remaining minutes of the All Blacks 21–21 draw with Argentina in Buenos Aires. The radio commentary seemed to come in on the wind, the volume and clarity fading and increasing every few minutes. The only constant was the buzz of the crowd and the hooting of horns in Ferrocarril Stadium. It was a nervous listen as Hugo Porta fired off drop-kick after drop-kick to try to win the game. Porta, with his three dropped goals and four penalties, had the highest tally for any player against New Zealand, but the question had to be asked: had his addiction to kicking kept Argentina or New Zealand in the game?

My school rugby team was, at the last minute, drafted in to be part of the opening ceremony at Eden Park for the 1987 Rugby World Cup. We were given little flags to (self-consciously) wave while standing on the field, as All Black legends Waka Nathan and Don Clarke wandered out and waved to the crowd. On the day, I think Don Clarke pulled a hamstring. The great Waka Nathan stood near us and said, ‘Alright, boys.’ We were then able to watch the game from the North Stand. As a couple of photographs I took at the time attest, there weren’t many people at the ground for a game in which for the first time the All Blacks scored more than 50 points in a test, brought up by John Kirwan’s great length-of-the-field try.

There was another, darker side to the game, too: what contact with apartheid-era South Africa did to New Zealand society. I well remember going with my father on ‘No Tour’ marches up Auckland’s Queen Street. Exhilarating and nerve-racking!

Rugby, which for many years was always printed with a capital ‘R’, was very much part of the oxygen I breathed when growing up. Thousands upon thousands of New Zealanders have their own individual stories from their youth of little moments that contributed to their lifelong interest in the game.

*

There is also the material culture around the game, from the match-day programmes to cereal and cigarette cards of All Blacks, songs lauding or lampooning the game and its players, cartoons, official ‘fan-wear’, books, tickets, autographs, and so on. This is all part of the story of the game in New Zealand and how the game is celebrated off the field.

On a bookshelf at home I have a copy of The New Zealand Rugby Football Union 1892–1967 by A. C. Swan. It was given to me when I was about 10 years old by Ima Batty, one of two elderly sisters we would see every Sunday morning at Mass.

Ima’s husband had recently passed away. A kindly, quiet, broad-shouldered man whose face I can recall to this day, his name was Walter Batty. Tongan-born, he had played for the All Blacks from 1928 to 1931, and was famously photographed in the front row for the last match in which the All Blacks used the 2-3-2 scrum. He played for Auckland for a decade, and was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal during World War II. Walter’s name is written in the front of the book. It was one of the first items in my All Black ephemera collection (which my wife refers to as ‘all that stuff’).

*

Sport, and in this case rugby, provides the unexpected. It surprises. Leaves us bewildered. Stunned. Depressed. Ecstatic. Such moments remain in one’s memory and cement themselves in the collective conscience as ‘folklore’, that ongoing conversation made up of the verbal and the material.

The following miscellany looks at aspects of the wonderful, confusing, famous or infamous, infuriating and exhilarating game of rugby football in this country, over more than a century. It shows how much has changed, both on and off the field, but how our love for the game and its players has (generally) remained strong.

SUPERSTITIONS

Always play with the wind in the first half. Get points on the board. The wind might die away.

Always take the wind in the second half. It takes a while for teams to settle into the game and get points.

Fergie McCormick (All Blacks career: 1965–71) would always put on his right boot — the kicking foot — first, as did Ian Jones (1989–99) and Beauden Barrett (2012–).

Dave Loveridge (1977–85) would put on the left boot — his non-kicking boot — first, as did Grant Fox (1984–93). In fact, Fox would methodically change into his clothes in the same order every time before a game.

Left sock on first for Dane Coles (2012–) and Luke Romano (2012–17), and also for Aaron Smith (2012–), who would always touch the turf as he ran out onto the ground.

Bob Scott (1946–54) always laced up his boots the same way. That is, when he wore them — he was famous for giving kicking displays in bare feet.

Making sure they packed their rugby kit bag, or packed it the same way for each match, was a superstition shared by McCormick and fellow fullback Laurie Mains (1971–76).

Maurice Brownlie (1922–28) had a favourite pair of blue dungaree shorts that he had to wear when playing for Hawke’s Bay.

Ian MacRae (1963–70) made sure he always cleaned his own boots.

Bob Burgess (1971–73) thought that to make the All Blacks he would have to run 100 miles a week.

