Revealed: truth behind
A new book by Ron Palenski reveals how a posh military man and a Kiwi mongrel turned the screws on the All Blacks.
Ernie Todd has been criticised, mostly privately but sometimes publicly, for being a poor manager, not firm enough with some of the All Blacks players.
Yet he has also been criticised for being too firm, to the point of irrational – such as warning Keith Murdoch as early as after the flight from Auckland to the United States that he could be sent home if he transgressed again.
Todd also showed courage and selflessness that is not often acknowledged. He first made it public that Murdoch was going home from the All Blacks’ 1972-73 tour at a hurriedly convened press conference the Monday after Murdoch was involved in an incident with a security guard at a Cardiff hotel.
Todd said the decision was entirely his, although he had been in contact with both British and New Zealand officials. Back in Wellington after the tour, he told the annual meeting of the NZRFU the same thing.
He and just three other people in the room knew that not to be the whole truth. He took responsibility during the remaining nineteen months of his life for a decision that was not his alone; in fact, it was forced upon him. The other three in the know, and who kept their secret, were the chairman of the union, Jack Sullivan, his deputy Ces Blazey, and union secretary Ray Morgan.
Years later, it was revealed Todd had said in a private tape recording to his wife Pat: ‘‘. . . on three or four occasions he’s been in trouble and . . . John Tallent
. . . he virtually demanded that I send him home’’. Tallent was a London stockbroker who was chairman of the Four Home Unions Tours Committee.
KARAM KNEW THE TRUTH
There was another person in the know. Joe Karam, an All Black on his first tour, formed a bond with Todd through both being members of the Marist St Pat’s club in Wellington. Karam recalled that, both before and after the sending home, he and Todd frequently had quiet chats.
There was no indication before the Welsh test that Todd was unhappy with Murdoch, or of any problems with him. ‘‘The first I knew was when Ernie told the team that Keith was going home,’’ Karam recalled.
Later, the teˆ te-a` -teˆ te between the two men continued and it was at one of these meetings that Todd told Karam the real story. ‘‘He told me he was virtually ordered to send Keith home or the tour would be called off.’’
The person who did the ordering was Tallent.
A COLOSSUS OF WORLD RUGBY
John Arthur Tallent, 61 years old when the All Blacks toured, was the senior statesman of the rugby establishment. He was almost a living blueprint of the archetypal British rugby administrator. He’d been to the right school (Sherborne in Dorset), one of the right universities (Cambridge), the right regiment (the Honourable Artillery Company in the City of London) and, of course, his rugby pedigree was impeccable: Blackheath, Kent, Barbarians, East Midlands, England.
He finished World War II in 1945, aged 34, with a military OBE and the rank of lieutenantcolonel. He was president of the Rugby Football Union in 1959-60, a season that encompassed the 50th anniversary of Twickenham, and he was made a CBE. Inevitably, he also became an England representative on the International Rugby Board (IRB).
He was well known to senior New Zealand rugby figures: a familiar face at receptions, dinners, matches and any other functions on All Blacks tours. He had the soldier’s upright stance, the trim moustache the same colour as his greying hair, and he spoke what is known as ‘‘proper’’ English – what some people might call posh.
He was a personal friend of Ces Blazey, who often dined with Tallent and his wife Helen on trips to London.
A FRIEND OF THE NZ BOARD
Jack Sullivan was as much a product of his upbringing as Tallent was of his.
A fast and shrewd second fiveeighth or centre, he played for Taranaki and became an All Black for the series against South Africa in 1937.
Leg wounds during the war in north Africa ended his playing days, and he embarked on a long career in coaching and administration. He also rose to become managing director of Caltex. He joined the NZRFU inner sanctum in 1962, becoming chairman in 1969.
Sullivan, like Tallent and Blazey and others of that era, was a man of his word; there was no need for lawyers or memorandums of understanding or heads of agreement or any of the other extraneous paraphernalia of modern rugby. The words were plain, unvarnished with jargon, and left no doubt about what was meant. Agreement would be reached by a shake of the hand, and nothing more needed to be said or done.
‘‘NO COMMENT’’ SULLIVAN
As chairman of the NZRFU, Sullivan gained a bad press because of the continuing controversy over contact with South Africa and his discomfort at being questioned by journalists. He became known for reading official statements, the wording of which had been agreed by all councillors, but refusing to comment beyond them. ‘‘No comment’’ could have been a nickname for him.
He cared deeply about the welfare of New Zealand rugby and knew its image was being harmed by events he saw as being beyond his control (although others saw it differently). Publicly, he came across as stern, almost humourless, but privately he was affable and typical of his type, courteous and well-spoken and happy to reminisce into the night over a beer or a gin and with an ashtray handy.
Tallent and Sullivan, disparate and alike at the same time, were the two who controlled the fate of Murdoch and the tour.
Since Murdoch’s ‘‘offence’’ did not take place on the field of play, there was no disciplinary procedure to follow; no hearing at which parties could state their cases before a rugby bench, which would make a judgment.
Five years before, after Colin Meads had been sent off against Scotland, a disciplinary panel sat two days later and suspended him for two games. He was not allowed to state his case. At the following IRB meeting, in 1968, Blazey argued that an accused must be allowed to have a say, so the law was amended. But it applied to only on-field offences.
TOUR AGREEMENT LOOPHOLE
A tours agreement, as the document was generally known, was usually drawn up between the host and touring unions and covered all manner of issues and possibilities. A generic tours agreement was under consideration at the time of the 1972–73 tour. It had been agreed in principle at a meeting of the IRB in June 1972.
A draft was then circulated to member countries and Blazey responded with comments which were discussed by the Four Home Unions (FHU) on the day Ian Kirkpatrick’s team arrived in London.
It was not a contentious document. Blazey’s comments were along the lines of whether the words ‘‘tour’’ and ‘‘team’’ should be capitalised. He said they should not; the committee secretary, Albert Agar, replied that the members wished to retain capitals.
Agar remarked in the same letter to Blazey: ‘‘Just a brief