KEN GOING: The battle of his life

He's a North Auckland rugby legend who gave his all to the game. Now, as Ken Going battles cancer, the game is giving something back. In today's Weekend Advocate, Ken Going talks candidly about how the friendships forged through rugby have helped him deal with cancer. And he reveals a secret or two behind the Going brothers' Triple Scissors move.
IN HIS heyday Ken Tautohe Going, otherwise known simply as KT, had a reputation for overcoming formidable enemies on the rugby field.
As the elder statesman of that famous Northland rugby triumvirate of Ken, Sid and Brian, KT was the impact man. Sid provided the deception and Brian the guile. But it was KT who would force the issue home with sheer physical presence.
It worked too, as evidenced by the rugby move that put the Going brothers on the rugby map - `The Triple Scissors'.
In a rugby career that spanned more than a decade, including with the All Blacks and New Zealand Maori along with Northland and Ranfurly Shield rugby success, KT Going made a name for himself as a classic rugby hardman.
There are few rugby players who can claim to have bettered KT Going. But of all the rugby battles KT has fought, none compare with the one he is fighting now.
KT Going is dying.
"Terminal cancer - game, set and match," Going said.
Diagnosed earlier this year with invasive pancreatic cancer, Going is now effectively house-bound as he receives palliative medical treatment. At 66 years old, he has no idea how long he has left, but he does know one thing: He doesn't have much to regret.
"I think you just charge on really, just chase on, don't worry too much about it," he said.
"My life is here now, in my home. I get up in the morning, have a spa and feel a million dollars. But sometimes I can get out thinking `Right, this is okay', and then by the time I walk around the corner, zap, I'm out to it.
"Just going through this dying syndrome, this death thing. Sometimes I wake up and think, `Is this what death feels like today?', because you don't know.
"You have no idea. But it is a bummer, because what do you do? Do I race through to the sale to buy stock and - next week - who gives a tiddly squat what I own on this place?
"The dynamite was telling my family and my kids. They knew something was wrong, they had never seen me sick. They had seen a broken arm, hips and bits and pieces, but not a down-and-out kind of thing like this, so they knew.
"But the rugby has been a great leveller, and a great thing for friends who have appeared now to help, people I never thought would be my friends after some of the things I did to them on the field. You know, `Sorry mate, that backhander got away on me', but they have turned up as well."
THE support from friends and media attention has come as people have learned of his ill health. The media interest is nothing new - the media meticulously mapped the careers of all three Going brothers as they emerged from humble rural roots in the farming settlement of Maromaku to become rugby icons.
And KT has graciously agreed to talk candidly about rugby, and his health.
With regards to the rugby, he has revealed secrets to that rugby move that trumped all rugby moves during the magical Going era of Northland rugby in the 1960s and 1970s: The Triple Scissors.
Turns out the chance to chew the fat with one of Northland's most recognisable sporting heroes of the past was an honour. KT Going's body might be getting ravaged by cancer, but his rugby mind is as sharp as ever.
So, when prompted to map details of that famous rugby move, KT goes one step further - he explains when the move works and why.
For the rugby purist it goes something likes this: Attacking scrum with a decent right-hand blindside. After feigning an attack to the left, Sid (at halfback) delivers a reverse pass to Brian, now attacking the right side. Brian passes to Ken running on an angle back to the left, who then passes to Sid running back right again.
There it is, three simple passes. What can't be explained is the simple spellbinding accuracy with which the move was executed, complete with magical mastery conjured up on the back lawn of the Going household.
"The secret to the move was to hide the ball from the players, and probably only four players to know where it was going - me, Sid, Brian and Joe [Morgan]," he said.
"The next part was [that] the ball could go to any one of us - one, two or three - and we just left it at that when the move was called. But then it came to Sid's pass, because he would be able to get some incredible passes despite some pretty messy scrums. It was all about how the pass landed in Brian's hands. That would determine if he would give it to me and, if he did, I would have a split-second decision to give it to Sid or just smash it.
"I tried to deliver to Sid because I knew, 98 per cent, if I got it to Sid it would be a score. But if the move was coming we often wouldn't tell the loose forwards because they would start flapping around and get too excited and get in the way. The neat one was always getting the ball to Sid because he would hesitate, hold up the defence and hurtle off on a run."
And so the Going magic held an entire province spellbound, sometimes the whole nation, as the Northland rugby team, under the tutelage of iconic coach Ted Griffin, won and defended the Ranfurly Shield, staged tumultuous battles against the British Lions, France, Fiji, England and even the All Blacks on an internal tour, almost always in front of crowds numbering in the tens of thousands at Whangarei's Okara Park. But much, if not most of that magic era, started with three brothers and one sister staging mock rugby games on the back lawn of the Going house.
"We actually did practice that, and practice it on the back lawn, over and over again.
"Sid developed the little back flip pass and then we just added the bits from there. As kids we used to play all the time, with Jeanette, the older sister, as well. She was the fourth player, so we could play two-on-two."
All three of the rugby playing brothers went on to represent the NZ Maori team, Sid developing further to become a legendary All Blacks halfback.
That KT Going went on to make a late, and for many, a long overdue appearance in the All Blacks in 1974, aged 32, is testimony to his endurance. Brian, despite his skills in the No.10 jersey, never made All Blacks selection.
AFTER RETIRING as a player in 1975, KT Going came back as the coach of Northland in 1984, a period he describes quite simply as "frustrating:. Sid did the same years later.
So rugby, to state the obvious, is not just a theme in the Going family, it is an anthem. Now the sport, or more so the lifelong associations rugby engendered, is helping KT Going cope with cancer.
"When you become involved with people in team sports in particular, you will put your neck on the line and they will for you as well.
"The most important part of team sport is the spirit you play with and really, the same is happening in my life now as well. I couldn't imagine my life without rugby, so many good friends."
But in the end KT Going acknowledges this battle is one he has to face alone. There is no way of selling a dummy pass to "aggressive terminal pancreatic cancer".
Now his family, his wife Patricia, his four sons, daughter and two step-children, and a massive array of extended family, are gently embracing the rugged farmer-cum-rugby hero. Pancreatic cancer, he says, announces its ongoing presence with strong waves of pain.
"Pain that sits you on your backside like a good old-fashioned rugby tackle ... boomph.
"Besides that I have got this huge tumour and it is loaded as well. Chemo [chemotherapy] is out of the question, operating on the tumour would probably weaken my immune system and probably shorten my life rather than extend it.
"So really it is now living life the way I want it, it isn't really that enjoyable to be honest, but I try to make the most of it."