Stu Wilson (1976–83) put on his clothes in the same order every time — from head to toe.

Bruce McLeod (1964–70) put his shorts on last.

Allan Hewson (1979–84) always had baked beans for lunch before a game.

A number of players would have their favoured ‘match undies’ or Speedos, including Bryan Williams (1970–78), Simon Culhane (1995–96), Chris Jack (2001–07), Aaron Mauger (2001–07) and Sam Whitelock (2010–).

TJ Perenara (2014–) had to play in ‘left’ and ‘right’ socks.

Conrad Smith (2004–15) would always make sure he personally carried his boots and socks to the ground.

There were players who made sure they ran out onto the field in the same place in the team line or between the same players. For example, John Graham (1958–64) had to be between Kel Tremain (1959–68) and Dennis Young (1956–64).

Liam Messam (2008–15) and Ian Jones had to always sit in the same place in the changing room.

Alan Whetton (1984–91) would never put his jersey in the same bag as his boots, mouth-guard and togs. He would walk around Eden Park pre-match, stopping at each corner, imagining scoring a try there.

Starting during Graham Henry’s reign as coach, when the All Blacks won a test match, the first and last song played on the bus (as the team left the ground and arrived at the hotel) was Kenny Roger’s country classic ‘The Gambler’.

On the team bus, management have always sat up the front.

The ‘leadership group’, as it is now called, sits at the back.

Ben Smith (2009–19) would have a sugar hit from a small bag of lollies just before kick-off.

Kieran Read (2008–19) would lay out his gear the same way before each game.

When taping up his wrists, Wyatt Crockett (2009–18) would always make sure the tape ended on the inside of his arm.

Colin Meads (1957–71), when he wasn’t captaining the side, liked to run on last. He also had to receive a telegram from his wife, Verna, before the game. Before the fateful 1970 game against Eastern Transvaal where his arm was kicked and broken — possibly deliberately — he didn’t receive the telegram, and, because he was vice-captain, he ran on second, following captain Brian Lochore.

Finally, a bit of old advice on how not to suffer from cauliflower ears: rub Vaseline into them about half an hour before taking to the field.

‘Don’t use water. He’ll turn to paste and we’ll never be able to move him!’

— referee Clive Norling to a St John Ambulance volunteer after All Black prop Gary Knight had been felled by a flour-bomb in the 1981 Springbok test at Eden Park.

‘[Bleep, bleep]!’

— Wallaby hooker Phil Kearns’s salute to Sean Fitzpatrick after scoring a try at Athletic Park in the Wallabies’ 21–9 win in 1990, which ended the All Blacks’ sequence of 50 unbeaten games. (Not enough to overtake the 52-game run of the All Blacks from 1965 to 1970.)

‘We’ll win the series 2–1 with one draw.’

— 1971 Lions’ manager Doug Smith prior to the start of a tour in which the Lions won the series . . . 2–1 . . . with one draw.

‘I’m delighted to announce the appointment of Robbie Deans as the Qantas Wallabies National Coach.’

— Chairman of the Australian Rugby Union Peter McGrath, December 2007.

‘At the moment it is like a swimming pool.’

— 1968 French manager Jean-Claude Bourrier, upon inspecting Athletic Park prior to the second test, after days of rain in the capital.

‘It wasn’t very pretty, but it came down to how much desire, how much courage the boys had.’

— Richie McCaw after winning the 2011 Rugby World Cup final.

FORESKIN’S LAMENT

Long-haired Otago number 8 Greg McGee came very close to All Black selection, having played in six of the eight tour games for the New Zealand Juniors (Under-23s) on their Australian trip in 1972. The Rugby Annual described him like this:

Roaring success. The main reason so few tries were scored against the Juniors. Chased the ball incessantly in every match. Always there to cover for the backs when they dropped a pass (which was often). Ranked with [John] Callesen as the forward who contributed most to the tour.

When the Juniors had played the All Blacks at Athletic Park earlier that year (the first game on the senior team’s nine-match internal tour), the Juniors forward pack was the heavier of the two sides.

Other members of the 24-man group who would go on to feature in All Black teams of the 1970s were Callesen, Grant Batty, Kent Lambert, Joe Karam, Ken Stewart, Andy Haden and Brad Johnstone. Coach Eric Watson, from Otago, would also graduate to instructing the top team.

