Geoff Cumming interview: Waka Nathan

Waka Nathan, known in his playing days as The Black Panther, was one of All Black rugby's greatest loose forwards, and is still fit as a fiddle. Photo / Paul Estcourt

The Black Panther opens the door, flashes those perfect white teeth and extends a giant paw.

Waka Joseph Nathan, as his Mum and Dad knew him, was a hero to kids raised on rugby in the 1960s and this one is finally meeting him.

I've watched the tearaway flanker age well over the years on TV: the cameras always seek him out as he watches his beloved All Blacks, Maori All Blacks and Auckland sides play. He always looks happy.

The jet black hair (only partly responsible for the nickname) long ago turned silver but, approaching 70, he's as handsome as ever and as fit as a fiddle.

The TV is on inside and he admits he'd rather be watching it than talking to us. He wants to see a replay of the All Whites' last-gasp draw which earned them a point at the soccer World Cup.

"Imagine that," he says. "Little old New Zealand.

"Down at the gym [he goes two or three times a week] the guys are all on about it."

But rugby remains his consuming interest and today he'll be watching the All Blacks play Wales, a white-knuckle affair in his playing days.

We're here because Nathan has yet another reason to get misty eyed: the celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the first official New Zealand Maori rugby side.

A three-match programme began last weekend with a game against the NZ Barbarians in Whangarei; Waka was there.

Last night they played Ireland in Rotorua and next week comes the big date, against England in Napier. Waka will be there.

He features prominently, too, in a documentary series on the history of Maori rugby, Beneath the Maori Moon, based on Malcolm Mulholland's centennial history, screening Thursday nights on Maori TV.

"100 years," he says. "Not too many of us are around for a 100-year celebration. I probably started playing rugby when I was 5 and I'm 70 next month. It makes you wonder - all the good times you had, the guys you toured with and the guys you met."

He still lives and breathes rugby but there's no sign of rugby memorabilia in the comfortable townhouse in Howick he shares with Jan, his wife of 46 years.

The eyecatcher (more than the big TV) in their lounge is the framed photos of family, his three daughters, their children and grandchildren, on top of a display cabinet.

He is the picture of contentment. His only real worry appears to be how the All Blacks will go at next year's rugby World Cup. "They have to show something this year or I can't see them winning it."

That and the horses. "The way they're treating me I may have to go back to work."

The celebrations have not been controversy-free. In the run-up last year, a cash-strapped NZRU failed to arrange any fixtures for a NZ Maori side.

On talkback and in the blogsphere, the occasion has stirred critics of a "racially-based" team. Then came claims that the 1956 Maori side thrashed 37-0 by the Springboks were under political orders to throw the game.

Finally last month came apologies from the New Zealand and South African boards for the opportunities denied to non-white players during the apartheid era.

None of these has diminished Nathan's sense of history. The NZRU luncheon and last weekend's events in Whangarei were absolutely brilliant, he says.

He became great mates with Albie Pryor and Pat Walsh who played against the 1956 Springboks and is certain that any intrigue would have come out long ago.

As for apartheid, Nathan had only just arrived on the scene when the all-white All Blacks went to South Africa in 1960. When the All Blacks next went, in 1970, he had retired. He'd certainly have gone if he could.

He was devastated when injuries kept him out of the 1965 home tests against the Springboks - not because he had a political point to prove but because he wanted to play against the legendary foe. "I was really brassed off. My goal was always to play a test against them and that never happened."

Nathan grew up in Mangere, when it was "all farms and Chinese market gardens and scoria roads", in a family of nine after his mother adopted two cousins whose parents had died. "They still managed to send us to college."

He says the novelty of a bus trip to Morrinsville in the early-1950s for a secondary schools tournament, with players billeted to local families, awakened him to how far rugby could take him. "Plus, after each game we got a pie and a bottle of orange juice."

Nathan embodied the physicality, flair and derring-do that lie at the heart of Maori rugby. His rugby exploits were the stuff of folklore: bursting on to the scene aged 19 for New Zealand Maori against the 1959 British Lions; scoring the last-minute try that saved the Ranfurly Shield for Auckland against Canterbury in 1960; terrorising opposing first-fives; scoring tries with the pace of a back and the power of a forward.

He was feted by fans and players in the way that Michael Jones was in the 1980s and Richie McCaw is today.

He led the All Blacks haka and, guitar in hand, led the singing in the long after-matches and in the back of the bus.

He played 14 tests. There would have been many more, I remind him, if he hadn't thrown himself about so fearlessly that he kept getting injured.

Less known outside rugby circles is his contribution to the revival of the Maori game as selector, coach and manager, culminating in a tour to Wales and Spain in 1982.

Maori rugby was in the doldrums after Nathan retired in the late-1960s and there were calls - still are today - to do away with an ethnically-based team. Nathan set about restoring the mana.

By the time of the 1982 tour, Maori rugby was on a high. Many fans believed it a formality that the Maori would sweep through the Welsh valleys and defeat the national team at Cardiff Arms Park.

Instead they ran up against four-square sons of coal-miners. A couple of losses punctuated by ugly brawls prompted alarmed phone calls from NZRU chairman Ces Blazey and Nathan had to tell the players to back-off a bit.

"I was very disappointed with that tour. There were high expectations. I blame myself because I didn't have enough experience as a manager.

"We did play typical running rugby but just like any other team that goes away, if you get beaten you are a failure really."

Then he laughs: "I managed that bloody team - I should have coached it."

Try to get him talking about his abilities as a player and he shrugs and shuffles uncomfortably.

He's far happier recalling old Maori rugby mentors like Albie Pryor and Pat Walsh (now both dead), lifelong friend Mac Herewini or occasional games of bowls with Herewini, Sir Colin Meads, Adrian Clark and other All Black legends.

"The thing about the guys is that everybody still wants to win. Old Pinetree is into it. Once he gets in and starts playing it's 'now come on boys, try to win'."

Nathan confidently expected more Maori tours after Wales; they didn't eventuate. Professionalism has since changed the structure of rugby so much that there's little room on the calendar for Maori games.

Does he blame the NZRU? He grimaces, then pauses. "I can't answer that. It's a monetary game now. It's the livelihood of the players."

There was a life beyond rugby, of course. He worked for 25 years for Lion Breweries in sales, using his rugby contacts to good effect. He ran a pub in Mangere for a while and finally returned to his trade as a butcher.

But Nathan credits rugby with opportunities he would never otherwise have had.

"It's amazing to say I've been to Buckingham Palace, met the Queen and Prince Philip, and when they came out to New Zealand I was invited aboard the Britannia and met the whole family.

"I just love the game so much. [Without it] I would never have seen the countries I've been to."

When it's time to leave, he walks us up the long-driveway. He turns to us at the top. "Do you think we can win the Rugby World Cup?"