It was never ‘‘Bad News’’ when Kees Meeuws came along.
He was a popular Highlander, a tighthead prop who helped revolutionise the game in New Zealand, and a man with wide interests who was - and is - always happy to chat about them.
Meeuws had the barrel chest of a classic prop and he was well versed in the arts of scrummaging, but he also had skills and speed that made him ideally suited to the free-flowing early years of Super Rugby.
The Dutch-Maori product of Kelston Boys’ High School became a fan favourite when he settled into the South and got an opportunity to strut his stuff.
He loved a good carry, his ball-handling was impressive and he was explosive over short distances.
The story of Meeuws is inextricably linked to that of a famous and exceptionally young front row.
Meeuws was the senior hand when he and fellow 22-year-old prop Carl Hoeft and 21-year-old hooker Anton Oliver started regularly playing for the Highlanders.
‘‘We can only get better the more games we play together and we're starting to get a together feeling now,’’ Meeuws said at the time.
That trio indeed got better, starting in a semifinal in 1998, and a semifinal and a final in 1999.
All graduated to the All Blacks, Meeuws playing 42 tests with an exceptional scoring rate of 10 tries.
He was the first of the three to leave the Highlanders, heading home to play for the Blues in 2003-04 before playing in France and Wales.
Meeuws, a father of six, is now living back in Dunedin, where he works as a real estate agent and has diverse interests.
He is a longtime hunter and fisher and diver, an artist, a Masters Games ambassador, a storyteller through ta moko, and a graduate of two seasons of the Match Fit television series.
He had a spell as Highlanders and Otago scrum coach and has been seen regularly on Sky Sport.