When his rugby days were over, McGee concentrated on becoming a playwright. His 1981 play, Foreskin’s Lament, brilliantly captures the ugly, chauvinistic, macho side of New Zealand rugby in the early 1970s. It premiered at a time when the country was divided over the 1981 Springbok tour, the South African rugby team’s first visit since 1956. New Zealand had been a signatory to the 1977 Gleneagles Agreement, a declaration by Commonwealth governments that they would discourage their national sporting bodies from having contact with teams from the Republic until such time as the apartheid system was dismantled. In a statement after the signing, the collective leaders described apartheid as ‘a dangerous sickness and an unmitigated evil’.

McGee actually burnt his Juniors jersey as part of an effigy in a protest prior to the Eden Park test against the Springboks, but still made it back to his flat in time to watch television coverage of the match and Allan Hewson’s last-gasp penalty kick that won the match for the All Blacks 25–22 and secured a series win.

The ‘Foreskin’ of the play’s title is a club rugby player’s nickname. Foreskin/McGee pointedly muses on the fanaticism for rugby and its folklore that was such a part of New Zealand society. There were so many avid rugby fans who knew New Zealand’s sporting and cultural history year by year based on where the All Blacks played (home or away), and knew our prime ministers or governors-general by which visiting rugby captains they shook hands with.

Foreskin’s stream-of-consciousness monologue is spoken at the end of the play. It seems appropriate to include part of it near the start of this book.

We were DBed, JJed, BGed, jardined, cooked, nicholled, elvidged, fred allened, otagoed in ’49, bayed through the ’60s, and through all of it, hot and cold wars, ’51 strikes, recessions, depressions and the booms that gave them depth, hippies, yippies, and all the determined dog-paddling through our little backwater, there was one thing we knew with certainty; come winter, we’d be there, on the terrace, answering the only call that mattered — c’mon black!

‘You’d better start answering your phone, fool, ’cause you’re going to be in Auckland in a couple of days.’

— phone call from Mils Muliaina to Stephen Donald, who missed a call from Graham Henry to join the Rugby World Cup 2011 squad because he was whitebaiting.

‘The ’Boks are weak on the short side.’

— anonymous note given to the Waikato coach Dick Everest from someone within the South African camp prior to the first match of their 1956 tour. Waikato won 14–10, scoring two tries down the short side.

WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?

When the 1956 Springboks toured New Zealand (after a visit to Australia, where five wins were notched up), the test matches were, well before the first kick-off had occurred, widely regarded as being the contest that would decide who would claim bragging rights to being the best team in world rugby.

The previous two home and away tours had heavily favoured the South Africans. The 1937 Springbok side that won the test series 2–1, after losing the first rubber, is still regarded as one of the best teams to play in this country. The 1949 All Blacks who went to the Republic for the next test series between the two countries are forever seen in the context of the All Blacks losing six tests in a row, including two played by different teams, half a world away, on the same day. As if losing the four-test series in South Africa wasn’t bad enough.

A writer using the nom-de-plume of ‘Clarence’ contributed a poem to the Otago Daily Times lamenting those losses.

ALL BLACK BLUES — A TRAGEDY IN SIX TESTS

We’d better face the facts, you chaps,

And let the truth be understood;

So let us humbly doff our caps,

For we’re no blooming good.

Since last July — forget it not —

We’ve played six tests — and lost the lot

At Newlands, last July, the tale

Was sad when Geffin found his mark;

Last week the final coffin nail

Was sunk on Eden Park.

Forgive if we our teardrops blink —

It’s rather tragic — don’t you think?

And blame the cooking, blame the chef,

The crowds (and don’t forget the Press),

The wind, the weather, and the ref —

A biased linesman — Yes.

Such panaceas dim our woe

Just once or twice — but six times? No.

They say confession soothes the soul,

Then let us banish all the ‘buts’;

Let’s own we lack the right control

And we can’t play for nuts.

With our shortcomings thus confessed

Admit no flowers — by request.

The 1956 South Africans faced a New Zealand itinerary of 23 games, including four tests.

They dropped the first game to Waikato. Didn’t score a point: 0–14. Hello, said the New Zealand rugby public, we’ve a chance here, come test time.

The Springboks won the next eight games, with three of them being by three points or less (North Auckland 3–0, Auckland 6–3, Wellington 8–6).

First test: Carisbrook, Dunedin. First blood to the All Blacks, 10–6.

During the next week a midweek win, then a loss to Canterbury, 6–9.

