Maoridom’s Mighty Warriors

Tu Tangata, Issue 9, 1 December 1982, Page 5

Maoridom’s Mighty Warriors

By TERRY McLEAN

Even Solomon in all the glory of his infinite wisdom might be stretched, one imagines, to name the First XV of all of Maoridom’s mighty warriors of Rugby. Since I do not possess the remotest touch of his qualifications and frequently am said to be the dumbest cove who has ever written about Rugby but I still reckon I’ve seen more of the game that King Solomon ever managed I must perforce just battle along. But it’s a tricky job; just about as difficult, for example, as stopping Sid Going when he was in full cry, or persuading George Nepia to miss either a tackle or a catch of a high ball.

But the challenge is there. Who were the really great among Maori players? Who stood out? Who would be fit to rank among the elect of players produced by the race? I write this before the tour of Wales is completed; but, at time of writing, I would think only Stephen Pokere of Paul Quinn’s team would qualify for consideration among the great players. Quinn himself set a fine example of the kind of courage which distinguishes the best Maori players. Richard Dunn and Eddie Dunn moved well in combination though I still tend to think Paul Blake (goalkicking apart) was or is the finer scrumhalf. Paul Tuoro made dramatic improvement, to the point where, if this were to be sustained, he could be figuring on the list of All Black possibles. But oh, that handling! That want of decisiveness in the tackle Nepia in the stands must have cringed in shame! That tendency to react to every knock as if it were a blow delivered in a roughhouse! In efforts of this sort, the new Maoris were not rateable among the masters of old. But, without reaching too far for excuses, I would tend quite bitterly to complain the administration in New Zealand Rugby, of which Graham Mourie wrote quite bitterly in his autobiograhy in November, was at fault in failing to provide the Maoris with a couple of lead-up games at home, say against Canterbury, Wellington, Manawatu or Auckland, which would have acquainted them with some of their problems and compelled them to concentrate on their elimination. I said it was a challenge to be asked to name a selection for Maoridom’s mighty warriors. Let me, in this spirit, start with a challenge. There is no question of the immortality of Nepia. I will forever treasure the association we formed when between the two of us we composed his own autobiography, “I, George Nepia”. (Our association

Before the Maori match at Swansea on the 1982 tour, George Nepia stepped onto the historic St Helen’s ground to an ovation from the crowd. It was on that field as a youth of 19 that he played a major part in the 1924 All Black’s 19-0 win over Wales. On the 1924 ‘lnvincibles’ tour, George Nepia played all 30 games.

had in fact begun very much earlier when I was a primary schoolboy in Hastings and George was an established All Black. During a variety show staged for several nights at the Municipal Theatre, George in each show brought down the house with his singing of “Beneath the Maori Moon”. Four of us, about the same age, failed to excite anything more than pity, or perhaps it was contempt, when we charged through a number whose title I have forgotten but one verse of which recited that “I called on my sweetheart, her name is Miss Brown/She was having a bath so she couldn’t come down) I said ‘Slip on something, Come down and be slick, So she slipped on the soap and she came mighty quick”. Not, you might say, the stuff to have them queueing at the box-office, waiting to rush in to hear such stuff. But there it was, George and I had had an association a long time before the book; and I doubt that he would have any memory of the appearance of us kids. No question, as I say, of the unassailable immortality of Nepia in Rugby. But what might have happened if another man with whom I was associated had not been a victim of one of Adolf Hilter’s soldati during the Battle for Faenza in Italy in late 1944? Mick Kenny, born in 1917, had begun to make his mark for Johnsonville and Wellington before he went, off to war and became, as I also did, a member of the 22nd Infantry Battalion. In such Rugby as was possible during wartime and a good deal of it was played, if on a rough-and-ready basis he immediately proved to be a fullback of exceptional skills. He was tall and powerful. He had a punt almost as long as Nepia’s. He had excellent anticipation. His tackle was decisive no member of the Maori team in Wales remotely compared with him in this. There is no question that, had he been spared his serious wounding and

which, we feared at first, was going to cost him his life, he would have been a first choice for the Kiwi Army, team captained by Charlie Saxton which toured through the British Isles, France and Germany before it played a few matches at home in New Zealand, all in 1945-46. As a first choice, Mick would have outranked Bob Scott and Herbie Cook, two paxefta who were cnosen for the side and each of whom Scott in New Zealand and Cook in Rugby League in England, later became celebrated, Scott to the point where he was regarded as a genius of the game, fit to compare with Nepia. I suggest, as a possibility, as a starting-point for a good, strong arguments, that if Mick Kenny had been allowed to play through his career without physical impairment, he might have turned out to be good enough to challenge Nepia as El Supremo among Maori fullbacks.

