A ‘soft as butter’ Meads revealed
It took until his Te Kuiti funeral for rough-tough rugby legend Sir Colin Meads to be exposed as a bloke who once knitted a scarf and a balaclava, a man who read The Cat In The Hat to his kids.
At his last farewell yesterday in Te Kuiti, a fuller picture came into focus of the 81-year-old touted as the greatest All Black – perhaps the best rugby player ever – a man noted for never backing down and known for his hatred of losing.
Stories that never would have got past the rampaging No 5, the second All Black sent off in a test, a player who thought Kiwis didn’t like him for his hard-nosed, hard-shouldered, hard-footed style.
He was, All Black brother and locking mate Stan Meads said, as ‘‘soft as butter’’. He was humble, shy almost. He was an ‘‘obstinate, stubborn bugger’’ and a ‘‘bloody good guy’’.
A guy who played 55 tests from 1957 until 1971, and raised more than $1 million for charities and clubs, often asking for no more than petrol money and free beer.
‘‘Mind you, some of those clubs probably found out, in hindsight, it would have been cheaper to pay him,’’ officiant Jamie Mackay said.
He was dad, granddad, great-granddad, a husband, a brother, a son. He was Pinetree, The Tree, Colin, Sir Colin, and to Stan, simply ‘‘Old Pinetree’’.
New Zealand was welcomed into the funeral at Les Munro Centre, then shown another side of a man it thought it knew. Shelley Mitchell, the youngest child of Colin and his wife, Verna, never saw her father play rugby live. He did read her The Cat In The Hat, though.
We learnt he could grow tulips but not eggplant. Thank God, the Aussies never bugged his chair and learnt of his weaknesses, such as his struggle to give – or accept – praise. ‘‘Just don’t call me sir,’’ he said when knighted.
Fabulous rugby stories did emerge. In 1968 – details are hazy – he and first five Earle Kirton hitch-hiked to Eden Park to join the All Blacks. It took only one ride, once the driver discovered who he had on his hands, he took the pair right there.
Stan and Colin got heated with each other when they were opposing captains in a trial match, and their mother threatened to ‘‘bash their heads together’’, Stan said. The next time they opposed each other, Colin handed Stan all his side’s lineout calls.
Even pre-match routines emerged, courtesy of former All Blacks captain Brian Lochore.
The Meads boys and loose forward Kelvin Tremain would have steak for breakfast, go to the TAB and take a double, have mashed potatoes and poached eggs for lunch, and a superstitious Colin would always run out last, if he wasn’t the captain.
Lochore thought Meads, with his ball-running skills, would have fitted in to the modern game, except for one thing: ‘‘The one massive difference was the modern players hydrate before the game, and we hydrated after the game,’’ he joked.
Colin’s last ride was in a black hearse with the number plate Pine T, while 600 people packed into the funeral venue. A marquee in the gardens across the road seated another 1600, watching the service on a big screen. After the ceremony, Meads was taken to a private burial.
A quote on the service sheet marked the way Meads saw himself: ‘‘It’s like everything in life, if you try to be yourself and don’t try to be somebody else, it all comes right. I’ve enjoyed it. A country hick in the big time ... that was me.’’