These ’Bok forwards don’t seem to be up to much, said the rugby public.

Three more wins, then the second test at Athletic Park. The tourists come right: 8–3 win.

The public get jittery again.

A midweek win, then a draw with Taranaki, 3–3. Ferdinand the Bull nearly had kittens!

Third test: Lancaster Park, Christchurch. (Not the most straightforward of itineraries in terms of travel.) 17–10 . . . to the All Blacks. Two games to one, a series win was on for the home side.

Four days later, the New Zealand Universities side beat the ’Boks, 22–15. The match of the tour so far. The students ran the ball. The tourists took them on at their own game. Rugby, as they say, was the winner.

Two more wins, including the 37–0 hiding of a very disappointing New Zealand Maori team.

Then to Eden Park on 1 September. Never had there been such anticipation before a test match in New Zealand. A paying crowd of 61,240! Many had camped out all night for tickets.

The spectators crammed into the ground witnessed what was up to that point in time the greatest and most important score in All Blacks history. Those listening on the wireless heard these words from commentator Winston McCarthy:

In it goes. In the front of the line-out. Hemi comes through, with the ball at his toe. Going on and he knocks it out of Dryburgh’s hands. Jones is coming down. He takes it in his hand.

It’s a try for New Zealand!

Try to New Zealand. Peter Jones has scored.

I’ll tell you about it when the crowd stops roaring.

Listen to them. Listen to them!

The crowd is going absolutely crazy.

Now from that ball to the lineout, Strydom went to get it, right in the front of the lineout. Hemi kicked it away from him, took it at his toe, up about ten yards. Knocked it out of Dryburgh’s hands. Jones picked it up, ten yards infield and tore up the field. He beat everybody and scored right by the goalposts. Peter Jones, a try, and the time gone, five minutes.

Now they’ll argue who is New Zealand’s greatest forward, for years to come, I suppose.

Dynamic is the word.

That try by our big number 8 and the conversion by fullback Don Clarke were the key scores in securing an 11–5 win. For the first time in the 20th century the mighty Springboks had lost a test series.

After the match, as thousands of fans remained at the ground, milling around the front of the main stand, they began calling for Jones and Clarke to appear.

An exhausted Jones, sitting without his jersey underneath the stand, wearily pulled on a blazer and made his way up to the grandstand balcony. Somebody from the media asked him how he felt. He replied, ‘Well, ladies and gentlemen, I hope I never have to play as tough a game as today’s. I’m absolutely buggered.’

Never before had that ‘b’ word been broadcast in New Zealand. Many laughed. Some were appalled. The New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation sent around a memo making it very clear that the Jones recording was not to be aired again! (Apparently, it wasn’t until the 1980s.)

Jones later recalled: ‘I realised what I had said. It came very slowly back into my head. I didn’t feel startled, and I didn’t think it was funny. I didn’t know it was being broadcast, and it wouldn’t have made any difference if I had. I went straight down again to the dressing room and sat slumped on the seat. I meant what I’d said: I did not ever again want to play in as hard a match.’

Fast-forward 50 years from that match and infamous quote. The All Blacks have just managed to pip a plucky Argentinian team at the José Amalfitani Stadium in Buenos Aires. Granted, coach Graham Henry had sent a second-string All Blacks side to South America due to a compressed itinerary of home tests against Ireland and then the start of the Tri Nations.

The rain- and referee-affected match saw Argentina ahead by 16–15 at the break, and the All Blacks did exceedingly well to hold on, playing the last four minutes a man down, with fullback Leon MacDonald in the sin bin. The Argies threw everything at the All Blacks in what was a thrilling finish, but the men in black won 25–19.

Captain for the All Blacks (the first of three tests he would lead the side in) was Jerry Collins. A player who expected much of himself and his team, when interviewed straight after the match he seemed a bit frustrated by his team’s performance.

‘It was a good workout, but that’s probably not what people at home want to hear, or see on the scoreboard.’

Then he added, ‘Ah, f*** it!’, before covering his mouth with his hand.

There was no reaction to the use of that word as there had been when Jones uttered his swear word. After all, it was 2006 and it was a word of common usage that you could probably hear every night on television (after the watershed). It was also Jerry Collins being himself, being brutally honest, and many supporters probably felt the same way.

That wasn’t the only surprise from Collins that night. Later at a post-match function he made his captain’s speech in Spanish,