Thames Valley, the Wallabies and the best story never told
Some proud men gathered yesterday to recall a famous win, writes Phil Gifford.
The best rugby story never told happened 55 years ago on a sunny spring Tuesday afternoon at the Te Aroha Domain.
On that wonderful day, September 18, 1962, Thames Valley beat the touring Wallabies, 16-14, itself alone reason enough to celebrate.
Then a 15-year-old Waihi schoolkid, I was of the 5000 people (more than the entire population of Te Aroha) who watched the game.
But what makes the day even more special is a moment so unique I’ve not only never seen it happen again, I’ve never even heard of anything similar. One of the Valley flankers, Gary Higgins, was in a scuffle with the Wallaby loose forward, Gary Chapman. Australian winger Bruce Harland joined in.
The other Valley flanker, Doug Mold, takes up the story.
‘‘Higgy was getting in a bit of strife, and it was two on one. The ball was about 50 yards up the paddock. I stopped to help Higgy out, and the ref blew his whistle for a knock on. He came all the way back down to us, and he looked at me. ‘‘He said, ‘What’s going on here?’ ‘‘Dopey me pointed to the two Aussies. I said, ‘See those two there ref, they’re fighting each other.
‘‘He said to them, ‘Righto, we don’t need any more of this. Shake hands and we’ll get on with the game.’
‘‘They said, ‘Like hell we’re shaking hands.’
‘‘I said, ‘Send them off ref. Don’t buggerise around.’
‘‘Higgy was looking sideways at me, and then the ref said to them, ‘It’s your last chance.’
‘‘So they shook hands. We got the scrum, and we carried on.’’
And carry on they did, to a win still world famous in the Thames Valley. Mold’s quick wit wasn’t a one off. In club rugby one of his verbal tricks, if his Netherton team’s kick-off was falling short, was to quickly dart into the other side’s ranks and call ‘‘Another kick off ref.’’ Hugely frustrated opposing captains, who wanted the other option, of a scrum feed by their halfback, rarely persuaded referees to change what they thought had been the original call.
Yesterday 11 of the 15 Valley heroes of ‘62, and their families, gathered in Paeroa to celebrate. Captain Kevin Barry, wing Jim Mita, hooker Ron Kerby, and prop Rex Holden have passed away, but their families too were on hand for the 55th anniversary.
So was their coach, Norm McMillan, now 93. To say McMillan, in ‘62 a Paeroa accountant, had limited time to prepare his players for the biggest game of his career wildly understates the situation.
Training sessions? One a week, at 9 o’clock on a Sunday morning. Players from Thames and Te Aroha, bruised from a Saturday club game, would car pool to Paeroa, eyes often bleary, and breathes stale, from the traditional Saturday night parties. It wasn’t flash timing for the six farmers in the side either. As always in September, they were flat out with calving.
Video analysis? ‘‘Most of us probably got a glimpse of the Aussies on newsreels from their tests with the All Blacks,’’ says schoolteacher Trevor Kilpin, who organised yesterday’s function.
Training camps? On the day of the big game the team met at the Grand Hotel in Te Aroha for an early lunch. That was the only bonding session.
Nobody really gave the Valley a chance. This was a very good Wallabies side. The first test was a draw, the second a 3-0 All Black win in Dunedin. Nine of the Aussie test side from Dunedin were in the 15 in Te Aroha 10 days later.
But the local team had some talented aces up the sleeve too. Captain Barry had just toured Australia with the All Blacks. On the wing was Ray Wells, a fast, powerful, All Black triallist, who had scored two tries in a provincial game against the 1959 Lions.
Seven minutes into the game the Valley lost wing Jim Mita with a broken collarbone. In the crazy rules of the day there was no replacement allowed. No.8 Maru Rangi moved to the wing, even throwing the ball into lineouts. Australia led 11-3 at halftime, but the fightback, led by Barry, a childhood idol for me, who as an adult I’d discover was as good a bugger as I’d hoped, was astounding.
There were two terrific tries, one by teenage prop Jim Maxwell, so fast he really wanted to play No.8, and one from centre Kilpin, who cleverly dummied to danger man Wells. ‘‘I think three of the buggers hit me,’’ said Wells yesterday, ‘‘but when I looked up there was Kilp going in between the posts.
With 24 minutes to go the Valley was down by just one point, 14-13.
Come the hour, come the man. Let’s welcome in Terry Shaw. These days you might have heard of him as Warren Gatland’s father-in-law. In 1962 he was a 25-year-old Paeroa stock agent, and a terrific sportsman. Good enough at cricket to open the batting for Northern Districts in the summer of ‘62-63 when they won the Plunket Shield, and a fearless fullback in rugby.
The Valley had the ball to a scrum near the Australian 22. The code for a Shaw dropped goal was ‘‘T2’’. Someone, maybe Kerby, maybe wing Wells, called it.
Around 35 metres from the goal Shaw sunk the reinforced toe of his boot into the Sportsply leather ball, dry as a bone, but still about as light as a lump of wood.
‘‘It was a wobbly old kick,’’ he says now. His forwards swear they had to duck to avoid being hit. But if it didn’t exactly fly straight, it eventually flew true. Game over, 16-14 to the Valley.
Terry’s son Paddy revealed yesterday what the Aussies didn’t know. Before every game Terry’s devout Catholic mother would douse his boots with Holy Water. How could such a preordained kick have ever missed?