Low key NZ Baa-baas tour paved the way for ‘87 All Blacks success
THE most predictable thing about the inaugural World Cup is that New Zealand, having pressed so hard for the tournament, would get their act together and win convincingly – although six months out they weren’t looking so clever.
The year 1986 had been a horror story for the Kiwis. They lost a home series in the summer to Australia and were beaten up by France in a notoriously dirty Test in Nantes that autumn. Meanwhile the unofficial New Zealand Cavaliers, containing the pick of the current All Blacks, embarked on their controversial tour of South Africa which was seen as offering succour to a despicable apartheid regime.
The NZ public were not happy at the players’ apparent lack of moral consciousness and indeed rumours that they were well rewarded for their troubles. The Cavaliers – the All Blacks in all but name – also managed to lose the unofficial Test series 3-1 which didn’t go down well either. There was much ground to make up in every respect.
But then came a stroke of fortune which New Zealand seized on hungrily. A five match New Zealand Barbarians tour had been arranged of Britain and Ireland to celebrate their 50th anniversary and suddenly there was an opportunity to try out an impressive generation of ‘young guns’ who had not been selected by the Cavaliers or who had withdrawn from consideration.
Meanwhile it was also an opportunity to blood a young tearaway flanker, Michael Jones, who had just been capped by Western Samoa but who had prevailed upon to switch nationality. When there is a World Cup to win you don’t stand on ceremony.
The NZ Barbarians arrived with a mission to develop a new, more fluid, playing style for the All Blacks and frankly the squad they picked was strong enough to embark on a Grand Slam tour of Europe let alone play a few celebratory matches against club sides.
Among their ranks were Craig Green, Jones, another star Samoan in John Schuster, John Kirwan, the Whetton brothers (who as youngsters were forgiven quicker than some for joining the Cavaliers tour), Dave Kirk, Steve McDowall, Sean Fitzpatrick, Joe Stanley, Mike Brewer and Steve Bachop. In total nine of the NZ team that started the World Cup final against France three months later were on the tour.
Predictably the NZ Barbarians steamrollered all the outclassed opposition. Leicester were beaten 33-3 and a wonder try from Jones is still talked about by older fans at Welford Road, while there were further victories in Ireland against Wanderers (34-3), Ballymena (29-4) and Cornwall (63-9) before what was expected to be the showpiece game against a strong Cardiff side.
What transpired at the Arms Park club ground was the biggest rout of all, a 12 try 68-16 hammering of Cardiff than left none of us watching with any doubt as to who would win the first World Cup. It was rugby from the Gods, a performance comparable with the famous Barbarians win over the All Blacks in Cardiff 14 years earlier.
The NZ Barbarians party was small, just 23 players, so everybody got a stack of game time along with three weeks training and touring together. As preparation for the World Cup it could hardly have been bettered. Looking back the only surprise is probably that full-back Greg Cooper, who was arguably the star of the tour, didn’t make the World Cup team finding himself usurped by a young Londoner John Gallagher who had emigrated to Wellington to become a police officer and suddenly found his feet as a rugby player.
The 16 teams who eventually contested this inaugural World Cup did so entirely by invitation. There were, of course, the
eight founder members of the IRB, minus the temporarily banned Springboks and they were joined by Japan, USA, Canada, Tonga, Fiji Argentina, Italy, Zimbabwe and Romania. The Romanians had been so strong in the late 70s and early 80s that they would have fancied making the semi-finals at least had the tournament been held then.
Russia were initially invited but they turned it down, citing their disapproval of South Africa’s continuing positon of power on the IRB committee despite their ban from playing. Western Samoa simply weren’t invited or perhaps the invitation got lost in the post.
As for the tournament, it soon became apparent that the decision to stage one of the pools in Australia along with two of the quarter finals and semi-finals was not a success. The visibility of the World Cup in Australia was almost zero while in New Zealand it grew steadily. The decision of New Zealand to take their pool matches around the country helped that considerably and by the final the crowd at Eden Park had grown from 20,000 to a capacity 48,000.
Rugby-wise there was only one question. Could anybody stop New Zealand continuing where the Barbarians left off in Britain? In three pool games – against Italy, Fiji and Argentina – they scored 30 tries and amassed 190 points and although Scotland resisted strongly in the quarter-finals, conceding just two tries in their 30-3 defeat, New Zealand then dismissed Wales in the semi-final, winning 49-6 over at Ballymore in Brisbane.
The other semi-final featured the first truly classic World Cup match, between France and Australia in front of a miserably thin 17,768 crowd at the Concord Oval. The live TV pictures, however, were beamed around the world and two of the most naturally-gifted and free-flowing teams laid on an attacking extravaganza with France, playing catch-up, prevailing 30-24 through a last minute try from the heavily bandaged Serge Blanco who seemed on the point of expiring as he plunged over for the score.
In the final the action was initially a little nervy with New Zealand reaching half time 9-0 up following a converted try by Michael Jones and a Grant Fox penalty, but after the break the All Blacks relaxed and put the game beyond doubt with tries by Kirwan and skipper Dave Kirk to herald a convincing 29-9 win.
Kirk went up to receive the trophy with squad captain Andrew Dalton and a fine trophy it was, although like many things concerned with the 1987 RWC it was acquired in a rush. A couple of weeks before the competition started John Kendall Carpenter suddenly realised the organising committee didn’t have a trophy so he was despatched to Garrards, the Crown jewellers in London, to view the stock of trophies in their vaults.
One especially took his eye – a 1906 silver gilt, gold covered cup made by Carrington & Co based on a design by the famous Huguenot silversmith Paul de Lamerie, who was one of the top craftsmen in the first half of the 18th century. Despite a £6,000 price tag, Rugby World Cup was up and running.
There was no assumption that the competition would be continued after 1987 and its future was only assured at the IRB’s annual meeting in March 1988, which also resulted in the appointment later that year of a full time professional secretariat headed by Keith Rowlands, chairman, Kendall Carpenter, Marcel Martin (France) and Russ Thomas (New Zealand).
The IRB also received a 90 page debrief on the 1987 tournament which recorded a working profit of just over £1m – in 2015 the figure was nearer £150m – and also made the very strong recommendation that all future competitions be staged in just one country.
Wise heads nodded in agreement at the manifest sagacity of such a suggestion. Needless to say those same wise heads subsequently voted to hold the 1991 tournament across the four Home Unions and France. There was money to be made in this new tournament and nobody wanted to miss out.