RUGBY IN MY TIME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 39, Issue 988, 25 July 1958, Page 6

RUGBY IN MY TIME

BY

WINSTON

McCARTHY

(15) SKINNER AND THE SPRINGBOKS

iT HE night the New Zealand team for the third.Test was announced I was in Taranaki. That was the day Taranaki drew with the Springboks 3-all, and if ever a team should have won a game, morally and every other way, it was Taranaki that day. I was sitting in the lounge of my hotel when the chairman of the New Zealand Rugby Union, Mr Cuth Hogg, came on the air with the third Test team. He gave us the full-back: D. B. Clarke, of Waikato. Not much significance in that for anybody, I suppose. Well, Don Clarke was, of course, full-back for Waikato in the first game of the tour. He hadn’t played well in the trials, you-couldn’t have put him in the New Zealand team. Not long after the start of that first game he placed the ball on his own 10-yard mark. The Springboks told me later that as they went back for the kick at goal they laughed to themselves and thought that this: was just a country hick showing off. But when that kick of Mr Clarke’s passed just outside the posts end about four feet over the bar the word went around: "Watch it. No infringements anywhere near half-way." They couldn’t risk it. Then there was that audacious left foot drop kick from the Springbok 10-yard mark. The ball was just tossed back to him and he moved across a few paces and swung his left foot with the most tremendous drop kick you ever saw. And he kicked a couple of goals. So when Don Clerke’s name was mentioned they didn’t like it-oooer, they murmured. Jarden in the teamOK. Down he came through the backs. Ponty Reid, the skipper of the team

that had beaten them at Waikato, was half-back-a good little player, Ponty, they knew him. Very good. We came into the forwards. Bill Clark was back in. Mr Jones was in the team. He’d played against them at Whangarei and they’d felt his calibre then. So Cuth went on giving us the team, and the last name mentioned was-K. .« .. Skinner. That’s how he said it: K. . . Skinner. ... You could feel there and then that the Springboks were not too sure of themselves. It was a better New Zealand team all round, and they had no show. of upsetting a front row with Skinner in it-and they knew it. Because they’d both-Bekker and Kochplayed against him before. So what happens? There has been a lot of talk about how many fights there were and how many hits Skinner had. Skinner had his first hit in the second lineout in the Christchurch Test. Chris Koch stepped across him which blocked him from coming through, and Skinner warned him: "Don’t do it." I think they’re about the only words he spoke to them the whole of the tour. The ball went into touch and Koch did it again. So Skinner clocked him. Otherwise it would have just kept on happening. He was cheating, so Skinner said, Don’t cheat. There was no trouble in that front row. The word went around that Skinner had said to. Ian Clarke: "How are you getting on over there with Bekker?" And Ian Clarke was supposed to have said: "Oh, I can’t sort of handle him at all." "Well, hop over here and Ill soon fix him." ‘Now what happened was this, as Skinner told me himself after the last

Test in Auckland, when we were out that night. Ian has one of the loveliest cauliflower ears on his right hand side that you’ve seen. It comes up like a billiard ball, and it skins. And Skinner said he noticed that Ian was sort of pulling at this ear. He had cotton wool on it and a _ bandage under his headgear, you see. Skinner said, "What’s

wrong?" Ian said, "My ear’s a bit sore." And Skinner said, "Oh, well listen, hop over this side and I'll take over on your side for a while to relieve you"-you see, just to relieve his ear. That’s how these stories get about. But it is a fact that Skinner was brought to his knees by Bekker the moment he got in there. So he hit him. If he hadn’t they’d have had an upset scrum from the word go. And from then on nothing else happened in the front row-never. Skinner’s only two other hits were in Auckland. He had a hit at Newton ‘Walker, down on my left over by the goalposts, because he felt that Newton Walker was going in with the boot on one of the players too much. He missed with that hook-he got a penalty against him. The other one was when Tiny White got kicked in the back towards the end of the game and was suffering on the ground, and then Skinner had a hit at Bekker, the man who'd kicked Tiny. They were the only times.

But what I’m trying to emphasise is that this domination in the front row ended when Skinner went in, and there didn’t have to be any strong-arm stuff or anything else. They respected him and they knew that if they tried anything he would just stop them from doing it. Mind you, I still delight in what Jadpie Bekker told me about Skinner. At the dinner after the third Test I was sitting with Jaapie, Tommy van Vollenhoven, Newton Walker and one or two others. Jaapie said, "Winston, wasn’t Kevin ey

