Shane Howarth playing against South Africa in 1994. Photo / Photosport
The former All Black at the centre of rugby’s Grannygate scandal has spoken of the enduring pain it caused his family — and how he apologised to his nana due to “skeletons” the saga brought up.
Shane Howarth first played test rugby for Wales in 1998 — four years on from his 10th and final match for the All Blacks — with Welsh ancestry supposedly being the reason for his eligibility.
But his three-season hold on Wales’ No 15 jersey — which included the 1999 Rugby World Cup — came to a shattering and controversial halt in early 2000.
Howarth, along with fellow Kiwi-born Welsh test player Brett Sinkinson, were among players outed by an investigation dubbed Grannygate as not being eligible to play for their adopted nation.
In Howarth’s case, he had stated he was eligible via a Welsh grandfather on his mother’s side.
The Grannygate investigation uncovered there was no formal documentation to back that claim; with the man said to be his grandfather not appearing on any birth certificates.
In an interview in a newly-released book — Rugby Lives: The Untold Stories of 26 Welsh Internationals in Their Own Words — Howarth said the scandal put his mum and her side of the family “under pressure”.
“To have that [playing for Wales] taken away from me hurt, it hurt big time,” Howarth told the author, Welsh journalist Simon Thomas.
“But what upsets me the most is it hurt my mum’s side of the family.
“It dragged up things that didn’t need to be bloody dragged up. It all came out in the wash. The most disheartening thing for me, out of it all, was I let my mum and my grandmother down.
“That sits with me still today. As much as I could, I went up to see Nana and apologise. It did bring skeletons up that didn’t need to be brought up.
“I took that pretty hard, it really gutted me.”
At the height of the scandal, Howarth’s beloved grandmother was even asked by the media if she had had an affair; hence the lack of the name on the birth certificate.
His grandmother denied that publicly.
Howarth told Thomas in Rugby Lives — which features chapters “looking back on the careers of 26 of Welsh rugby’s finest players” — that he had never solved the ancestry question, deciding two decades ago it was best to let things lie.
“My Nana passed away in 2001 and that’s where it finished with me.
“I wasn’t prying into it. I wasn’t going to dredge anything more into it.”
Howarth played 19 test matches for Wales before he was banned.
He appeared in the first three tests of Wales’ 2000 Six Nations campaign before Grannygate’s claims first went public.
“I remember getting a phone call on the Saturday night telling me there was going to be a story in the Sunday papers,” he said in Rugby Lives.
“I just said, ‘There’s no dramas, I’m fine’. I didn’t realise how much it would blow up.”
The reports claimed his maternal grandfather had no Welsh links, something that had earlier been given for why he was able to play for a second nation.
When Howarth was challenged to provide proof of the links, he was unable to.
“I couldn’t prove he was my grandfather. It wasn’t on the birth certificate,” Howarth said.
“But in my heart, I truly believed, and I still believe now, that I had Welsh blood running through my veins.”
Howarth told the New Zealand Herald that Thomas conducted the extensive interview with him about two years ago during the Covid-19 pandemic.
He stood by what he told Thomas and how his story had been portrayed.
And he stressed, as he did to Thomas, that he is still adamant he has Welsh ancestry; and was proud to have chosen the Welsh route over an approach to play test rugby for England — a nation for which he had documentation proving his eligibility.
Howarth told the Herald if playing for a second nation had been all about money — and not national pride — he would have opted for England, who first approached him in 1997 when he was playing for Sale.
The following year he accepted an invitation from newly appointed Welsh coach — and his former Auckland coach — Sir Graham Henry to play for Wales.
“Graham approached me and said ‘I’ve heard you have got English qualifications, have you got Welsh’? So I checked with Mum and she said, ‘Yeah, I think we have’,” he told Rugby Lives.
“I ummed and ahhed because the Sale coach, John Mitchell, wanted me to go down the English line. It was hard because I had really good relationships with both of them.
“But, in the end, Graham was a massive influence on my career. It was a toss-up, but I just felt he could really help me out at international level. So that’s how I went down that avenue, with all the dramas and everything that fell on the back of it.”
As well as Howarth and Sinkinson, Grannygate also found Scotland’s English-born prop, Dave Hilton, was playing for his adopted country without correct ancestry links.
Several other adopted Welshmen investigated — including another Kiwi in Matt Cardey — were found to have correct links.
“There were a lot of players involved in it, but unfortunately — I guess because I was an All Black — I kind of got singled out,” Howarth said in the book, which is published by Y Lolfa.
“That’s the way it is and you cop that on the chin. But to this day, I am Welsh.
“If I can’t get papers to prove that, then have a look at the 20 games I played in the red jersey and see if I wasn’t Welsh.
“And, if I wasn’t Welsh, why the hell would I turn England down and play for a country I’m supposedly not available for?
“That’s my take on it. Other people can have their own thoughts about it, but I gave my all in that red jersey and I’ll defy anyone who says I didn’t.
“Nobody can take those times away from me. They took a lot of things away, but they can’t take those memories.
“The best time of my life was playing for Wales and living in Wales.”
Neil Reid is a Napier-based senior reporter who covers general news, features and sport. He joined the Herald in 2014 and has 30 years of newsroom experience.
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