By Spiro Zavos
July 23rd 2008 @ 3:22am
Gentleman Farr-Jones puts in the boot
The ARU has made an excellent choice in appointing Nick Farr-Jones to the Wallaby Hall of Fame.
He was one of the best of the gentleman players, the breed of fine athletes and sportsmen who played rugby with passion and skill on the field and then, whether they won or lost, got on with their lives with equal enthusiasm and a smile on their face.
As a player, Farr-Jones was very much in the golden tradition of great Wallaby halfbacks such as Chris McKivat (”One of the finest all-round halfbacks in history of Australian rugby,” according to the rugby historian Jack Pollard); Cyril Burke (”New Zealand experts rate him ahead of Ken Catchpole among distinguished Australian halfback,” says Pollard); Des Connor (a Wallaby and All Black and the best halfback I’ve seen); Ken Catchpole (the greatest Wallaby ever, according to Peter Crittle); and John Hipwell (”the son of a country carpenter who built one of the great records in Australian Rugby history,” says Pollard).
Farr-Jones was big for a halfback and took on opposition packs with gusto. He had the knack of converting bad ball into good ball for his backs.
He was a strong runner with a talent for making the telling break. His passing was not as quick and direct as the other great halfbacks but, like George Gregan, he had the ability to deliver a pass that was invariably catchable.
As a captain he was indomitable.
He led from the front. Was tireless in rounding up loose balls and getting attacks going. And he was fierce, too, in demanding strong performances, especially on defence from his team-mates.
A memorable image is of Farr-Jones laying down the law to David Campese behind the Wallaby tryline after the great winger had made a defensive mistake.
Off the field Farr-Jones (who was the subject of an admirable biography written by his great friend, Peter FitzSimons) was as amiable and gregarious as he was confrontational when on the field.
Not long after he became the captain of the Wallabies, he attended a lunch with the editors and rugby writers of the Sydney Morning Herald.
I was astonished to see him accept a cigar at the end of a fine meal and puff away contentedly enjoying the occasion in the tradition of the ’smoko events’ that were a feature of the old-time rugby tours.
Since his rugby career has finished, he has gone on to have a successful career as a lawyer for a French bank, and a shorter career in politics as a member of the Sydney City Council.
He found the bitterness of politics and the hostility shown towards him after he revealed his Christian beliefs too unpleasant to continue on to State and Federal politics. The community has been the loser in this exit.
From time to time Farr-Jones has been a television commentator on the rugby Tests, and he’s been insightful and warm in his comments.
And when Bledisloe Cup Tests come around, he invariably comes up with effective barbs against his old enemy, the All Blacks.
It is no surprise that in the days before the first Bledisloe Test of this year, he has touched the rawest of Kiwi nerves by claiming (with only the slightest poetic licence) that New Zealanders are ‘death-riding’ the All Blacks due to widespread animosity in New Zealand to Graham Henry.
On and the off the field, the new Wallaby Hall of Fame personality has a knack of exploiting the weak links in the opposition.
Free Email updates:
Our daily emails are only sent if there is content for the sport or that author. You can subscribe to multiple daily emails; or get the daily Roar email with all our content in it. We value privacy. More...
(16)
Longy said | July 23rd 2008 @ 10:36am | Report comment
I am surprised it took this long. Well done Nick.
It is a Wallaby hall-of-fame or Australian Rugby hall-of-fame?
If it is the latter, I nominate Dr Roger Vanderfield. Spiro I am sure you would agree. His service to rugby as a Test referee and Chairman of the IRB has been extemporary.
Homer said | July 23rd 2008 @ 11:58am | Report comment
It will be interesting to see who the next inductee will be. As the rules say a player must be 10 years retired then we must look prior to 1998. Eales and Horan are too young still and unless the selectors hark back to previous decades then the player will most likely come from the 1991 WC side. With Campo and NFJ already inducted then none of the other backs really qualifies and while a great forward pack I don’t know if any are Hall of Famers, although Link might get a nod from some.
