Men like Meads don’t grow on trees
OPINION: There are still trees all around, but somehow the forest seems empty. The mighty Pinetree has fallen. Colin Meads will be remembered as a ferocious rugby player, but his greater legacy is as New Zealand Man. Meads was what a young country aspired to be.
Meads played many of his finest games off the rugby pitch. When the hurly burly was done Meads was the ultimate sportsman. He smiled, looked you in the eye and made you think that the rickety wooden bar, with its peeling paint and weary modernity, was the finest place on God’s earth.
One of my dad’s favourite phrases when summing up the qualities of a top man was to describe him ‘‘as the sort of person you would go into the jungle with’’. Meads would probably head that list of utter dependables. He was strong, courageous, loyal and humble.
Brian Turner, who wrote Meads, a Biography, says: ‘‘If you’re brought up in the country, you are almost required to be laconic and not show much of your sensitive self. But he had something of a persona. He was wry, droll, astute, resolute. There was nothing ever precious. He was dry, but not sly.
‘‘He’d tell me a story, then lower his eyes and mutter, ‘That better not go in the book.’ I searched around, but it was very hard to find someone who didn’t hold him in high regard. Lots and lots of people remarked on how much he had done for charitable organisations. He trained hard and worked hard. He was down-to-earth and genuine.’’
It is hard not to smile at the thought of Turner and Meads up close in a room together. The one a wiry, caring Otago poet-hockey-player with eco strands in his outlaw hair. The other a physically solid son of the soil with giant hands and a large, quiet soul. Obverse sides perhaps of the same golden New Zealand coin.
Turner reflects: ’’When he was playing overseas one or two of the opposition decided to go out and get him. There was one test match in France. The French had a player called Benoit Dauga. Just before halftime Dauga head-butted Meads. In the tunnel Meads said to Dauga, ‘What the hell was that about?’
‘‘Dauga said: ’That’s what you’d have done.’ ‘‘’Well, you’ll find out.’ ‘‘And Dauga duly did find out. And everyone moved on.’’
Meads was the making of many a man. When a young Martin Johnson came to play for King Country he ran on to the pitch with a white hanky poking out of his pocket. The locals soon put a stop to that.
Meads told me: ’’Martin was a quiet, nice young fella. He changed from being a soft Pom and then he developed. There’s nothing surer than he would have been an All Black. Martin was a workhorse and I was supposed to be his tutor. After he had played two or three games for King Country I thought I had better say something to him.
‘‘I said to him: ‘Martin, you’ve got to get more aggressive. You are allowed to hurt the opposition when you’ve got the ball. People don’t realise that. You’re a big unit. When you get the ball you’re in charge of the whole game. You’re allowed to knock some bugger over. You’ve got to get more aggressive.’ He became the enforcer, England’s strong man. Before the drop kick when England won the World Cup he took it up five or six yards.’’
Many a boy grew up in Meads’ company. But it is no use pretending that, as well as the heroics, he did not do some horrible things on the pitch. Meads was a great player, a magnificent runner, and so fit, so strong. But there was an ugly side.
TP McLean records Meads ripping Ken Catchpole’s groin apart and ending his career. He notes Meads smashing in the side of Mike Campbell-Lamerton’s face and breaking Jeff Young’s jaw. And for those who would defend Meads’ sending off against Scotland, McLean notes that the ref had no option. Meads was on a warning after an appalling twofooted leap into a ruck, and when he was later guilty of dangerous play, the law ‘‘compelled’’ the ref to order Meads from the field.
But those are not the deeds for which Meads should be remembered. Away from the mad war that rugby sometimes became for some Pacific warriors, Meads must surely captain the All-Time Off-thePitch Rugby XV. Meads is at the head of thoroughly decent men such as Gerald Davies and Wayne Smith.
When the 1971 Lions beat the team that Meads captained, he was always funny, eloquent and generous in his after-match address. When the Lions won the third test to take a 2-1 lead, Meads congratulated them on drawing the four-match series. A premature quip as it turned out, but funny and well meant.
When I suggested ahead of the 2011 World Cup that the All Blacks were guilty of premeditated offside cheating, Meads met me for a pint in a bar in Mount Maunganui. And there we were, drinking pints together, while on the television in the background Meads was defending New Zealand’s honour against the slurs of the Pom.
He called it gamesmanship. I called it cheating because it was both coached and knowingly broke the laws of the game in order to hold and obstruct opponents. He said that I had ‘‘hurt New Zealand so much’’. I said if there was any hurting, and I doubted it very much, then it was the guys who had done the cheating who had also done the hurting.
We drank on and moved on. And there was always kindness and humour behind Meads’ eyes. At the end he held out a meaty paw and said with a twinkle: ’’You’re still an arsehole. I want you to write that.’’
I did, quite happily. And so this is the eulogy of an arsehole to a great man, who will never again run on to the pitch at Taumarunui. The word translates from Maori into big screen or big shelter. It was said that as the chief lay dying he asked for a big screen to be held over him to protect him from the sun.
Colin Meads, a humble back-country farmer, became the Taumarunui of New Zealand. He was the chief, the screen and the shelter. A nation mourns. We shall not see his like again. Above everything else Colin Earl Meads was a sportsman.