How Bruce landed payback for uncle

IT TOOK one New Zealand family most of the 20th century to make Wales suffer for what they saw as a gross injustice over probably the most talked about try in All Black history. According to folklore, Bob Deans swore on his death bed that he did score at Cardiff Arms Park during the pioneering tour of 1905, confirming claims that he had touched down before the Scottish referee, John Dallas, arrived at the scene. The decision, denying Dave Gallaher’s ‘Originals’ an equalising try in a match they lost 3-0, has been a sore point with historians ever since. The chance for the family to start evening up the score arrived 83 years later during the most lop-sided tour ever undertaken by Wales south of the equator. Bruce Deans had been one of the invisible men of the 1987 World Cup squad, denied even the briefest of appearances off the bench as scrum-half cover for David Kirk throughout the All Black procession to the trophy. The following year, with Kirk otherwise engaged at Oxford University, Deans made his Test debut on home ground in Christchurch, against Wales. It was almost as if the gods were doing their level best to right an old wrong. Bruce, the grandnephew of Bob and younger brother of Test full-back Robbie, found himself cast in the role of avenger-inchief. It was all too good to miss. He scored a try at Lancaster Park in the first ‘Test’ which proved to be nothing of the kind and scored again at Eden Park a fortnight later in another landslide win when almost every other All Black seemed to score. Bruce Deans died on Friday after a short illness at the age of 58.