Shield break raises doubts
‘One hell of a drop’ needed to break trophy, says restorer
Aman behind the last decade of major repairs and restorations of the Ranfurly Shield says it would have taken “one hell of a drop” to split the new Log o’ Wood in half.
The famous trophy was broken during celebrations less than 24 hours after the Magpies beat Wellington 20-18 last Saturday to regain the shield.
Pictures and video shared through social media show the broken Shield and white powder in lines on it at one point.
Hawke’s Bay Rugby Union chief executive Jay Campbell said the damage was caused when a player dropped the Shield on a concrete kitchen floor, and which he described as a “genuine accident”.
New Zealand Rugby is investigating the incidents.
James Dwan and his company TriPeek have been involved with the Shield’s restoration and repairs over recent years, including the replacement of the badges in 2012 and the major restoration this year, which replaced the original piece of wood with a new solid piece of oak.
Dwan told Hawke’s Bay Today he was sick of the careless treatment of the rugby taonga and called for a fulltime guardian to be responsible for the Shield.
Dwan said he had been getting lots of calls since news that the Shield had been broken got out and, although he had not seen pictures of the damage himself yet, he was “absolutely gutted”. “When I got the first phone call yesterday I was like, ‘you’ve got to be kidding me! They’ve only had it for a day’,” Dwan said.
“Every time the Shield is [refurbished], it just gets abused. They’ve lost the respect for what the Shield was or should be.”
He said the new version of the Shield was three to four times thicker than the original and was made of a single piece of oak, rather than more than one piece like the original.
Dwan said that meant it would require a lot of force to break.
“That thing is about four times heavier than the original one because of the thickness and the size.
“It is actually about 40mm wider and 40mm longer than [it was before the last major restoration]. “That is one hell of a drop.” He said they had given recommendations to rugby unions about how the Shield should be looked after.
“I remember when I first did it a few years ago, we did a complete restoration, new shields, the whole lot on it,” Dwan said.
“I remember the Waikato coach at the time was saying ‘How do we keep it like this?’ and I just said ‘Don’t let a rugby player get near it, easy as that’.”