Obituary: Joe Morgan

By D.J. CAMERON

All Black. Died aged 57.

Over the decades, as North Auckland rugby changed face to Northland, there have been many heroes - Johnny Smith, Peter Jones, Sid Going to mention a few - who stood as tall and strong as the great kauris of the North.

But even these fabled heroes may well have finished in the shadow of Joe Morgan, who last week fell from a ladder on a construction site and suffered such severe head injuries, his life support was shut off on Sunday.

Family members said they sensed Joe continued to struggle on afterwards with no assistance.

Hundreds of Northland people who knew him as a man of high character, and a rugby player of enormous determination and stamina, would not have been surprised that Joe Morgan had tried to belt on through the final tackle - that sounds like Joe, they would have said.

Joe Morgan played more games for Northland - 167, over 15 consecutive seasons - than anyone else.

He had 22 matches, including five tests for the All Blacks, and scored a landmark try when the 1976 All Blacks won a test in South Africa.

Yet, as his great friend and captain Peter Sloane mentioned this week, he probably never received the praise he deserved.

Joe was there while a lot of star players were around, and never received the recognition he deserved, said Sloane.

"I was quite close to him, for we played for North Auckland together, and combined at work - I was a chippie and Joe would come on to the site as the structural engineer, so we saw a lot of each other.

"As on the rugby field, Joe was great on the building site. If there was a tough job to do in rugby or on the building site, Joe would do them - he was always the 110 per cent man."

In his younger days Joe enjoyed life as eagerly as any rugby-playing youngster.

While some of the North Auckland side were deflated after Kel Tremain burgled victory away from them in a Ranfurly Shield challenge, Joe Morgan was later seen with a bottle of firewater and enough charity in his heart to tell a youngish rugby reporter: "You're not a bad bloke, if you were playing outside me I would pass you the ball."

By and by, according to Sloane, Joe Morgan realised he was on the wrong track, that someone might get hurt, and he needed a lifestyle change. So from the mid-70s, Joe stopped drinking.

In everything Joe was involved with, he was totally committed, passionate. He was surrounded by a very close family.

Joe Morgan's rugby was marked more by fierce and fearless determination than dazzling speed - he could make a break, and be like a rock wall on defence.

Shortish and nuggety, he played far above his weight.

Sloane remembers only one time when Joe Morgan exploded on the field - after being given the celebrated Southland rucking treatment one dire day at Invercargill.

"Southland had Ash McGregor and Leicester Rutledge as loose forwards and Joe got a real working-over on the ground," said Sloane.

"He came up and, for the first time I remember, he reacted. He really ripped into the Southlanders.

"I was captain and pushed Joe behind me while I worked on the referee so that Joe was not ordered off.

"But Joe got round my blindside, and was ripping into the Southlanders again - he just did not want to stop."

Away from rugby, Joe Morgan worked for the flourishing construction business he ran with his younger brother, Brian.

And he took up the rather genteel occupation of growing orchids.

He joined a musical group in Hukerenui, who at least once a year would put on a show for the locals and some good cause. The group came together to perform at Joe Morgan's hospital bedside. His mates reckon Joe would have appreciated that, before he became the latest great kauri of the North to fall.