The 94-year-old former St Kevin's College wing will be watching the traditional interschool match at Centennial Park again today, 75 years after he last took to the field against Waitaki Boys'.
''I missed one a few years ago. It poured with rain - it would've been seven or eight years ago now,'' he said.
He was thrilled to see St Kevin's College end Waitaki Boys' High School's run of five successive wins, with a 26-8 win in 2013.
He is hoping they can make it three in a row today.
The first interschool match between St Kevin's and Waitaki Boys' was held in 1934.
Mr Howard attended St Kevin's from 1936 to 1940, and played in the first XV from 1938 to 1940.
''I can still remember being in class and ... given my cap and first XV jersey,'' he said.
Waitaki Boys' and St Kevin's did not go head to head in 1938, Mr Howard suspects it was because of a polio outbreak at the time.
''Oh it was a terrible thing - we were scared stiff and that's why they didn't want people to mix,'' he said.
Waitaki Boys' won both of the clashes Mr Howard played in - 25-15 in 1939 and 12-0 in 1940.
He remembers going down in one match, taking a foot to the head.
''I was going down on the ball and he gave me a kick and it got me right in the eye - oh hell, I was dead there for a few days,'' he said.
Growing up in Corriedale, Mr Howard had to pay his own way to board in town at St Kevin's College.
''My father never had much money. There were seven of us and he was only working at the flour mill at Ngapara ... so I used to go out and work out on the threshing mill,'' he said.
''I used the money, all that money, to pay for my board.''
In 1938 and 1939, he could not afford to start school until May, and in 1940 he could not start until June.
''Just imagine going to school in June - you miss so much,'' he said.
His marks at school suffered, but he never missed much of the rugby season.
When he left school, he played rugby for Ngapara and then Tokarahi, while he was working full-time in a thrashing mill.
Mr Howard also worked for the Waitaki County Council as a grader, then a truck driver for 32 years, moving back to Oamaru in 1976 before he retired in 1986.
