Kirkpatrick: I still blame myself

New Zealand rugby legend Ian Kirkpatrick is an unforgiving type when it comes to arguably the most infamous incident in All Blacks history.

To this day the fabulous loose forward and now patron of New Zealand Rugby still blames himself for the way Keith Murdoch’s lifechanging banishment from the 1972 tour of Britain was handled.

Kirkpatrick, who captained the All Blacks in nine of his 39 tests during a decade-long career in the international arena, including on the ill-fated 1972 tour, told Sky Sport’s ‘The Pod’ (airing Thursday night, SS3, 8.30pm) that he has never stopped feeling regret over the way Murdoch’s dismissal from the visit to Britain played out.

Murdoch had reportedly been involved in an incident with a security guard at Cardiff’s Angel Hotel following the 19-16 test victory over Wales on December 2, and was subsequently sent home to New Zealand by All Blacks manager Ernie Todd in a decision that still reverberates to this day.

The notoriously strong prop, who scored his third try in his third and final test, never played rugby in New Zealand again and largely disappeared off the grid during a long exile in outback Australia. He died in March of 2018.

World Rugby Hall of Famer Kirkpatrick told interviewer, and SkySport rugby commentator, Grant Nisbett, that he still felt plenty of regret about the way the whole affair played out.

‘‘It should have been ‘he goes, we go’. I’m not quite sure what that would have done with things. I just feel probably looking back I was too young to make a real stand,’’ he said.

‘‘The manager had the right to do what he [did]. If he wanted to send a player home, he could. I really blame myself for that and I don’t mind wearing that. It’s not done easy but if you deserve it, you take it and get on with it.

‘‘It was a bit sad that Keith didn’t stay with us, but that’s all history.’’

In an extensive interview Kirkpatrick spoke at length about his long All Blacks career (1967-77), playing alongside some of the greats of the game such as Colin Meads, BJ Lochore, Waka Nathan and Kel Tremain and the highs and lows of some memorable series, including agonising defeats to the British and Irish Lions in 1971 and the Springboks in South Africa in 1970 and ‘76.

Kirkpatrick, who was stripped of the All Blacks captaincy in 1974, addressed the toughness of winning in South Africa in that era with home referees on the whistle and revealed a fateful decision ahead of the ’76 visit to the republic, for the series won 3-1 by the Boks.

‘‘Every tour [to South Africa] there was always that problem, where it wasn’t so much anywhere else.

‘‘Before the ‘76 tour Danie Craven gave an invite to have neutral referees, but in their wisdom the NZRU council said no, we’ll stick with the status quo. It makes you wonder … we sometimes say maybe they might have been got at and been worse than the local ones … who knows?

‘‘At times in some of those tests over there we just didn’t play well. The conditions were almost always ideal for us, and the way we wanted to play.’’

Kirkpatrick also repeated his view expressed in an interview with Stuff in May that he feared for the modern game because of its gladiatorial nature and massive emphasis on defence.

‘‘It’s become too gladiatorial,’’ he told Nisbett. ‘‘I would prefer these guys play a more open game. For teams in this late professional era you’ve got to be big and strong. If you can’t take it up there’s not a lot of future for you. There’s no space to run into because we don’t put guys into the breakdown.

‘‘We have some enormous talent here and we don’t see it. We don’t see the Christian Cullens of this world any more because there’s nowhere for them to go. I feel saddened about that.’’

Kirkpatrick said he worried the physicality of the modern game was behind a major dropoff in playing numbers at schools level and also fretted for the welfare of the modern player.

‘‘I don’t know whether deep down they enjoy it. They play because they’re getting very well paid … they’ve got a lot of living to do after they finish playing and I hope we don’t get too many suffering because of it.’’