I was a late starter in rugby as, unbeknown to me, being a premmy baby made me suspect when it came to the physicality of rugby and osteomyelitis resulted in one leg being shorter than the other. No wonder I am unbalanced but not a chip on the shoulder but one off a leg.

My father’s attempt to compensate for this was to send me to YMCA, because of the gammy leg, although he didn’t know this at the time just that I was frail. Upon birth there was no question I would be a rugby playing boy and to find that I was, even then, less than perfect, shook my father up. Dave thought gymnastics at the YMCA would be better preparation to be an All Black and not Saturday morning schoolboy rugby, which I went to relatively late as a 11 year old. YM was gym for half the morning and cartoon movies – Mighty Mouse, Casper the Friendly Ghost and Dick Smith Specials – for the other half.

 

It was only some years later that I did find out I had a missing 3cms off the right leg, too late to prevent a skew-iff spine creating knee, back and neck problems. No complaints, it was the way things were.

 

I remember playing on Wednesday afternoon in my third year of school but it was token. I was so deep at fullback that I was really a goalie and when the ball carrier came near I dived at his feet in the hope he would trip up.

 

Dave, my father, by example and, not just then, but throughout his life long association with the Southern Rugby Club, was one of a group who set a good example on and off the field. This fatherly role was confirmed, years later, in conversation with Ian Stevens, a Southern man and former Otago captain. Both Ian and his brother Alan left school at around the legal leaving age because their father had taken off. Their talented older brother became school dux and went onto to be a neurosurgeon. They found paternal care in the senior members of the club of whom Dave was one. Funnily enough the same applies to Dave who used the senior club members as father images as his father took offat an early age too. The club performed far more than a sports function.

Ian was a member of the Otago team that lifted the shield off Wellington in 1957 and, even though they only won the South Canterbury challenge before losing to Taranaki, this group still meets even though numbers are dwindling.

 

Being frail didn’t stop me from wandering down to Bathgate Park every Sunday morning to watch Roy Neiper, the Southern coach, run the piss out of the team on those cold and frosty Dunedin mornings. Roy Neiper was a nine stone seven pounds flanker, who played for Otago pre-war. He had knots along his rib cage where he let cracks self-repair. His main claim to fame was when the 1937 Springboks played Otago. They were called the best team ever to leave New Zealand. They were monsters and beat Otago, the Ranfurly Shield holders 47-7.Roy used a snapping action to break Ferdie Berg’s fending hand and put him out for the tour. He was very hard and yet loved kids perhaps the product of not having any himself.

 

The Sunday practice went something like this.

 

“Just a light run and a bit of touch to get the bruises out.”

 

“You buggers are just mucking around, over to the scrum machine.”

 

30minutes later and a lot of farts, dry reaching and a few spews and it was around the ground an indeterminate number of times.

 

They started at 10:30 and finished close to midday. Not the thing to do and thoroughly unscientific but a Saturday night deterrent and when I gravitated to Southern I became victim of the same procedure, I even used it when I coached Otago. I like to think Tuesday’s practice was more productive as Sunday put us some way down the road to the next club game.

While the practice was taking place on another field the St Kilda Brass Band, St Kilda and Kaikorai shared the national championships with Woolston from Christchurch, was practicing. Quite a contrast.

 

The other lasting impression was that of Jack Hore, a club stalwart and All Black hooker from 1924 until the war. He had 3 children, an older girl and 2 boys either side of me. The younger one, Ross, could have duplicated his father’s achievements but for his size.

 

Jack was able to play for the All Blacks because Dukes, the butchers in George Street, supported his family while he was away. Based on longevity he must have been one of the greats but it was a long time ago. Apparently he could take up the press-up position with hands on one bench and feet on another and 2 teammates could sit on his back. From what I gather all the team was very fit – even then a professional approach to an amateur game. Nutrition – raw onion and cheese sandwiches to build muscle??

Fitness – skipping continually, maybe learned from boxing.

