Farewell to Melville, a trendsetter and an honest one

ERIC MELVILLE deserves room in that special place reserved for those global trendsetters who changed the course of rugby history. The trail he blazed almost 30 years ago has since been followed by a veritable pack of South Africans eager to reinvent themselves in the Tricolours of France.

Melville was the first, starting off the bench against Ireland at the Parc des Princes in the final round of the 1990 Five Nations. He had left his native Cape Town at 19 to seek a bit more than fame, serving a lengthy apprentice at Hagetmau and Mont-de-Marsan before winning two national titles at Toulon.

Melville’s success roused an inevitable curiosity during the last years before amateurism keeled over, put out for the count under the weight of too many illicit brown envelopes. All manner of improbable people turned up in all manner of equally improbable places, like David Campese at Milan, each one fuelling the suspicion that they were not there entirely for the good of their health.

Everyone, of course, denied he was being paid to play. Everyone except Eric Melville. When I called him out of the blue in Toulon one day, explained that I was inquiring about shamateurism and asked him, on the record, if he was being paid, Eric gave me a straight answer to a straight question.

Yes, he was being paid. That, too, was on the record. When I advised him that such a confession would make him a professional in a supposedly amateur sport, he said: “That’s up to you. I have given you an honest answer.’’

Had he been at the fag-end of his career, it would hardly have mattered. But, at 28, Melville’s best years were still to come. It left me on the horns of a dilemma – reveal all and see one man punished for his honesty while the less honest ones carried on filling their boots.

The story appeared in diluted form with Melville’s anonymity guaranteed which ensured his time at Toulon ran its course before he began coaching, ending up in charge of the Switzerland national team. In recent years I often meant to look him up for old time’s sake and that thought last struck me a day or two before news of his sudden death, at 55 from a heart attack.

Toulon compiled a tribute video of him in action for club and adopted country as well as a statement: “Eric Melville was, above all, an exceptional man, generous and full of humanity.”

When it would have been easy to fob off allegations of professionalism with a few well-rehearsed fibs, France’s newly-capped No.8 preferred to tell the truth. If nothing else, it helped nudge the game a bit closer to ending its hypocrisy.