A spotlight on PeterL – when rugby was more than just a game

 

Roar Guru

By Garth Hamilton, 3 Oct 2007 The Crowd is a Roar Guru

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Garth Hamilton writes: PeterL has often given The Roar a great view of Australian rugby through the fairly balanced eyes of a Kiwi. In the following interview Peter provides us with something much more valuable – a view from inside New Zealand rugby during one of its most dark and difficult periods.

His love of rugby, if not already evident by the number of regular contributions he adds to The Roar, is easy to see in his honest answers about his memories of the Springbok tour to New Zealand of 1981.

The Roar: John O’Neil has promised a review of the Australian Rugby Championship at the end of its first season. The NZ national competition structure has changed quite a lot over the years. Have all the changes been good?

PeterL: It seems every year there is a tweak or two, every two or three years there is a mild shake up and about once a decade there is a major revamp. At present oddly enough it is a little bit “back to the future” and looks a lot like I recall it being when I were a lad in the 1970′s, albeit that the top tier now is professional or semi professional.

Not all changes have been good. There was a long period where the promotion/relegation system was simply screwed and teams which were way to good to be in the Second Division were being relegated, and equally teams that were not second (or first in a couple of cases) division material were being promoted. This was based on some obscure algorithm that included, I believe, phases of the moon, the number of Mt Cook lilies in flower on the McKinnon Saddle, and a recipe for a meat pie made the “old way”, among other likely items. Thank goodness sense has prevailed and the system seems relatively meaningful and stable at present.

One thing that hasn’t changed is the Ranfurly Shield competition. If anyone EVER has a chance to witness a Shield Challenge live, go. It is worth it – it’s not unlike the NRL’s State of Origin in a way, although the actual comp itself is vastly different in format, and the standard of Rugby is very high and filled with passion. Adding the Shield Challenge status to a run of the mill NPC game turns it into a spectacular almost worthy of test status.

The Roar: What can a country like Australia do to directly improve the quality of Tier 2 countries like the Pacific Island nations and Japan. Is there more than just including them in Super 14 / Tri Nations?

PeterL: In my opinion adding teams to the S14 or 3N (or 6N) is a hiding to nothing, particularly the S14 and 3N because the travel involved would be a killer in it’s own right – witness this year what a rugged itinerary did to the ABs, but also there is a standard needed to play in these comps. Better would be for the tier 1 nations (i.e. the 6N and 3N) to work with the IRB to establish secondary comps that could develop over several seasons into comparable comps to the established ones, perhaps with cameo games initially between the comp winners, which could eventually become promotion/relegation games.

For instance a Pacific Cup could encompass Japan, the island nations, USA and Canada. An EU cup could gather in Georgia, Portugal, Romania, Poland, USSR – throw in Italy, and bring SA into the 6N, and put Namibia and Zimbabwe into the EU cup. This would keep travel manageable, but would require support from the primary countries (mostly skills – coaching, administration, marketing) and probably funding assistance from the IRB for a few years to get the ball rolling. At least this would mean these countries would get quality test football outside RWC years, and have opportunity to build and develop their own professional culture.

The Roar: Rugby remains New Zealand’s national sport. The saying goes that you could put a grandmother in an All Blacks jersey and she’d still give you a hard game on the pitch. Have you got an example or story of just how ingrained rugby is into the Kiwi mindset?

PeterL: Easy – Justin Marshal limping in to score a try, having just torn his hamstring clean off the bone. That’s dedication, and it’s indicative of just how deeply entrenched the act of scoring a try is in the NZ psyche!

I also recall a story about one AB debutante, and without checking I think it may have been Collin “Pine Tree” Meads, who reputedly ran on in his first AB game wearing boots he had borrowed from someone in the crowd because he had either forgotten his own, or could not afford any (I think the latter). Presumably someone in the crowd had hoped to get a run for the ABs that day, but I think they were the only ones in the stand who even knew their name at the time. I wonder what ever happened to those boots…

The Roar: As a Kiwi do you find there is a difference in the level of rugby knowledge between fans on either side of the ditch? Are Kiwis more knowledgeable rugby fans than Aussies?

PeterL: Rugby expertise comes in myriad forms and pretty much all of those are exhibited by the regulars (and irregulars) on The Roar, so I don’t think it would be meaningful to say one lot is more expert than another lot. People who are passionate tend to be interested enough to just pick it up. Obviously people will pick up most on their domestic front – I consider myself lucky to have two of those now! But to at least sort of answer your question, per capita NZ probably has more expertise than Oz, but that’s hardly going to be a surprise. I think in absolute terms there is probably also more expertise in NZ, although official quoted player numbers are actually not all that much different. Something to ponder.

The Roar: Who was your first rugby hero?

PeterL: Without a doubt it was Sid Going, not generally recognised as a great halfback, but Sid was the master of the dive pass, and also a master of deception. I recall him scoring a try, I think against the Baba’s at Cardiff Arms Park, by burrowing through the back row of the opposing scrum as the ball emerged and touching it down (a feat that another AB halfback, Dave Loveridge, emulated a few years later). Sid would challenge hulking great forwards twice his size and hunt them down like a Corgi dog, and directed the NZ backline of the time wonderfully.

