Coast hardman ‘made for the modern game’
Rugby leaguemates reckon former Kiwis captain Tony Coll would have been a NRL star in the modern age and point to his famous runaway try againstwales as proof.
‘Butch’ Coll, who died suddenly on Thursday while mountain biking with Tony Kokshoorn, the former mayor of Greymouth, set the rugby league world alight in aworld championship match in Swansea in 1975.
The Swansea showdown will be forever remembered for amoment of magic from Coll, who’d made his test debut in 1972 after a team-mate pulled a calf muscle in the haka.
The athletic second row forward with the speed of an outside back, collected a pass from a play-the-ball, broke a tackle and scampered over the half-the-field with John Bevan, a former British and Irish Lions rugby union wing, and Bill Francis, a Great Britain rugby league international, vainly giving chase.
Anthony Peter Coll’s passing has shocked the rugby leagueworld, who’d watched him bounce back to his old self after a cardiac arrest in February 2019, when some timely CPR from lifelong mate Kokshoorn saved his life.
As fate would have it, Coll was surrounded by his buddies till the last. He and Kokshoorn were riding a trail near Greymouth’s Karoro Beach, near where four other friends from a weekly ‘‘coffee crew’’ that met for over 30 years werewalking.
They all rushed to help Kokshoorn tend to their fallen friend. One of the walkers, West Coast Rugby League development officer Paddy Byrne, said they all ‘‘did our best’’, but to no avail. His only consolationwas ‘‘Butchwould have gone out how he liked. He was never onewhowas going to spenda lot of time on the couch.’’
In the eyes of former New Zealand Rugby League president Ray Haffenden, Coll was the Kiwis’ best player in the 1970s and ‘‘the type of player a NRL team like thewarriors would love to have today’’.
Ray Baxendale packed down with Coll in the West Coast, South Island and the Kiwis’ second row. He believes his friend would be a NRL star these days.
‘‘He wasmade for the modern game. He could go for 80 minutes . . . he could run like a back and hewas as strong a tackler as any forward; he just had an incredible motor and tremendous footballing ability.’’
Baxendale said Coll never lifted weights but had the ‘‘barrel chest’’ of a natural athlete.
‘‘I think it came from when he was a kid and his dadwould take his boys hunting down in south Westland and the Paparoas. That’s how he had the edge.’’
Coll captained his high school first XV rugby team, but followed his father Peter – who played in thewest Coast’s historic 1946 win over England – into rugby league.
He joined the strong Greymouth Marist club, which provided the only threewest Coasters to win the NZRL Player of the Year award – Graham Kennedy, John Hibbs and Coll.
Hibbs, Haffenden, Byrne and Baxendale all described Coll as the ultimate competitor, whose ‘‘will towin’’ was legendary. Coll survived a torrid debut for the West Coastwhen his two front teeth were ‘‘knocked out’’ by a Canterbury rival who mistook him for someone else.
His first test for the Kiwis, during the 1972 World Cup at Marseilles against France was equally eventful. ‘‘Wewere doing the haka and [prop] Mitamohi pulled a calfmuscle,’’ Coll recalled in 2014.
Coll went on to become the most capped Kiwis forward of the 1970s, playing 24 tests and missing just one.
He would have chalked up many more than 30 caps, but the Kiwis did not play internationals in two of his prime years, 1973 and 1976.
Baxendale said, as a captain, Collwas ‘‘such a worker he just led by example [as a captain]’’.
‘‘Hewas aman of fewwords on the field, but hewas always in the leadership group and had a big say in how things were done.’’
Coll captained thewest Coast and South Island teams andledanew Zealand XIII to a win in 1976 over a Sydneymetropolitan side. In 1977, in the prime of his career, Collwas named as captain of the Kiwis for the World Cup in Australia andnew Zealand.
The Kiwis won just one game – against France – leading some critics, including influential Auckland administrator George Rainey, to lobby for an Aucklander to become captain.
‘‘I just felt I wanted, if I was selected, to be amember of the squad . . . so I asked the selectors to considermewas a player, not as a captain, and my form went up again,’’ Coll said.
Coll played 15 games on a tour of Australia in 1978, with the New Zealand Rugby League Annual noting that
Australian critics regarded the tough West Coaster and burly standoff Olsen Filipaina as the only Kiwis likely to make a Sydney first-grade side.
Coll enjoyed one of his best tours to England and France in 1980, playing under the coaching of another West Coast legend, Ces Mountford. He said he enjoyed playing with people he regarded as Kiwis greats, including player of the century Mark Graham and Fred Ah Kuoi.
In 1980, he also captained the South Island to a 12-11win overaustralia in Christchurch.
That must have been some consolation for themajor disappointment of Coll’s test career – never beating Australia. He bowed out in 1982 – a year before the Kiwis broke a 12-year duck against the Kangaroos.
Coll donned the black andwhite jersey 65 times, including 30 tests. He scored 18 tries and slotted a goal from his only attempt, in his final test against Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby.
‘‘He could run like a back and he was as strong a tackler as any forward.’’
Ray Baxendale
on Tony Coll