Skinner the heavy-weight champion of New Zealand?" I said, "Ja, that’s right. Back in 1947 I think it was, Jaapie. Heavy-weight amateur champion." He said, "Does he still box in the ring?" "Oh, no," I said. "Gee, Kev hasn’t been in the ring since 1947." Jaapie said, "Well, tell him to take it on again. He’s bloody good." What are the lessons that could be learned from that tour? I know the New Zealand selectors have been castigated for the type of game that was played. Look, I know those selectors. Selectors aren’t morons-they go out and try to play to win. And they knew that so much depended on winning those Tests from the New Zealand public’s point of view that they had to be won. Tom Morrison knew-he wasn’t going to listen-to any of this "open the game up." He saw the weaknesses in the Springbok team. Mr Sullivan, a very astute gentleman, knew them; Arthur Marslin also, from Central Otago-they knew the answers right along. And after they’d seen the Springboks in action I’m sure they’d worked out their line of action. I’m sure of that, because they called on Bob Stuart to coach the for- wards. Bob coaching forwards in 1953 in England when he captained the team was absolutely perfect-he made a wonderful pack out of them. Of course he’s a great personality, he can get the confidence of the chaps with his nice sense of humour and everything else. And he settled down on to those forwards, because Tom Morrison told him the type of game the selectors wanted to play. All right. So in the third Test we had little Ponty Reid. He was the right man for the job because he had been behind a Waikato pack that had played this same type of football for so longthe short punt over your forwards, keep it on the blind side, keep it away from their open backs, and let us slog through, and when we get a chance near the line let’s have a go. Ponty did a grand job. And they stuck to it through thick and thin. After we’d won the first Test, lost the second and won the third, people throughout the country were still

saying: "Oh, don’t let us have this dour stuff. Give us the open football again," But you couldn’t fool the selectors, They said, "We're out to win, and we're going to play the same type of football we’ve had before." To say the Springboks were satisfied with the tour would be silly. They were no more satisfied than we were with the All Blacks’ tour of South Africa in 1949. They lost six games, which is something unheard of for a Springbok team. New Zealand lost seven in 1949---something unheard of for a New Zealand team. What about the players-the Springboks? I’ve told you about Johnny Buchler, who'd played in 1949 for Transvaal against us, and there was Basie Viviers, who was never quite fit from the word go. Tommy van Vollenhoven I think was a great scoring wing three-quarter, and I was very sorry he pulled a muscle and went out. Tommy I always regarded as the supreme court jester ‘of the team, simply because he put a couple across me, some of the best I’ve struck, without a smile on his face. He was one of those that night at the dinner in Christchurch. He knew the brand of cigarettes I smoked and as we sat down handed me one in a packet with the cellophane still around it. "Thank you, Tom," I said. He lit it for me, I took three puffs, and I went up in smoke. A trickster, you see-he’s been to one of those trick shops, That was very funny; so he did just about the only chuckle we ever struck, put his hand in his pocket and tossed me an open packet. I had one of those and up I went again. Oh, yes, no trouble. Tommy said, "Winston, I must have my little joke, but you’d better have one of the New Zealand Rugby Union ones. Boys, pass that saucer of cigarettes up." They passed them up and I took one, and up I went in smoke again. You wouldn’t think it could happen, but it did. He’d doctored the whole outfit. Paul Johnstone we’d also met before. He’d been to Oxford; we’d played against

him in 1953. He was ea peculiar fellow in that he never spoke much, not a particularly friendly type, you know, that goes around making friends. But I would say he was the most accomplished footballer they had in the team. In the last Test he was the only man carving us to pieces, and when he came in to fly-half things looked very dangerous. He could play anywhere-a grand player. Young du Preez from the Western Province looked a good boy, but bang! went his ankle in the first Test-bad luck for them. Roy Dryburgh was a good footballer whether he played at full-back, on the wing or at centre. And what a delightful man! Win, lose or draw Roy was always the same. I’ve heard people say to him after a game, "Oh, very sorry you lost." "Why matter," Roy would say. "That’s over, let’s think of the next game." Wilfred Rosenberg was another man it was a tragedy we didn’t really see. I’d heard a lot from the South Africans about what a lovely player Wilfred was, but he had pulled a muscle. They tried him out in the second game at Whangarei, his muscle went again, and we didn’t see him until that third Test in Canterbury, when he scored the greatest try of the whole series. When that boy flashed through, goodness gracious me, he was @ grand footballer. I’ve told you about Ian Kitkpetrick who played on with a cut eye-he had his moments, And another injury vic-tim-a pulled muscle victim-was Pat Montini, who was a delightful centre or five-eighth when he was fit. Jeremy Nel, it turned out, scored more tries, I think, than the others at centre. He was a strong, willing player with a swerve of the hips that could go through for you, and an iron man with the games he played, Clive Ulyate I’ve mentioned, Clive who had some grand games and had played so well against the British team over on the other side, Brian Pfaff from Western Province-a very good cricketer, too-didn’t strike form at all. He pulled a muscle in the early stages and knew he had no show of getting it better, so we saw little of him. "Peewee" Howe had come out as a flyhalf but in my opinion was definitely a centre, And that reminds me that I pro- mised to tell you the story of what I thought happened in the Maori match, That day "Peewee" played as a fiveeighth, No flanker even looked at him all day-truly, truly, not one did. "Peewee" had the time of his life. And when I heard their journalists and others running through this game afterwards and saying what a wonderful game "Peewee" played I was shocked, Because I had seen "Peewee" play as a five-eighth before, He wasn’t very much at home when the flankers were coming at him, and he used to drop a lot i ac Fm pa getting out of the road. I said to Terry "I think they’re going to talk Fae into playing Peewee in the Test." Terry said, "No, they wouldn’t do that." My goodness gracious they did, and you know what happened, A brilliant player as a centre, not so good as a first five-eighth. What happened? In the second spell they had to bring Paul Johnstone in to first five-eighth. I think the Maori game spoilt it for them for that last Test in that respect. The two little half-backs, Tommy Gentles and Strydom, I wouldn’t trade

