SIR COLIN MEADS
June 3, 1936 - August 20, 2017
The contribution of All Black great Sir Colin Meads to the game he bestrode as a colossus was never underestimated •but in later life the man known as "Piney'' never looked happier than when talking rugby over a pint of beer.
Meads died at the age of 81 on Sunday after long battle with pancreatic cancer.
Nicknamed "Pinetree'' by a team-mate in 1958, Meads came to epitomise the aura of the All Blacks in the 20th century and helped cement their place as the most successful team in world rugby.
He was named as New Zealand's player of the 20th Century in 1999 and listed by The New Zealand Herald in 2014 as the greatest All Black of all time.
Meads played for the All Blacks from 1957 until 1971, racking up a then New Zealand record 55 tests and playing another 78 games for the team.
His record tally of 133 games stood until former Richie McCaw superseded it in 2014 against South Africa, the younger All Black great going on to make 149 appearances for the team.
The increase in the number of tests played in the modern era might account for that disparity but changing times have done nothing to diminish Meads' place in New Zealand sporting lore.
In a team stacked full of players considered some of the greats of New Zealand and world rugby, Meads was the man elevated to global renown, much as Jonah Lomu would be in the 1990s and indeed McCaw in the 2000s.
"He is the purest and most ferocious All Black there has ever been,'' Donald McRae wrote in the Guardian in 2002.
"Growing up in South Africa in the 1960s and '70s, I remember our terrified awe of Meads. Long before Star Wars, the giant lock appeared as an utterly compelling Darth Vader.''
A farmer for his entire working life, Meads personified the stereotype of the All Blacks forward as a man of the land, carving out a living in a wild environment that takes a battle to wrangle but is never tamed.
Immensely strong and physically fit due to his farm work, team-mates and opponents would describe him as "tough and uncompromising'' and a legend built that he was all but immune to physical pain.
He famously broke his arm against Eastern Transvaal in 1970 but played on, commenting after the fracture was confirmed: "At least we won the bloody game''.
Meads was considered the enforcer for the All Blacks - the player who did not, as former sports journalist and author Ron Palenski once said, take a backwards step.
"He had a few confrontations with other players. Generally he came off the better,'' Palenski said in a 2005 documentary about New Zealand's top 100 history-makers.
Meads himself described the reputation as more to do with the game at the time, when the players tended to sort out any trouble the referee was unable to see, or unwilling to address.
"In our days sometimes a lot of teams used illegal tactics and they had to be stopped because the referee didn't pick them up,'' Meads told The New Zealand Herald in 2014.
"So it was dealt with accordingly.''
His reputation for the thuggery was not helped by becoming only the second All Black player to be sent off in a test - against Scotland in 1967 - nor by the incident the following year when he ended the career of Australia's Ken Catchpole by tearing the hamstring off the halfback's bone.
"That was unfortunate that one,'' Meads told The New Zealand Herald in 2014. "I didn't do it purposely to hurt him. I had hold of one leg and his other leg was stuck and he did the splits and was hurt terribly.''
It was a reputation that Meads was happy to cultivate in later life, however, when he found a niche as an after-dinner speaker, regaling crowds with some of the tall tales and myths that had attached themselves to his name.
But to New Zealanders, he was much more than the mindless thug that northern hemisphere journalists and Australians with memories of the Catchpole incident would care to remember.
While he played at lock, he had blistering speed and massive hands which helped with the sublime ball-handling skills that would not look out of place in the modern game.
"He was a lock who was supposed to have his head down in scrums and occasionally get two feet off the ground in the lineouts and do nothing else,'' New Zealand rugby writer Wynne Gray said in 2014.
"But here was this guy running with the ball in his hand that looked like a small egg, dummying to other players.
"He was the left, right, and centre of New Zealand rugby because he played at such a high standard for a long period of time.
"He was numero uno.''
Life and times
PLAYING STATS
Height: 1.92m
Weight: 102kg
All Blacks debut: v New South Wales, Sydney (May 18 1957)
Test debut: v Australia, Sydney (May 25 1957)
Last test: v British and Irish Lions, Auckland (Aug 14 1971)
All Blacks matches: 133 (55 tests)
EARLY LIFE
• Born in Cambridge Meads grew up on the family farm outside Te Kuiti in New Zealand’s King Country.
• Joined the Waitete club and made age-grade provincial teams before making his senior debut for King Country aged 19. His first points for the province were from a dropped goal.
• Named in a New Zealand Colts side that toured Australia and Sri Lanka in 1955.
• Came to prominence in 1956 when he made the North Island team as a loose forward but was not chosen for the test series against South Africa because he was considered too young to face the Springboks.
International career
• Made his test debut against Australia in 1957 as a flanker one of just eight tests when he did not play lock.
• Became virtually an automatic choice from then on but was dropped against the Lions in 1959 and then against Australia in 1962.
• Captained the All Blacks for the first time on the tour of Britain in 1963-64 a 23-9 victory over Combined Services.
• In New Zealand’s 14-3 victory over Scotland at Murrayfield became the second All Blacks player to be sent off in a test match.
• Already renowned for his toughness and nononsense attitude on the field Meads broke his arm against Eastern Transvaal on the 1970 tour of South Africa but finished the game. He missed two of the four tests because of the injury.
• Named to lead the All Blacks in a test match for the first time in his final series against the Lions in 1971.
• Ended his international career following the 14-14 draw against the Lions at Eden Park which gave the combined side a 2-1 series victory - their first and only series win over the All Blacks.
• Continued to play for two more seasons before retiring in 1973 having played a total of 361 first class matches - a record that stood until Keven Mealamu surpassed it in 2015.
POST-RETIREMENT
• Held several coaching and administrative roles including as a national selector in 1986 but was forced to step down after taking charge of an unsanctioned ‘‘Cavaliers’’ side to South Africa the same year.
• Was elected to the New Zealand Rugby Union Council in 1992.
• Served as manager of the All Blacks in 1994 and 1995 including at the Rugby World Cup in South Africa.
• Stepped away from rugby after the NZRU changed its governance structure to move to a smaller board in 1996.
• Had a successful career as an after-dinner speaker regaling crowds with some of the stories tall tales and myths that had swirled around his playing career.
HONOURS
• Named New Zealand Player of the Century in 1999.
• Awarded several domestic honours by New Zealand’s Government culminating in being made a New Zealand Distinguished Companion of Merit in 2001 an honour which was redesignated as a knighthood in 2009.
• In 2006 New Zealand’s amateur provincial competition was renamed as the Heartland Championship and the winners awarded the Meads Cup.
• Inducted into New Zealand’s Sports Hall of Fame. Also named in World Rugby’s Hall of Fame in 2014.
• Honoured by his home town of Te Kuiti with a statue unveiled during the 2017 Lions tour.