all-time . . But, putting aside this notion, which probably sounds fanciful anyway, one soon becomes involved in all sorts of difficulties mtrymg to sort out a Maori all-time XV. How, for example, do you separate Sid Going of North Auckland ancl of , great Hawkes |^ ay n j Urly S^ taams 19205. Sid was a wonderful player. He was a genms in his own style. That style was not easy to io ß° w - One of his North Auckland captains, a pakaha, said: ‘‘What can you say about Sid? I would arrange with the team that, having won the ball, we would run it. That’s to say, Sid would start a passing-rush among the backs and, as and where we could, we forwards would join in. Well, we would win the ball. Whereupon Sid would immediately hoist it over the top of the forwards and chase after it like a bat out of hell. Or else I would tell the team;

‘Right, we’ll win this ball. Then we’ll drive it, Sid nipping around the flanks to put the ball back among us so that we cou ld charge as a group into a try to S pi d tbe opposition.’ OK, we’d win the b a y Whereupon, I’d stand up and see tbat Sid had set the backs going in a run He used to fool us Maybe that - s w h y be so o f ten f oo i e( j the opposition”, Mill was much more the servant of his team ’ s tactics; which, getting on for 60 years agoi were a gre at deal simpler than they are now, when all sorts of schemes are being cooked up as attacking, tactical moves. Jimmy, who’d been sprint champion at Nelson College and who was very fast over the ground, was a subtler man than Sid. His great individual ploy was a try around the blindside when the Bay scrummed close to the opponent’s goalline. He used it seldom Charlie Saxton was also outstanding in this kind of dangerous, rewarding play. But when Jimmy did decide to go, you could lay half-crowns on

the result. It would be a try. He had a sort of lopsided, deferential grin which rather gave the impression of excessive modesty. So far as I remember, he was modest, too. But when he moved in that tryscoring movement, he wore a lopsided, deferential grin which suggested that he really was sorry, he shouldn’t be doing things like this to your team.

Mill did have one other recommendation. His backs scored a whale of a lot of tries. This implied quality passing after the forwards had won the ball; and quality passing means speed. Perhaps the greatest of all Welsh scrumhalves, Hayden Tanner, spelled out the perfect case when we talked.

“There are three points,” he said, “about the pass by the halfback. It’s length versus speed versus accuracy and the greatest of these is speed.’

No question about it, Tanner was right; which makes me cast my vote, for Mill however reluctantly because Going of whom I saw a great deal and who was, in my opinion, unquestionably great. The tries he set up for Bryan Williams in the first and final tests of the All Blacks’ tour in South Africa in 1970 were extraordinary demonstrations of genius.

Stead v Herewini

Naturally, though I may look as old as Methuselah and often feel it after I’ve seen some of the rugby of these days where the result so often is determined by penalty goals rather than by tries I never saw Bill Stead play at first five-eighths for the 1905 All Blacks. I did see a great deal of Mackie Herewini, a favourite of Auckland’s Ranfurly Shield teams of the 1960 s and who is a natural recommendation for first five of THE great Maori team.

But I can tell a story about each which establishes, positively, that Stead must have been the greater player. At the golden jubilee of the 1905 tour, the remaining players were the guests of the New Zealand Rugby Union; and as a number of us, on the afternoon before the test match the next day, drank in the bar of the Midland Hotel in Wellington, I witnessed Jimmy Hunter put his arm around Stead’s shoulders. “Ah, Billy,” Hunter said. “Without you, I would have been nothing”. On that tour, Hunter scored 42 tries and no player since has come within close of such a number, either by a second five-eighths, as Hunter mostly was, or any place else.

Many a year later, I drank with another immortal, Bert Cooke, in the boardroom at Eden Park after we and many thousands more had watched a match. Cooke was at least as brilliant as Hunter and probably was, in fact, more gifted. “How would you”, I asked him, “have liked to play today?” Bert’s answer was pointed. “Not,” he said, “outside Mack Herewini”.

You can gather a great deal which is signficant to true Rugby from these two

remarks. Saxton made a very fine team of the Kiwis because one and all of them and their forwards, like the recent Maoris, were deficient in ballwinning skills hewed to his instruction that “the object of Rugby is for 14 men to give the 15th a start of half a yard”. That, essentially, is Rugby to build up combinations which produce the try-runner going like the clappers with the defence well beaten by slick and well-timed passing. I may sound like a Methuselah when I say that the fundamental fault of modern Rugby is

that this lesson has been forgotten. We applaud the Allen Hewsons because they kick millions of goals when we ought to be looking for players with the attacking skills to build up millions of tries by themselves or their teammates.

And now, having established the halfbacks I always prefer the British idea of inside and outside halfbacks to our halfback and first five-eighths because these two, who are the fulcrum of attack, ought to be chosen as a pairing who think as one (as, for example Sid and Brian Going did well for so long) we move to the outer backs and heap, big trouble in trying to decide who ought to play where. wafted through Because of childhood reverence which matured into the warmest regard of adult years, I can’t possibly part from Jackie Blake, of the great Hawkes Bay teams, as my centre, outside centre if you prefer the British sys-

tern of four three-quarters. He was a slim and elegant runner who wafted, as did Bert Cooke, through gaps. He was also a magnificent tryscorer. In 18 Ranfurly Shield matches, he scored 22 tries which is about the number a whole team scores these days throughout a season. In 66 first-class matches, Jackie scored 43 tries. More than that, his wings, Bert Grenside and Albert Falwasser, scored a great many, too.