Andy Slack is a possible or maybe the bolter of Stan Pilecki, although he is more of a QLD legend than wallabby. Hard to pick but there are a lot of deserving players.
Any ideas Spiro?
Jerry said | July 23rd 2008 @ 12:29pm | Report comment
I don’t think Farr-Jones’ comments re “death-riding’ have touched much of a nerve - or at least not one that had already been touched to death. I mean, the Deans/Henry rivalry and possible (mostly Cantab) NZers possibly supporting the Wallabies has been talked about ever since Deans’ name was touted as a possible contender.
My reaction to Farr-Jones comments was “What the bloody hell is death-riding?” cause I’ve never heard that phrase in my life.
Mark said | July 23rd 2008 @ 2:14pm | Report comment
Jerry,
I’m with you, never heard of it & had to read the artical to work out what he was gobbing about, although last time I was in Canterbury I didn’t hear one person say they’d support Wallabies now Deans was the coach, pleanty of regrets that Henry was still in but they seemed pretty happy that Robbie was going to coach the Crusaders for his last time before going over to the Ockers…maybe I move in the wrong circles these days !
Mart said | July 23rd 2008 @ 3:32pm | Report comment
My main memory of NFJ was the 2nd Lion’s test where he chose to shove Robert Jones at scrum time after Jones trod on his foot. Result ? Mass brawl, Wallabies got shellacked and exposed as outsmarted, lost the game, never recovered, lost the series. NFJ is a dead set legend but I’ll never forgive him for that lapse………
JohnB said | July 23rd 2008 @ 4:12pm | Report comment
Mart - seemed to me that the brawling was a premeditated tactic by the Lions who realised that was their only chance of winning (and, fair enough, it worked so they’d no doubt say “look at the scoreboard”), so it strikes me as a bit harsh to put any blame on Farr-Jones for the game having gone that way - I think Jones stamping on his foot in the first place is a pretty fair indicator of the approach, and if Farr-Jones hadn’t reacted, some other pretext would have sufficed. I’ve always felt that the bloke who managed to get out of that whole unsavoury episode the best (ie not with a permanent black mark) was the Lions’ coach, McGeechan.
Mungo said | July 23rd 2008 @ 8:05pm | Report comment
Admirable that he was this habit of giving the enemy an incentive to post on the dressing room wall is not going to do his old team any favours, ask John O Neil then tell the likes of Tuquiri who reckons the Boks have shown him how to beat the ABs, I can not recall in the Macqueen era either him or his charges giving a centimeter of oral incentive to his opposition, if anyone had a right to it was him, besides, lets face it, its been a quite and relaxing two weeks. A silent Kiwi is a good Kiwi.
Sluggy said | July 23rd 2008 @ 8:34pm | Report comment
Mungo, you’re off base - Farr Jones did not pass the ball to Ieun Evans and lose the series. As John B said the Lions went 99 because they couldn’t win playing rugby, the Wallabies were too good for them at the game, but not in the fight. Our forwards needed to man up and if anything they learned the lesson that won the 1991 RWC in that series. NFJ’s acomplishments outsrip any #9 since 1980 with the possible exception of David Kirk, maybe they are about equal.
Homer, did Tim Horan retire after 99 RWC? He could be next.
sheek said | July 23rd 2008 @ 8:36pm | Report comment
Spiro,
Interesting comments in the beginning about Burke, Connor & Catchpole. I’ve heard it said (in Pollard’s books & elsewhere) that Burke was better than Connor was better than Catchpole was better than Burke. Or the reverse, Catchpole was better than Connor was better than Burke was better than Catchpole.
Simply put, no concensus. Catchpole is usually the choice of most Aussie judges. Connor was once named in an alltime ABs XV & said to be better than Catchy, perhaps to justify his august selection. Then there’s Burke…..
I certainly don’t know, it was before my time. You yourself, Spiro, claim Connor to be the best you’ve seen. It’s all the devil’s work!
However, I have seen Hipwell, Farr-Jones & Gregan, & would rate them in that order. Most would go for F-N, & I accept that. However, Hippy rarely played behind a strong pack in his career, & IMHO, nobody could use bad ball better than him. He got plenty of practice at it!
