Learning from the greatest
I was not an outstanding rugby player at Christchurch Boys’ High School, but I seemed to hit my stride after I left high school. In 1954, I decided to play for Varsity rather than High School Old Boys, probably influenced by the fact that my CBHS 1st XV coach, Tubby Hewland, was now coaching the Varsity under-20 team. We won the championship, and I made it into the Canterbury under-20 rep team as a front-row forward. I came close to blowing my chance to be a rep by almost missing the trial game. I had been skiing for a week at Temple Basin and had caught a Thursday evening train from Arthur’s Pass, arriving in Christchurch after midnight. My parents were away so I fell happily into bed in an empty house and did not wake until late morning. As I got myself breakfast, I turned on the radio and was stunned when the announcer mentioned it was Saturday. I had slept 36 hours — and I had only one hour left to get myself to the trial game! I made it to the game and onto the team.
In 1955 I was chosen in the Varsity senior squad. This was a great thrill as the team was coached by Bob Stuart, former Canterbury and All Black captain, who had led the All Blacks to Britain in 1953-54. I played my first game as a prop, but it was quickly evident I was not big enough at 82 kg for this position in senior rugby, nor did I have sufficient strength. Bob moved me to blind-side flanker, No. 6. This was Bob’s old position, and he gave me special coaching. By contrast to No. 7, the open-side flanker, No. 6’s job (Bob emphasised) was primarily defensive. Any opponent running the blind side had to be flattened, and Bob told me I should put no fine point on whether or not he was in the act of passing the ball. Thump him, anyway. I had the advantage of being a solid tackler, a skill honed by high-school experience at fullback. The legacy of my merciless blind-side tackling was a confrontation in Nepal, of all places, on a 1973 trek. A CBHS Old Boy who met me in Pokhara realised he was face-to-face with the scoundrel whom he remembered as having regularly tackled his hero, HSOB and All Black half-back Pat Vincent, without the ball on his loping blind-side runs. He gave me a piece of his mind.
In 1955, Bob and his old mate, team captain Jim Stewart, were working to forge a team that could win the provincial championship. The king piece was to be All Black first-five-eight, Mick Bremner, whom Bob persuaded to move from Wellington to Christchurch. He would team up with half-back Bronc Molloy, who was already challenging Pat Vincent for the Canterbury slot. From Christchurch hospital, Bob recruited three junior doctors, big men who had played for Otago University while in medical school in Dunedin and who would give our team height in lineouts and heft in scrums. One of them, Hugh Burry a No. 8, would later join Bremner, Molloy and former CBHS hooker, John Creighton, as All Blacks. John, two years behind me at school, joined our Varsity senior team in 1956.
Our team’s strategy, as devised by Bob, relied heavily on strategic kicking by Mick Bremner to give our forwards the chance to grind down the opposing pack. Restricting as it did open-field running, it was not a pretty strategy but it was effective with a strong and well-schooled pack of forwards. In 1956, we won every game but one — an early season’s loss to Christchurch — and we had the championship in our pocket before even playing the last competition game. Half-way through the season, Bob was called away to take over the coaching of the All Blacks to save the test series against the touring Springboks, and Jim Stewart combined the roles of captain and coach to see us through to the championship victory.
1956 is still regarded as one of the great years in New Zealand rugby history, and right in the middle of it, sandwiched between defeats inflicted on the Springboks by both the All Blacks and Canterbury, was my 21st birthday, with Bob Stuart, Mick Bremner and other rugby greats attending the party. A month later the All Blacks handed the Springboks a second defeat at Lancaster Park, and the icing on my cake was the subsequent historic upset victory over the South Africans by an NZU team. I went to Wellington to support my four Canterbury Varsity team mates playing in this game, including fullback Barry Dineen, who had had a meteoric rise from the Varsity Third Grade social team at the start of the season, via our senior team to kicking the winning points against the Springboks. He has dined out on this story ever since. On the day after the game, wearing my NZU blazer, I was mistaken by a rugby fan for one of the victorious team members. He congratulated me on the victory, and I did not disabuse him, holding my arm firmly over the swimming inscription on my blazer pocket so I would not be unmasked as the imposter I was.
I played for five seasons in the Varsity Senior Team, and we won the championship in each of those years — the “Juggernaut Years,” as fellow teammate, Dick Hockley, was to describe them in his history of the Club. Playing on the Varsity team in 1959, I broke my right thumb in a game early in the season, and I chose not to return to the squad after six-weeks with my arm in plaster. I was focused on my impending departure for doctoral study in Australia.
In Canberra, I played for four seasons in the Australian National University team, being captain-coach in 1962 and 1963. In August 1963, I went to the US to teach history at the University of Michigan. Just after classes began, a New Zealand accent hailed me in my new department office. The voice belonged to Allan Levett, a sociology doctoral student, who summoned my wife Jenni and me to a rugby party that Saturday night. We found a hearty and, as the evening progressed, loud gathering of men and women from around the British Commonwealth, with assorted Americans thrown in for good measure. I had been ambushed. Somehow this group had learnt that I had played for Varsity in Christchurch and that I had just come from coaching the ANU team, so they had decided I should be the Michigan coach. They also wanted me to play, but I was unfit and much too busy with work and family to travel with the team for away games. I did agree to coach.
