Great 1967 Test fails to make 'definitive' list
All Blacks v France rivalry
To paraphrase Rudyard Kipling, and latterly West Indian academic and cricket fan C.L.R. James, 'What should they know of the All Blacks, who only the All Blacks know?'
Kipling first asked, 'What should they know of England, who only England know?' in his 1891 poem The English Flag, and James asked, in his cricket classic, Beyond a Boundary, 'What do they know of cricket, who only cricket know?'
It's French rugby time in New Zealand this month. It is a special time when a side with one of the best success rates against the All Blacks visits, and the history of their encounters evokes memories of great games, victories, and losses.
Entering into the spirit of reviving some of those memories, the NZ Herald published a list of the 'definitive' 15 best Tests between the two rivals.
All the usual suspects are listed. The 1987 World Cup win, the 1999 World Cup semifinal humiliation, the 2007 World Cup quarter-final shocker, the 2011 World Cup one-point win, the 2015 All Blacks blowout quarter-final win, the 1979 epic display by France at Eden Park, and the 1994 try from the end of the world. Even Don Clarke's miraculous southerly storm-beating conversion at Athletic Park in 1961 rates a mention. Then, a 1968 Test at the same venue, where the only memorable thing that happened, in one of the most bitter games ever played, was a 65-yard round-the-corner penalty goal blasted by French fullback Pierre Villepreux.
But no mention of the Test that some of the hardest men in the All Blacks' game rated as the toughest match they ever played, at Paris' Colombes Stadium in 1967.
1967 All Blacks. Crown Studios Ltd :Negatives and prints. Ref: 1/1-039289-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23228764
Colin Meads, Brian Lochore, Ian Kirkpatrick and Ian MacRae all remembered it long after the event.
Meads was done over so severely he had his head bandaged, and was forced to wear a scrum cap in his next game, a week later against Scotland, and it was immortalised in the photo of him trudging off the field having been sent off by referee Kevin Kelleher.
I did a 'Willie-away' move and got tipped over at the back of the lineout. One of the French put the boot into me and cut open the back of my head. It was a good one, too – a big gash.[1]
Famously, Meads thought it was the French lock Benoit Dauga who injured him. Coach Fred Allen had been winding Meads up all week before the Test about whether he could compete with the French hero.
As I struggled up and went to the sideline, all I could think of was Dauga. Dauga, Dauga, Dauga, that's all that was in my head. It was HIM. I came back all bandaged up. All I could think of was, 'I'll get even with that big bugger. I'll do him.' At the first opportunity, I plastered him. I whacked him so hard I actually cut my hand open. That turned septic too...After the match, I had to get that stitched up too. I had 17 or 18 stitches in my head.[2]
After the game Dauga protested to Meads that it hadn't been him, but Plantefol who had kicked his head.
MacRae said,
I always thought that French Test was the toughest in my time. They were gunning for us and scrapping the whole time. There was some pretty brutal stuff – Pinetree was dealt to on the ground, and when they were running past you, they would clip you around the head, from behind.[3]
Brian Lochore said,
It was the best Test I played in. The toughest. It was the most physical and exhausting game I ever played. We were genuinely worried about various aspects of their game, and they had a tough backline.[4]
Ian Kirkpatrick, who celebrated his debut Test with a try, said,
It was fairly tough and we had to do a lot of work. I broke my nose early on but I thought there was no way I was going off. It was all quite an eye-opener for me. It was as hard a Test as any I played.[5]
Legendary All Blacks prop Ken Gray rated the man he marked in a powerful scrum, Aldo Gruarin, as the toughest player he ever packed down against. The All Blacks' scrum had been building, especially as Allen wanted them to heave the opposition back in their first scrum.
It was a favourite of Fred's but not mine. I feel you need time to warm up before doing that sort of thing. Anyway, it worked as we went along. In fact, we pushed Wales all over the paddock. But in the French match we went to push in the first scrum...and couldn't make the slightest impact. Whatever shortcomings the French may have, they don't lack strength. They are always good scrummagers.[6]
In the midst of it all, the All Blacks managed to win, courtesy of some sage advice from the touring team manager, and former All Black halfback Charlie Saxton, who was also the captain of the famous 1945-46 Kiwis. Meads recalled that Saxton and coach Allen had a meeting the night before the game and devised a strategy to beat the French, who had a tall lineout, with Dauga, Alain Plantefol and Walter Spanghero. Saxton believed the best way to beat the French was to confuse them.
Meads said the players were having their team talk when Saxton and Allen walked into the room.
Saxton said that if we played the way they were used to playing, we wouldn't cope, and they told us what we were going to do.
[Hooker] Bruce McLeod would stand on the five-metre mark and the No.2 person [Ken Gray] went back five yards and we wouyld have a huge gap there, and would have our normal lineout from there. We would throw the ball to the middle of the lineout to Sam Strahan, or we could all have a jump at it.
We had a talk about it and said we would only do it outside our 22. We hadn't practised it or anything. It was shock tactics. The French didn't know what to do. They were arguing and squawking and going on. It worked. It took them more than halfway through the game to work it out.
We would go back to marking them in their lineouts and give them hell, and we would get a bit of their ball. Sam Strahan had a great game. Apparently, the Kiwis had used it when they played in France. That was Charlie, he was a great thinker of the game. He was the first manager we had who took a big part in how you played.[7]
Meads also acknowledged to his first biographer, Alex Veysey, that the Test was, 'Perhaps, the most complete and satisfying expression of total rugby in which he has been involved.'
Lochore said the rugby the team played to come out successfully was special.
The most peaceful feeling you can ever have in your life...to be hopelessly, gloriously exhausted. That is perfect peace. That is utter fulfilment. That is why we play Test rugby.[8]
How could this victory, by such a transformative team, not rank among the greatest of games with France? What do they know of rugby...?
For the record, the All Blacks won 21-15, but with 20 minutes to play were down 11-12. Halfback Sid Going, wings Tony Steel and Malcolm Dick and flanker Ian Kirkpatrick scored tries while fullback Fergie McCormick landed 3 conversions and a penalty goal.
[1] Colin Meads, Meads by Brian Turner, Hodder Moa Beckett, Auckland, 2002
[2] ibid
[3] Ian MacRae, Behind the Silver Fern, Lynn McConnell and Tony Johnson, Polaris, Edinburgh, 2016
[4] ibid
[5] ibid
[6] Ken Gray, New Zealand Rugby Greats, Vols 1-3, Bob Howitt, Hodder Moa Beckett, Auckland, 1997
[7] Meads, Behind the Silver Fern, ibid
[8] Brian Lochore, McKay ibid