Is Roy NZ’S oldest rugby player? Golden Oldies’ annual tourney — the Devil’s in the detail
When players turn 60 they can wear red shorts which means they can be held but not tackled to the ground, at 65 they wear gold shorts and at 70 purple shorts — both meaning the player
can’t be tackled — they can, however,
only run a maximum of 20m.
In a quarter of a century of playing Golden Oldies rugby, Te Puke’s Roy Baldock has never been on a losing side. He’s never been on a winning side either.
Played under IRB laws, with some variations, games are always undecided. Whatever happens before the final whistle, the result is always a draw.
Roy, 86, is, by some margin, the oldest player in the Old Devils, the Golden Oldies team affiliated to Paengaroa’s Eastern Districts Rugby Club. He isn’t aware of any players anywhere in the country who are older.
The club is hosting its annual Golden Oldies tournament on Sunday.
Roy is unsure how much of a role he will have to play on the day, but is hoping to get on to the paddock for at least part of one of the Old Devils’ games.
He played rugby as a young man, but after securing a job as a farm manager, decided the impact on his career of any injury wasn’t worth the risk.
It was only when his wife Anne’s nephew was staying that the chance to pull on the boots again presented itself — via a game of cricket.
“He was playing twilight cricket and he couldn’t go one night and said ‘will you fill in?’ So I went down and filled in that night and stayed [at the club] ever since,” says Roy, who was quickly enticed into the rugby side of the club.
They were times of success — and quite a bit of fun.
“We had a fairly good team when I joined and we played to the other teams,” says Roy.
“If they came out and played like seniors, then so did we, and if they played ‘oldies’ then we played ‘oldies’.”
If they were kicking off, the Old Devils would sometimes stop and applaud the player returning the ball.
“The joker would charge up and we’d stand there clapping — they wondered what was going on.”
With a strong social element, one of the attractions of Golden Oldies rugby is the camaraderie — and the pinnacle of that comes on the various overseas trips the club has taken to international Golden Oldies tournaments.
The furthest the Baldocks have been was Scotland in 2008 and the most recent was to Argentina in 2014.
“We were booked to go to America last year, but missed out on that one.”
Anne says she thinks the best trip was the one to Argentina, but they have also been to Australia, Mexico, the US and the Pacific Islands. There are also domestic jaunts to games and tournaments.
Roy enjoys everything about Golden Oldies rugby.
“It’s the fun, friendship and fraternity,” he says.
As well as the rules around final game scores, there is no kicking in Golden Oldies rugby, no-push scrums, and tackle rules governed by shorts’ colour.
When players turn 60 they can wear red shorts which means they can be held but not tackled to the ground, at 65 they wear gold shorts and at 70 purple shorts — both meaning the player can’t be tackled — they can, however, only run a maximum of 20m.
As a hooker, it is Roy’s role to hook the ball in the scrum and throw into the lineout.
“We do all sorts of fancy things at the lineout,” he says.
Sunday’s tournament marks the start of the Golden Oldies season with games organised roughly every other weekend.
Roy last played in October at the Bob Scott Memorial Toe Kickers tournament in Whangamata¯. Cancelled last year, the 2021 Old Devils tournament is slightly scaled down, with just three invited teams. The first game is at noon. Anyone over 35 who is interested in playing Golden Oldies rugby is welcome to head along to find out what it’s all about.