 

One wonders who could afford to play for the All Blacks in those days and if the best talent was really available for selection. In the working class south end of Dunedin it was felt that many missed out and that the captaincy of the 1935 All Blacks had a lot to do with the captain, Jack Manchester being employed by National Mortgage Ltd. Maybe being on the family farm had the same effect but let us not forget that farm work was great preparation for rugby.

 

Anyway as pre-teenagers we would assemble down at Bathgate every Saturday morning for a 9:30 or 10:30 kick off. The early maturers, whites in those days not Maori or Polynesian, dominated the teams. These early maturers seldom lasted through high school but were stars at primary.

There was no coaching but, because we mucked around with a ball all the time, it became instinctive. Provincial games at this level were all a bit of a blur. Travel by bus or train all the way to Invercargill to play Tweedsmuir or Southland; Oamaru, Timaru or inland Otago to play North Otago, South Canterbury or Otago Country respectively. The games seemed to go in a flash. All you knew is that you wanted to play rugby and you wanted to go as far as possible – the ultimate goal was obvious.

 

In these days All Black memorabilia was not a commercial enterprise and my most prized possession was a button off an All Black blazer.

 

Boots were a sacred possession and to be looked after, dried and cleaned each week. If you were lucky you had an old pair that served as a practice pair when actual practices kicked in and when you inhabited Bathgate Park, De Carle Park or the dry grounds behind the sand hills out at the beach during the school holidays.

 

Your boots were cleaned and left to dry in the air not in front of a blazing heater or fire, “Nuggetted”, “Dubbined”, vaseline was put on the soles so the mud didn’t stick, a bit dubious, and your white laces were boiled in an old green, white and red honey tin with a dash of bleach added to get them really white. You bought your own jersey and shorts, socks and “athletic supporter”. Mum’s pride in the club was so great she ironed all these and sowed on the number. The number was all the club gave you.

 

When it was cold and wet the first part of your body to freeze was your feet. The solution was to Vaseline your feet, put on your socks, put your feet in plastic bags and tape them on around the ankle – no cold feet – better to focus on the game.

 

Boots lasted seasons; they had to as we couldn’t afford them any sooner, but at the heart of these rituals was pride in yourself, your team, the club and the game.

“If you can’t play like an All Black you can at least look like one.”

 

SECONDARY SCHOOL

The early years of secondary school rugby was based on teachers taking the teams after school. If there appearance was anything to go by this was with some reluctance. They would come out after a cup of tea in the staff room in their suits; plus overcoat, scarf and hat if it was cold, trousers tucked into their socks and galoshes over their shoes.

 

We would have been playing tackle against each other for up to half an hour already. It was the only way to get everyone involved as we had only one leather ball, the match ball. When they arrived little changed. We learned by doing with supervision not coaching.

 

What these teachers could not ignore was the kudos coaching a game gave them in the school community. Any sport would do but especially rugby and cricket and especially if you could show some real expertise or had played at an adult level. This is something that seems to have been lost from teaching. The trend now is to bring in experts for all activities. Where there are exceptions you would like to think the benefits outweigh the costs. Values were less monetary then but maybe, equally, greater expertise is now demanded.

And of course the equipment. Top club teams were getting scrum machines build by the club’s carpenter and car tyres were cut into pieces to serve as pads. Some were bolted to the ground with the area directly in front getting lower and lower as time went by, while the sled variety could be moved around the ground. When 2 team’s trained one team provided the ballast while the other scrummed.

In time they reverted to live scrums and the trick was to give the second team the first few put ins and let them hold their own. This prevented them getting over aggressive and the session being abandoned as it ended in a fight.

No tackle bags, hit shields or “whack” pads and a committee meeting was necessary if you wanted more than one ball.

Come to think of it we didn’t practice tackling unless we lost and, even then, the coach was wary about losing a player.

The balls were leather and “dubbin” and lamb fat only marginally prevented them from absorbing moisture so they became hard to handle and heavy in the depths of winter. This was a far cry from the new synthetic balls both in price and handling ability. The irony is that the last union to do away with them was the French.

And of course you were encouraged to wear shin pads and the locks wore a headgear. In trials these were white if you were confident of having a good game.

