Last of original South Island World Cup Kiwis
John Bond – the last South Islander from the pioneering 1954 Rugby League World Cup Kiwis – was renowned as a tough man on the field but a gentleman off it. Bond, who won seven caps from 1953 to 1956, died in Christchurch last Sunday, aged 92.
The goal-kicking front row forward affectionately dubbed “Bondy’’ told Stuff at the time of the last Rugby League World Cup in 2022 that he was “the last one left’’ from the six South Islanders at the inaugural world tournament in 1954.
Two years before the Cup, the great Canterbury character had been overlooked for the Kiwis after kidding his devout Christian coach that he’d been to church after a big night out.
Born in Kaiapoi, John Edward Bond moved with his family to Redwood at eight and lived the rest of his life in the north-west.
He always seemed destined for a rugby league career – his father, Roy, a professional sprinter, was a Canterbury and South Island wing in 1930 and became the first Canterbury player to score 100 points in a season, for the Marist club.
Young John, however, initially played rugby union while his brother, Victor, was a talented cycle racer.
Some fatherly advice in his early teens led John to switch rugby codes.
“Dad came down to watch me play on the wing for Kaiapoi at North Hagley Park one day,’’ Bond recalled in 2022.
“He said that night, ‘You’re playing the wrong bloody game, why don’t you turn over to league?’’’
Bond was only 15 – but “a big boy, 14-and-a-half stone (92.3kg)” - when he made his senior league debut in the newly-renamed Papanui club’s first premier season in 1947.
It was a baptism of fire, too – the teen reportedly survived a headbutt from a current Kiwis forward.
Bond made his Canterbury senior debut in 1951 and, with his athleticism and physicality, was soon seen as a contender for the Kiwis’ 1952 tour to Australia.
But he often chuckled at the memory of how he got offside with Kiwis coach Jim Amos on a Canterbury trip to the West Coast.
After a Saturday night dance at Stillwater, Bond and a mate “took a couple of nurses out to the beach and didn’t get home till 10 to six [in the morning].
“When I got back to the pub, Jim was coming down the stairs. He said, ‘where have you been? And I said, ‘I’ve been to church.’’
That didn’t wash with Amos, who was heading to mass himself.
“That cost me a trip to Australia in ‘52,’’ Bond said. “I came on as a replacement after about 10 minutes [in the Kiwis trial] and they reckoned I was the best forward on the field. All the boys thought I was in, but I didn’t make it.’’
Bond was forgiven a year later, however, when he was called in to debut for the Kiwis against Australia on his Addington Showgrounds home ground.
The Kiwis won 25-5, with Bond kicking a superb sideline goal. “Des White had kicked four of four and Haigy [captain Jimmy Haig] said, ‘Do you think you could kick that one, Bondy?’”
Bond replied: “Yes, I’ll have a go anyway. And I stuck it right in the middle.
“It was a good game. Old Jimmy said to me at one part, ‘I’ll kick your arse, you big lazy, b…..d, and I was slogging my guts out!’ The shot at goal was Haig’s way of saying “well done” to the debutant.
Bond retained his Kiwis jumper for the opening test against the touring 1954 Great Britain Lions, scoring New Zealand’s only try in a 25-7 defeat at Carlaw Park after breaking from a scrum.
He told Stuff in 2022 that a British forward “jumped on my arm and broke it”, ruling him out of the remaining two tests.
Bond was only 22 when he left for the 1954 World Cup in France on a Constellation aircraft that “took a week to get there”.
“Every so many thousand miles you had to refuel. We stopped one night in Singapore at Raffles Hotel.”
The players were aware they were creating history, but, with six frontliners unavailable, Bond admitted the Kiwis “didn’t have a very strong side’’. They finished last in the four-team tournament, won by Great Britain.
Bond kicked two goals in a 22-13 World Cup opener defeat to hosts France, missed the 34-15 loss to Australia, but was back for the 26-6 reverse to Great Britain. He quipped in 2022 that he enjoyed France, but never acquired a taste, though, for the popular French tipple Pernod. “I hated the stuff!”
The NRL has just promoted two games in Las Vegas in a bid to lure uninitiated Americans to the 13-man game, but Bond and his Kiwi cobbers played three exhibition games against Australia in California on their way home from the World Cup.
The first was abandoned after six minutes when a thick sea fog swept over Long Beach Memorial Stadium. The players couldn’t see more than a few metres.
Bond remembered the players had to “form a queue” by linking arms to advance to the other side of the ground where the line umpire and some players “didn’t know the game was called off’’.
He kicked two goals in the final game, won 28-18 by the Australians, at the Los Angeles Coliseum, home of the 1932 Olympic Games.
Bond said the American spectators “couldn’t believe us guys running around in shorts with no padding on and belting s… out of each other.”
While Bond was selected for the Kiwis’ 1955 tour to Europe, he admitted it wasn’t a happy experience with coach Harold Tetley openly saying “he wouldn’t have one of us South Island guys in his club side back home’’.
After smashing his shoulder, Bond was out until the third test, playing second row in the Kiwis’ only win of the series, 28-13, at Leeds.
“The British papers said, ‘where the hell’s this Bond been all tour?’. But I only played six games all told.’’
Bond turned 24 on tour, but never played for the Kiwis again. He did, however, continue to turn out for Papanui, Canterbury and the South Island before retiring in 1958.
In 1962, Bond came out of retirement to play for Marist-Western Suburbs for three seasons before becoming Kaiapoi’s playercoach in 1965.
He hung up his boots for good in 1968, aged 36.
Bond gave as good as he got on the pitch, but reckoned he only once deliberately went out to hit someone – former Kiwis captain Maurie Robertson, who had “stiff-armed me when were playing up in Auckland’’.
With his late wife, Noeline, Bond raised four children, who grew up with their father’s rich range of anecdotes about rugby league tours and antics. A nephew, Bruce Mayell, followed his footsteps as a Papanui, Canterbury and South Island representative.
“He was so positive about many things,’’ Bond’s daughter Rainey said. “He never used to put people down.”
Bond enjoyed other sports, including greyhounds and pigeon racing, and maintaining a big vege garden at the family home. He played golf twice a week, including interclub for Kaiapoi, before later taking up bowls.
He enjoyed his mateship with rugby league contemporaries, often attending South Island Kiwis Association functions at former Kiwi Gary Clarke’s Rugby League Museum.
Bondy’s legendary toughness continued to serve him well later in life.
At 84, he climbed a long ladder to clear lancewood from his roof spouting, but “went over the fence and the ladder came with me”. “I split me head, smashed me nose, broke me wrist and broke that heel, I was in a boot for six months… it was never set properly.”
“I crawled out, down the road, pulling my ladder behind me, with a busted ankle and busted wrist. I got to the gate, and
I was buggered, but then an ambulance came from Kaiapoi.”
Bondy will be farewelled at a memorial service at the Papanui Rugby League Club on Thursday.
He was pre-deceased by wife Noeline and son Michael. He is survived by son Kerry and daughters Rainey and Tyree.