anybody for. They were a couple of champions, as Springbok halves generally are. We get into the forwards, The Number 8 they brought out was Dann Retief, the most honest, hardest, fittest player they had anywhere. He scored tries, he really loved the game of football, he gave it 100 per cent for the whole 80 minutes, and if it had gone on for two hours he’d still have been going. That’s how good Retief was. Basie van Wyk was bad luck for them-they lost him with a broken leg in Australia at training. Davie Ackermann pulled a muscle and got hurt-in the open, a brilliant flanker, Butch Lochner was definitely, I'd say, their hardest tacklerhe threw his hip into you mostly and was a really good player as well. Chris de Wilzem, a young fellow, was learning very quickly. He could come along later, Salty du Rand I remembered from 1949, and he was still a great player out here in 1956. Salty went in as a lock and everything else. I liked him, I admired him. Johann Claassen of course was the pick of everything. Pickard played good games sometimes, bad games at others sometimes he looked as if he didn’t have his mind on the game at all, Chris de Nysschen I remember as a tall fellow, perhaps a bit too tall and long in the leg for international football. Mel Hanekom-he was one of the hookers-hurt his leg in Australia and played very little here. Bertus van de Merwe, another hooker, did all the hard

stuff right through, and he was a good forward too. In the front rank they had Newton Walker, whose Dad had been out here in 1921. A good player, he was tough, really tough-tougher than Bekker and tougher ‘than Chris Koch. And he meant to be tough. There was the young fellow, Piet du Toit, only 21. He didn’t get a Test-the others were just too good-but he will go places, I’ve told you about Jaapie Bekker and Chris Koch, what wonderful fellows they really were, Because of the crop of injuries they had with many hard matches ahead, the Springboks were forced to call replacements from South Africa. Foreseeing the inevitable, the New Zealand Rugby Union eased things for Danie and Co. by offering to stand the cost of the extra. players should they be needed. The two players, a winger and a flanker, were flown out here, Theunis Briers and Jim Starke. Of course the usual fanfare preceded their arrival, you know, how stiff they had been to miss out on the original selection and so on, but on this occasion I could well believe it. Briers was a powerful type of wingbig, strong, and he could run and he could play Rugby. If he’d been with the team from the start I could well imagine him turning out the star winger. I liked Jim Starke’s play-unobtrusive, clever, with a great nose for being where the ball was. He was a "lean" type, but (continued on page 30)

Rugby in MyTime nd from page 7) he made up for that with his cleverness. Yes, Briers and Starke were both good players. Well, there was a team. Basie Viviers the skipper was the most delightful character you’d meet anywhere, a gentleman, as I’ve said before, and a good player who never showed his form here properly, with a ton of guts from go to whoa even when he was crook. He was a man I liked very much indeed. But Basie Viviers’s personality was clouded under the managership of Dr Craven. Actually it boiled down to this: that the team instead of being Basie Viviers’s Springbok team of 1956 was Dr Craven’s team from the word go, And it always struck me that Danie made too much of a personal issue of the tour. When a defeat came along it was he who felt it as a sort of reflection on him as Mr Rugby-that he couldn’t think things out. And there it was. In his speeches we used to get so much innuendo, culminating in the one he made after the last Test. I'll never forget that speech, when he stood up with his 32 players in front of him and talking to everyone said: "I congratulate you, from the bottom of my heart I really do. You're on top now-see how you like it. J knew we were going to lose." I knew we were going to lose! Well. I leave it to you to work it out for yourself. In front of his 32 players Mr Rugby told them that he knew they were going to lose. (Many tamous players of yesterday and today are mentioned in next week’s "Rugby in My Time," in which Winston McCarthy asks whether the players of the past were as good as the players of today. He says that not only are today’s forwards heavier and fitter, but that we expect more of them-‘"a modern pack would bury the teams of 30 years ago." Comparing backs, he says we have not got the brilliant individualists we used to have, and discussing the reasons for this decline he recalls a conversation with Vic Cavanagh on the subject. Mr McCarthy also comments on New Zealand’s prowess in cover defence, and on the fact that "somehow or other we have lagged behind every other country in the calibre of our half-backs.’’)