You knew the season had started because the smell of winter green liniment told you so and you knew it was over by the smell of cut grass in preparation for cricket.

 

At secondary school initially the games were played on Friday after school starting around 4pm and, in the depths of winter, the second half was played with the assistance of street lighting if a road ran along the side of the field. It was hard going riding your bike up the hill to Montecillo, Otago Boys at Littlebourne or even to Bishopscourt. It was much easier to go to the Oval, which had many fields but little drainage, or the beach grounds where a sand base made them all-weather grounds. The scariest part of the exercise was riding home in the semi gloom.

 

Saturday rugby followed and it seemed to be based on weight so the big young guy played with older players and the older little guy played with younger players. This had a lot of common sense about it but for the ambitious father of a big young boy who wanted him to play with his age group so he could excel. At this level this situation has yet to be solved, in fact it has been aggravated by the in-migration of Pacific Islanders and the spread of them and the Maori community throughout the country. Thus the emergence of 80:80 rugby for the puny whites. 80% of the team under 80kgs.

 

Where numbers are large enough a combination of the two criteria, age and weight, can be accommodated but where they do not the retention of the white middle class in the game after first fifteen is not great. This doesn’t mean that, with persistence, they would not have got there but they now have other options.

 

What is now emerging with the game going professional is the adoption of the American Sport/Business model. If the overseas models are followed the game and its players are becoming commodities and market forces apply. Only the talented player plays and the best source of revenue of the rest to the game is not in playing even if it is socially. Where their value lies is as regular “bums on seats” through the turnstiles or contributing to the TV ratings. So there is no place for the late maturer or, should I say, those with more immediate options based on other talents. They don’t find their way into the playing side of the game at the adult, amateur level. Should we let natural selection based on physiological criteria determine who plays the game or should the values based on participation not winning be revived? I haven’t an answer for this question. An option may be to base funding of clubs and provincial unions on playing numbers at the various levels.

Corinth where are you?

Enfranchising the Super 15 teams will result in this being a recurring theme.

 

Back to the old school yard.

 

Friday night rugby allowed you to go to Carisbrook and watch Senior rugby on Saturday but after a couple of years merit selection kicked in and you could make the First Fifteen in your third year if you had the talent. I had 6 years of secondary school education, too dumb to do it in 5; this increased my chances of getting there.

 

About 5% of those leaving school went to University the majority left school before completing a final year. This was indicative of our parents who had suffered both the Great Depression and WW 2. They saw education, free, compulsory and secular education as the path to social promotion but more especially to security. This was to be found in a job you couldn’t be sacked from even though the money was modest. After doing our time in secure employment many have blossomed into more lucrative but risky jobs with a fair share being self-employed entrepreneurs. Old values remain. At a recent school re-union the most common words befitting this generation were egalitarian and equal opportunity.

 

I was never sure whether our first fifteen coach, Ian Page, was before his time or just lacked sting. Sting can best be defined as the abusive tirades that became the copycat signatures of coaches whose players had few recreational alternatives. The players put up with this as the game offered the chance to play the closest New Zealand had to offer in a professional sport. The dominant coach who imposed a collective will on the team was the blueprint from top to just about the bottom.

Ian Page was different. He had been the head boy at the school immediately after the war and returned as a teacher. He had excelled at rugby and cricket while at the same time being professionally qualified in music, drama, English and History.

I believe this gave him a different perspective on things and he was the first empowering coach I can remember 30 years before his time. He created real leadership opportunities, asked questions, allowed the players to learn by the consequences of their actions and worked with the players to solve a mutual problem.

This didn’t mean that he was not criticised as most of the fathers from the south end of Dunedin were coached and were advocates of the rip, shit and bust approach. After all it hadn’t done them any harm, are has it?

It has been common throughout New Zealand for there to be a divide between clubs and schools and this has contributed to the drop off in numbers once players leave school. While schools rugby can suffer from coaching rugby being a low priority in some schools where it is part of an holistic approach to education I believe well supported schools rugby has the advantage.

A measure of Ian’s success was in the numbers who continued to play once we had left school.

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