All the same, well done to F-J. He certainly deserves the honour.
Spiro Zavos said | July 23rd 2008 @ 8:53pm | Report comment
Sheeek
I am so old that I actually saw, as a pimply-faced kid, Cyril Burke play in Wellington for the Wallabies against the All Blacks at Athletic Park. Burke actually played inside centre in the match. I can’t remember who played halfback. John Solomon was five-eight and captain, I think. Burke was the size of a jockey. But even though he was playing out of position, you could see he was a sharp runner, elusive and quicksilver.
No one in my opinion matched Des Connor at halfback. He had a phenomenal pass. He kicked the ball a mile. And he had what Terry McLean described as a ‘clumping’ break from the scrums and rucks. Also, Connor, like Farr-Jones had natural leadership qualities. Players looked to him, as they did with Farr-Jones, for inspiration and what to do next. And he invariably delivered.
I would agree with your ranking of John Hipwell, Nich Farr-Jones and George Gregan - in that order. Hipwell was very much like Connor in build, broad around the beam, but he had a standing pass rather than the dive pass.
Ian Noble said | July 23rd 2008 @ 10:07pm | Report comment
Spiro
You might be interested in this article about the decline and fall of the scrum half in world rugby.
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/extratime/2008/07/rugby-union-the.html
N F-J gets an honourable mention, deservingly so as he is highly regarded in England as being an outstanding scrum half and captain. He also tends to make balanced comments about matters relating to the game and followers of rugby in England always value his contributions. In particular I thought his recent comments about the ELV’s just about got it right, in particular his understanding of the NH and the pressures to contnue to grow balanced with the the introduction of the ELV’s. As you mantioned in your article he was a politician and perhaps with him in the firing line to massage the ELV’s he would have the skills to create consensus instead of this stupid “us and them” sydrome.
Dublin Dave said | July 24th 2008 @ 6:29pm | Report comment
Spiro
I think you’ll find it was Brian Cox who played scrum half while Burke played centre.
Just thought I’d get in with the info before Sheek did. I bet he knew it already; I had to look it up.
I remember reading an interesting article years ago about the best players of recent decades. It was the 1980s so the sample pool went back to the 1960s. The author, an acerbic Englishman called most inappropriately John Reason, had to pick the best four scrum halves of the previous 20 years and he had Catchpole top of his list. Interestingly, he had Gareth Edwards nowhere. His rationale was that Edwards was a great individualist but a poor scrum half, in that his pass was too slow and he could never pass off his left hand.
Catchpole, on the other hand, had a pass like a rocket and with Hawthorne outside him (picked as one of the four best out halves of the era alongside Mike Gibson, Barry John and Hugo Porta of Argentina) Australia had a deadly half back combination.
Incidentally, the other three scrum halves on the list, from memory were, Chris Laidlaw and Sid Going of New Zealand (whom Reason remembers as being well able to pass although he usually chose not to, which jars somewhat with my recollection) and Jerome Gallion of France.
Benjamin said | July 25th 2008 @ 2:57am | Report comment
In contrast to what Farr-Jones says, Rugbyheaven.co.nz’s poll states that 64.5% of their poll believe Henry to be a better coach than Deans.
ThelmaWrites said | July 28th 2008 @ 1:43am | Report comment
Homer: What about Michael Lynagh?
Benjamin said | July 28th 2008 @ 2:26am | Report comment
Ian, I can’t say I particularly agree with the content of that article. Bills could replicate exactly what he is saying about various other positions. You should read his article in Rugby International.
Incidentally you say ‘us and them’ as if that isn’t the very notion that Spiro propogates.
gavin said | August 6th 2008 @ 1:05am | Report comment
sloggy points out ” , the Wallabies were too good for them at the game, but not in the fight. Our forwards needed to man up and if anything they learned the lesson that won the 1991″
Exactly. Why do we keep selecting the choirboys as forwards
As for NFJ. Totally overrated