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Team talks in a morgue are hardly conducive to playing good rugby, but it did not stop the Excelsior senior team dominating the North Otago competition in 1949.
A sense of humour was needed to get changed in the morgue for training on the neighbouring Takaro Park, then survive coach Bill Laney's pep talk the night before a game, three surviving team members recalled on Saturday.
Laurie Tempero, Pat Griffin and Ron Willetts, at the club's 125th anniversary during the weekend, recalled the stellar year when the team won the Citizens Shield, Clark Shield and Muldrew Cup.
The three Oamaru men, along with John Gallagher (Timaru) and Eric Sawers (Nelson), who could not attend, are the only survivors of the 21 players and coach in 1949.
None could recall how the club got access to the disused morgue in the corner of the park next to Meek St.
They suspected it was through Laney, who was on the Oamaru Borough Council, became a long-serving Oamaru Mayor and was elected to Parliament for the Labour Party.
''It wasn't that bad, but there was a lot of humour when you were in the morgue,'' Tempero said.
The 1949 team played nine games, winning eight, scoring 36 tries and 154 points, with 73 against.
The club, formed in March 1888, played at the Oamaru Showgrounds before building clubrooms at Centennial Park with the North Otago Amateur Athletic Club, which opened in July 1966.
Tempero joined Excelsior because his father and three brothers played for the club.
The second five or centre started in 1945 and finished in 1956 because of injury. He also represented North Otago 39 times from 1947 to 1955.
His best memory is playing for North Otago against the New Zealand Maori team in 1947 at the Showgrounds, the team made up of many players who played for the Kiwis during World War 2.
''I think we drew,'' he said.
Willetts joined Excelsior in 1941 when he left school and played until 1953 when his ''knee packed up''.
The 1949 team was ''a great team with great team spirit'', he said.
He was originally on the wing, but was shifted to breakaway (flanker). He was sick of never getting the ball on the wing and would go into the forwards, although he did admit he ''may have been slowing up''.
Griffin had retired from rugby when he came to Oamaru, but was talked into playing for the team in 1949, then retired again.
The celebrations started with a large gathering on Friday night and up to 200 attended various functions.
They included the Citizens Shield match on Saturday afternoon against Maheno, which Excelsior won 38-0.