“Play Rugby, Give Blood,” read a bumper sticker of that era, and the game as it was then played in the Midwest amply justified that gory slogan — and made me glad I had opted to stay on the sideline. All teams had a percentage of huge former American football players. Having played that code in helmets, face guards and other protective gear, they came to rugby with a terrifying disregard for the hazards of physical contact when you are wearing nothing more than jersey, shorts and light boots. With reckless abandon they threw themselves face and chest first into rucks and tackles, and the injury rate was depressingly high — even at practice sessions. It was aggravated by the fact that most players were unfit. This was one area on which my coaching had no impact, but I may have had some effect on skills, tactics and coordination.
The team won every home game for two seasons. At the time, the famed Michigan football team was in a slump, and I suggested it should move out of the 100,000-seat stadium in favour of the rugby team. I would be happy to swap salaries with the football coach! To be honest the team’s home game record probably had more to do with the presence of Whatarangi Winiata than my coaching. Whata, a superb front row forward, was a former Wellington provincial and NZU rep until 1959 when, as a protest against the exclusion of Maori from the 1960 All Black team to tour South Africa, he declared himself unavailable for further selection. At the University of Michigan, his MBA and doctoral studies and a young family kept him, like me, from touring with the team.
JOHN BROOMFIELD
In 1955, Bob and his old mate, team captain Jim Stewart, were working to forge a team that could win the provincial championship. The king piece was to be All Black first-five-eight, Mick Bremner, whom Bob persuaded to move from Wellington to Christchurch. He would team up with half-back Bronc Molloy, who was already challenging Pat Vincent for the Canterbury slot. From Christchurch hospital, Bob recruited three junior doctors, big men who had played for Otago University while in medical school in Dunedin and who would give our team height in lineouts and heft in scrums. One of them, Hugh Burry a No. 8, would later join Bremner, Molloy and former CBHS hooker, John Creighton, as All Blacks. John, two years behind me at school, joined our Varsity senior team in 1956.
Our team’s strategy, as devised by Bob, relied heavily on strategic kicking by Mick Bremner to give our forwards the chance to grind down the opposing pack. Restricting as it did open-field running, it was not a pretty strategy but it was effective with a strong and well-schooled pack of forwards. In 1956, we won every game but one — an early season’s loss to Christchurch — and we had the championship in our pocket before even playing the last competition game. Half-way through the season, Bob was called away to take over the coaching of the All Blacks to save the test series against the touring Springboks, and Jim Stewart combined the roles of captain and coach to see us through to the championship victory.
1956 is still regarded as one of the great years in New Zealand rugby history, and right in the middle of it, sandwiched between defeats inflicted on the Springboks by both the All Blacks and Canterbury, was my 21st birthday, with Bob Stuart, Mick Bremner and other rugby greats attending the party. A month later the All Blacks handed the Springboks a second defeat at Lancaster Park, and the icing on my cake was the subsequent historic upset victory over the South Africans by an NZU team. I went to Wellington to support my four Canterbury Varsity team mates playing in this game, including fullback Barry Dineen, who had had a meteoric rise from the Varsity Third Grade social team at the start of the season, via our senior team to kicking the winning points against the Springboks. He has dined out on this story ever since. On the day after the game, wearing my NZU blazer, I was mistaken by a rugby fan for one of the victorious team members. He congratulated me on the victory, and I did not disabuse him, holding my arm firmly over the swimming inscription on my blazer pocket so I would not be unmasked as the imposter I was.
I played for five seasons in the Varsity Senior Team, and we won the championship in each of those years — the “Juggernaut Years,” as fellow teammate, Dick Hockley, was to describe them in his history of the Club. Playing on the Varsity team in 1959, I broke my right thumb in a game early in the season, and I chose not to return to the squad after six-weeks with my arm in plaster. I was focused on my impending departure for doctoral study in Australia.
In Canberra, I played for four seasons in the Australian National University team, being captain-coach in 1962 and 1963. In August 1963, I went to the US to teach history at the University of Michigan. Just after classes began, a New Zealand accent hailed me in my new department office. The voice belonged to Allan Levett, a sociology doctoral student, who summoned my wife Jenni and me to a rugby party that Saturday night. We found a hearty and, as the evening progressed, loud gathering of men and women from around the British Commonwealth, with assorted Americans thrown in for good measure. I had been ambushed. Somehow this group had learnt that I had played for Varsity in Christchurch and that I had just come from coaching the ANU team, so they had decided I should be the Michigan coach. They also wanted me to play, but I was unfit and much too busy with work and family to travel with the team for away games. I did agree to coach.
“Play Rugby, Give Blood,” read a bumper sticker of that era, and the game as it was then played in the Midwest amply justified that gory slogan — and made me glad I had opted to stay on the sideline. All teams had a percentage of huge former American football players. Having played that code in helmets, face guards and other protective gear, they came to rugby with a terrifying disregard for the hazards of physical contact when you are wearing nothing more than jersey, shorts and light boots. With reckless abandon they threw themselves face and chest first into rucks and tackles, and the injury rate was depressingly high — even at practice sessions. It was aggravated by the fact that most players were unfit. This was one area on which my coaching had no impact, but I may have had some effect on skills, tactics and coordination.
The team won every home game for two seasons. At the time, the famed Michigan football team was in a slump, and I suggested it should move out of the 100,000-seat stadium in favour of the rugby team. I would be happy to swap salaries with the football coach! To be honest the team’s home game record probably had more to do with the presence of Whatarangi Winiata than my coaching. Whata, a superb front row forward, was a former Wellington provincial and NZU rep until 1959 when, as a protest against the exclusion of Maori from the 1960 All Black team to tour South Africa, he declared himself unavailable for further selection. At the University of Michigan, his MBA and doctoral studies and a young family kept him, like me, from touring with the team.
JOHN BROOMFIELD