The Roar: The southern hemisphere has taken a lot from the northern hemisphere, particularly England, in terms of style of play over the last couple of years. Do you think the north will now follow the lead of the south?

PeterL: I tend to disagree as I believe Australia started the trend toward a more open, running style concentrating on scoring tries, probably because the Oz pack has always been a bit light on for full forward contests. Perhaps we have balanced it out more down here by developing the forward game, and the open game in parallel, giving us more options in game plans and in broken play. Pretty much I think all the world teams watch one another quite closely and pick up on what are considered good ideas, so I suspect there will be quite a lot of cross pollination through this RWC as well.

One lesson we have learned, and avoiding following the NH sides on, is player availability for national games. In SA, Oz and NZ (and Argentina?) the best players are available for country first – at the call of the national union – and the club second. In the UK and France, this is not the case, and their rugby occasionally suffers for it.

The Roar: What was your favourite moment or achievement in rugby? Either playing or watching.

PeterL: My personal moment was my swansong try in the last formal club game I ever played – a John Kirwan Classic. We were behind mega-points to zip, facing a much bigger forward pack who dominated possession and tended to run through our defence. I was at fullback, and at the half time kickoff when we received, I was passed the ball, and ran through and around them like they were standing still, and scored our only points of the game – under the dot. They went on to score another gazillion or so points, but I felt OK about my game! I was 18 years old, I’m not going to say how many years ago that was, but “Buck” had not played for the ABs at that stage…let alone had anyone seeking to “bring him back”! Watching, I think seeing David Kirk hoist Bill, partly because we had won, but also because Rugby had come of age and had a proper global comp, so it was a special moment for all of us Rugby fans, doubly so for those of us wearing Silver Ferns on All Black jumpers.

The Roar: At the time, and it is a long time ago I guess, did you think they should ‘Bring Back Buck’?

PeterL: I am of sufficient vintage and in fact protested the Springbok tour of 1981 while I was a student. No, I’ve never been one to look to the past for the next big thing, if you spend your life looking in the rear view mirror it’s more likely you’ll crash. Buck was a great player and a great captain/leader and for the first 12 months after his “retirement” the ABs missed him, but had they bought him back, we may never have found Sean Fitzpatrick, and that would have been a tragedy. The future always lies with the upcoming players, not with those who have passed their peak playing days (nudge nudge George).

The Roar: How did you feel the older generation reacted to your protesting of THAT Springbok tour? Looking back how do you feel those protests changed rugby in New Zealand and the country in general?

PeterL: The ’81 tour polarised NZ but oddly not by age, probably more by demographic. Students as they are, we were ready to protest and the idealism was too strong for an 18 year old with delusions of changing the world to avoid. But the pro-tour folk were Rugby purists of all ages who believed (IMHO naively) that sport and politics can’t mix. Those of us who protested believed that in fact politics is all about populism and will invade whatever the popular icon of the moment is – witness John Winston Howard and his love of Cricket.

It was a very passionate and emotional time, one I hope to never repeat to be honest. I believed in, and continue to believe in the message – politics and sport are inextricably entwined, more true now in the professional age than it was then. But it was scary beyond belief. Despite my love of playing Rugby I am not violent by nature, yet that tour evoked violence and conflict not seen before or since in NZ. During that tour, and the months before and after it, you kept to a group of “your own” because to do otherwise was too risky. I know a couple of blokes who protested, then went to games, and one of those was recognised after the game – lord knows how – but he continues to pay the price to this day, emotionally, and physically.

Did it change Rugby? Probably not as a game, but I think the NZRU did take note that they had more sway than just sport, and I suspect that it was in that power that the seeds of the RWC were born, and probably also the seeds for professional Rugby.

The Roar: Would you care to tell a bit about how those protests were organised and what happened on the day. I have seen some great footage of the protesters outside the ground singing the anthem. It must have been a very exciting time.

PeterL: From my perspective the protests were organised through student delegates at most venues – the Students Union, the Halls of Residence, the Quad – anywhere that students gathered. It was organised as Politics IS sport, Sport is Politics, and the pressure to decide, one way or the other was immense. Each protest was organised by game, or by appearance (of the Boks), with assembly points (it seemed to be three of four of these – can’t be sure though) with the details spread largely through word of mouth – trusted soul to trusted soul. Having said that some of the main protests were organised by poster as well.

It always bothered me that people were showing up with crash helmets and baseball bats and things. It struck me that was fundamentally wrong, almost an admission of either guilt or shame. But those were the minority, most of us had no intention of conflict (I believe), and what conflict happened was in our cases largely forgettable – I was never arrested or questioned or any such.

It wasn’t exciting though, it was scary. At times, it was very scary. Perhaps not unlike what some black South Africans lived with daily, although I imagine it was way, way less intense. I have not thought much about it for many years – I’m not ashamed, and in fact am quite proud of those protests as such – but man, I don’t ever want to be that scared again under any circumstances.

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PeterL was interviewed by Garth Hamilton, a columnist with The Roar.

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