But, my goodness, how about separating, for second five or inside centre, Johnnie Smith, Bill Gray, Wattie Barclay, Pat Walsh, Buff Milner (a brilliant youngster who rather lacked the confidence to develop his full potential), Dick Pelham of the 1926 team and that great favourtie of modern times, Eddie Stokes? Barclay, a magnificent man, physically, mentally, spiritually if you like, could play most anywhere in the back line.

J B Smith became a legend in his lifetime. With his sleepy eyes, his hands hanging, so it seemed, somewhere down below his knees, his heavy walk like a gumbooted farmer crossing a ploughed field, he was the most un-likely-looking attacking back you could imagine. But when the ball was coming, those eyes began flashing. He took in, on the instant, the entire tactical situation whether a break was possible, how the defence was positioned, what advantage might lie in a well-timed pass or a shrewd dummy. Instinctively, he reacted to the fundamental need. He, above all other Kiwis, was the 14th man who gave the 15th a start of half a yard.

But then, Bill Gray, before and after a frightful accident which left him with a permanent limp and partially-de-formed leg, was a wonderful player, too. In fact, when Bay of Plenty at halftime were suffering one deuce of a hiding from the brilliant British Lions of 1959, Bill had a conference with himself. If I remember, he moved into first five, or changed places as he felt like it. As I remember, he turned a whipped team into a tremendous side which contributed to, I tend to think, the most exciting match I have ever seen. The Lions won, at the last gasp by 26 to 24; and if I, as a professional observer who necessarily doesn’t get terribly excited by play, found myself standing on the Press bench, shouting my head off, you can bet the other 25,000 who were there were screaming from the excitement. That was Gray, a great player in his own right; and a great man, too, modest, the kind you look up to for the rest of your life.

great tacklers

Thoughtlessly, I omitted Bill Osborne from my list of midfield backs. Now there was a player! Had be been available for the tour to Wales, the story of defeat would have been changed. The rarest of all birds in Rugby, whichever country you are talking about, are great

tacklers, first-time men who knock their men down with perfectly legal but shatteringly decisive tackles. Among New Zealand backs of the postware generation, I can only name four whom I would place among the great the brothers Graham and Colin Moore, of Otago and Southland respectively, Alan Elsom of Canterbury and Osborne. Of these, Bill was the finest. The feature of a great tackle is that the tackier is accelerating as his shoulder strikes into the body of the opponent. The effect is decisive. Nepia recalled how, after he had lowered a tough schoolmate a couple of times, that man didn’t come back for more. When All Black teams of the 1930 s toured in Australia, they encountered a famous five-eighths, Tommy Lawton, who had been a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and who was, undoubtedly, a decisive and effective attacking player. “Rusty” Page, who marked him, was a trained Army officer who rose to high rank and who was a naturally brave man. Page was no great size, but he, like Osborne, was a great tackier. At the first encounter between the two men, Page, perfectly legitimately, put down Lawton with two or three savagely efficient tackles. They were the end

of Lawton. Practically speaking he was no longer a danger to the All Blacks and he, it must be insisted, was also a brave man and a very fine player. Out of all these, who? My ranking-list would be Smith in first place, with Gray and Osborne bracketed second and the rest in a photo-finish. What delight it would be to see the ploughman plod of Johnnie alongside the effervescent brilliance of Blake. And if these two were injured and Gray and Osborne came on, boy, what a party they would have!

from the wings Somehow I am going to find great difficulty in omitting Barclay, a natural choice as captain of this mythical team, from the wings. I don’t remember that he was as fast and elusive as Falwasser, Charlie Smith, Wally Phillips, Peter Goldsmith, Terry Mitchell, Opia Asher of the unbeaten 1903 All Blacks in Australia “the best All Black team there ever was,” said George Nicholson, of the 1905 team. “And Opai scored 17 tries for us” and not a few more. But Wattie had mana. Once you met him, you never forgot him. Maoris know more about his quality than I could, as a pakeha, ever

hope to comprehend. But I am sure you appreciate my point about him. I am torn between Falwasser, who missed only a couple of games of the long tour in 1926, and Smith, whose ommision from the 1935 All Blacks to tour the British Isles was the scandal of the times and one of the stupidest blunders ever made by an all Black selection committee and, heaven knows, they have, over the years, dropped some clangers. Phillips, who played against the 1937 Springboks, was a fine player too. He came from the waybacks, somewhere around Raglan; and to get to matches and training, had to ride his horse crosscountry, through rivers and streams, and keep on going for mile after mile. I think, possibly, Smith. He was big, powerful and fast. With Mill, Stead, J B Smith and Blake combining to give him the ball, Charlie would have been an irresistible force at the end of the attack. But it’s not easy to pass by Albert Falwasser. He held the ball way up by his shoulder and I used to think, as a schoolkid, that fire was coming out of his nostrils as he ran down the touchline. One of the great Ranfurly Shield memories was the first try scored by