Alex Wyllie: A great Kiwi rugby character

Alexander John 'Grizz' Wyllie, b. 30 August 1944, d. 23 March 2025, age 80. All Blacks 1970-73, Canterbury 1964-79, 187 games, South Island 8 games, Career 279 games, 249 points. Canterbury coach 1982-86, All Blacks coach 1988-91, All Blacks selector 1987-1991, Argentina coach 1995-1999.

New Zealand rugby lost one of its most well-known characters with the death of former All Blacks No8 or blindside flanker Alex Wyllie who, after a storied international career, took his reputation even further as a coach.

Taking on a coaching role almost as soon as he finished playing for Canterbury in 1979, Wyllie built one of the great Ranfurly Shield-winning teams that dominated the New Zealand game between 1982-85. An innovator, something that belied his gruff image, he was unafraid to use sports science to boost his side's performances.

It took an Auckland team laden with All Blacks to end that era and start one of their own when playing one of the greatest of all Ranfurly Shield challenges on a packed-out Lancaster Park.

No sooner did that time come to an end than he was elected to the role of All Blacks selector and assistant coach under Brian Lochore and alongside John Hart, the coach of that Auckland side, who proved similarly innovative as New Zealand looked to host the inaugural Rugby World Cup and to win it playing a superior brand of rugby.

He secured the All Blacks coaching job the following year after Lochore's retirement and saw the All Blacks enjoy a 91 percent win ratio under his charge.

The records and the statistics will be recorded in other media outlets, but it is the character and humour of the man we pay tribute to here.

The lasting demonstration of his humour was the occasion of that famous Shield challenge. On the Thursday night before the game, TV Two News arranged a mid-evening news interview involving the two coaches on a live hook-up, Hart in Auckland and Wyllie in Christchurch.

The interviewer, Karen Sims, did her piece with Hart and then crossed to Wyllie saying there was clearly intense interest in the Garden City and the venue was booked out, 'all the seats are gone.'

Wyllie, calm as could be, responded, "Have they? They were there when we were at training tonight."

Alex Wyllie scores during a provincial game in South Africa 1970.

A personal contact with Wyllie was established in 1988 when covering the touring England cricket team. Having been told I was covering the All Blacks tour to Australia later that year, an interview with him was arranged during the first Test in Christchurch.

Wyllie asked where I was staying, and he said he would come and see me there the following day. He duly arrived and ushered into my room. He said, "Crikey (or some more cryptic word), who the hell is paying for this?" It was relatively roomy.

We chatted, and he parted until we met that same year at the All Blacks team hotel the night before the first Test against the touring Wales team. Grizz had been upset by a local journalist publishing some comments he had made off the record when travelling down to Dunedin to witness the previous game against Otago. This unfortunate, who was not the usual rugby reporter, had asked what the comments were, and whoever told him had not mentioned the 'off-the-record' nature of the remarks.

I was at the bar with a group of journalists, many of whom were more familiar with the All Blacks coach than myself. Also in the group was the subject of an autobiography I had written, double All Black Brian McKechnie.

Wyllie poked his head through the door to see who was about, and spotting a media team, he wandered over, as I was to learn he was wont to do during those hours before a big match when there was nothing else to do but prepare.

Spotting the new boy in the group, me, he asked where the Christchurch-based reporter who had published the remarks was, and all said they didn't know. So, to make his point, he said hello to McKechnie and then started the chest-poking ritual that he was known to employ on me, advising me it would be worthwhile never doing what the Christchurch reporter had done. A point that needed no further clarification.

However, during the later tour to Australia, he frequently mixed with the media, and some humorous moments were enjoyed. As a working partner, he was always available to chat one-on-one, and it helped that he understood newspaper dynamics where the evening paper journos were so often at the disadvantage of time. He had been a columnist for the Christchurch Star during his time as Canterbury coach.

There was also the time on the tour when the team was preparing to play a Country game at Terrigal on the north NSW coast. They were practising at a local ground where a scrummaging contraption had been adapted to fit on a heavy roller for the local cricket ground.

Wyllie decided to speak to the media while the forwards were still scrummaging. He had his back to the action while all the media could follow the scrum work behind him. During the session, Richard Loe, Wyllie's nephew, somehow missed his mark on the machine, going beneath the point he needed to make and going head-first into the cricket roller.

There was a distinct deep 'booiinnngg' sound from the roller, and all the journos gasped. Wyllie said, "What's happened?"

And he looked around to see Loe sprawled on the ground. He gave it a 'Humpphhh' and said, 'He'll be right, now where were we?'

As a hard, combative player, Wyllie got into plenty of scrapes in his career, but there was no doubt about his rugby brain and ability, basic as it may have been in some instances, to get a job done. A player of his durability would have thrived in the professional game.

On his first tour to South Africa in 1970, the South Africans breathed a sigh of relief when he wasn't included in the final Test team. He was a player they feared.

Alex Wyllie confronted by two great Springbok loose forwards in 1970, Piet Greyling (left) and Jan Ellis.

But one who didn't fear him was an All Black lock by the name of Frank Oliver. During a game in Invercargill against Southland in 1977, the home team looked like they were pulling off an upset. In a move close to full-time involving the soon-to-be All Blacks, the afore-mentioned McKechnie, and emerging star Steven Pokere, they got a 16-stone centre Wayne Boynton into a gap that looked certain to produce a try for him.

Ever the No8 running the corner flag line, Wyllie threw out a stiff arm into which Boynton crashed only to go to the ground like a sack of spuds. The opportunity was lost. But racing up a little behind the action, Oliver wound up a fearsome punch that hit Wyllie hard. The Cantabrian's knees knocked, but he refused to go down.

Southland kicked a penalty goal from the incident, and in the few minutes left, it was intriguing to watch Wyllie go looking for Oliver, only to find that he was hard at work and out of sight until the final whistle went.

For all his hardness in play, he went on to achieve an outstanding coaching record and was one of the genuine characters of the game, with a sense of humour that few got the opportunity to see but which was in a class of its own.

Vale Grizz Wyllie.