Phil Gifford: The real stories behind rugby's enduring myths

David Kirk with injured captain Andy Dalton and the Webb Ellis Cup. Photo / photosport.nz

OPINION:

A myth often has a potency that outlasts reality. The western outlaw Billy the Kid's real name was Henry. Robin Hood wasn't one real person in the 12th century, it was just a popular alias then for several criminals.

Rugby here has its own myths, some with a grain of truth, some with none at all. Here are four that have endured, and the real stories.

The myth:

During an argument over tactics, Buck Shelford punched Grant Fox in the changing shed at Eden Park after Shelford's last game as All Black captain. This story permeated all levels of our society. In the late 1990s I was even asked by the greatest New Zealander of all, Sir Edmund Hillary, if it was true.

The reality:

Coach Alex Wyllie wasn't happy with the form Shelford had shown in the two opening tests of the 1990 season, against Scotland. Nineteen days after the second test at Eden Park Wyllie sent his two fellow selectors, John Hart and Lane Penn to Whangarei to watch Shelford lead North Harbour against Northland.

Wyllie went to Hamilton to see Waikato play Australia in the opening game of a Wallabies tour. The selection trio met in the Koru lounge at Auckland Airport that night, and all agreed Shelford would be dropped.

Unless Shelford, Fox and Wyllie have all lied to my face there was never a fist fight between Shelford and Fox. In 1991 Wyliie called the rumour "bull****". The best comment came from Fox. "If Buck and I ever had a fight, I'd end up in intensive care."

The myth:

The majority of the World Cup-winning New Zealand team of 1987 came from the Baby Blacks, who had allowed rugby here to shake off the stain left by the 1981 Springbok tour.

The reality:

It's a lovely idea, just a pity it's not true. Here's what really happened. Early in 1986 a rebel All Blacks team, using the name the Cavaliers, had toured apartheid-era South Africa. All the players involved were given a two-test ban by the NZRU.

So in June of '86 an All Blacks side with 10 new caps, led by David Kirk - who had refused to join the Cavaliers - amazingly beat a French team that had just shared the Five Nations title with Scotland, 18-9 in Christchurch. The country embraced the team, who became known as the Baby Blacks.

But when the Cavaliers were available again, most of the Baby Blacks were dumped, and when New Zealand's '87 World Cup squad was named, Andy Dalton, the captain of the Cavaliers, was named as captain.

With the team initially based on the North Shore in Auckland at the Poenamo Hotel, coach Brian Lochore was horrified to see how many city people still held a grudge against the All Blacks for cuddling up to South Africa.

"The players were afraid of being abused or accosted, which is what the All Blacks had suffered through the early '80s," he said. "People would come and stand right in front of you and abuse the hell out of you."

Lochore's solution to make the All Blacks feel loved was to arrange for them to become the first, and without doubt the last, All Blacks team to be billeted, at Pirinoa, about 30km from Martinborough, where they spent a night staying in pairs with farming families.

"I was a bit nervous," John Kirwan later joked. "You couldn't see a street light or a McDonalds for miles."

John Kirwan in action in 1986. Photo / Photosport

Lochore's idea of billeting his men in the rugby-loving heartland to boost morale was a great example of lateral thinking. But the key to getting most of the public to love the '87 squad the way they had cherished the Baby Blacks came basically by accident.

Dalton damaged a hamstring at the team's first training and Lochore chose David Kirk, the only other test captain in the squad, to take over as skipper.

Personable, articulate and highly intelligent - Zinzan Brooke would claim Kirk knew what the word 'philistine' meant when he was three - Kirk became, in the phrase of a women's magazine headline writer, "Every Kiwi mother's favourite son-in-law."

Come the final against France at Eden Park, won 29-9, nobody mentioned that the All Blacks team contained 10 Cavaliers and just three Baby Blacks. By the time Kirk was presented with the World Cup and, in a move he said was entirely spontaneous, dragged Dalton across for a hug, the sport in New Zealand was unified and the Cavaliers consigned to being one of those awkward topics avoided in polite conversation.

The myth:

The only time Richie McCaw ever threw a punch in a test match was when he hit a crazed Springbok fan who assaulted Irish referee David McHugh on the field in a 2002 test in Durban.

The reality:

At the time it certainly looked as if the fat thug who attacked McHugh was punched by McCaw. But in his biography, The Open Side, in 2012, McCaw said: "There's a photo floating around of me with my fist cocked and it appears as if I'm about to hit the bloke. Truth is, I never threw a punch. It was one of the big Bok boys who get a few in and did a bit of damage."

Richie McCaw said he never punched the Springboks fan. Photo / Getty

The myth:

Otago captain Dave Latta lost his mind and was wildly offside when he tried to kill the ball behind a Canterbury ruck, which basically gifted Otago's 1994 Ranfurly Shield challenge 22-20 to Canterbury. Andrew Mehrtens kicked the goal from the penalty against Latta in the 75th minute to keep the shield in Christchurch.

The reality:

The myth is true, with one massive difference. Poor Latta was entirely within his rights to dive on the ball. In 2013, after endlessly watching and rewinding a dusty old VHS tape, it was clear that referee Colin Hawke - in those days unable to call for sideline assistance in making a ruling - was on the blindside of the ruck as the ball was illegally dragged back in by a big Canterbury arm that seemed to belong to Richard Loe.

A little stunned by what I'd seen on the tape, I then phoned Latta. "I suppose you could say it was like a magic trick," he said. "I saw the ball lying there. Saw the opportunity, and took it. But the ball disappeared. When the whistle blew, I thought [Hawke] had blown a certain arm for dragging it back in. But when I saw Colin's arm poking the other way I thought, 'Oh man, what have I done?'

"Richard (Loe) and I have run across each other a few times, and there's always a joke about it."

Would Latta have been tempted to do the same thing if the roles had been reversed? "If you were put in that situation, where the referee's on one side, you're on the other side, and the ball shoots out? Then, if you see some young whippersnapper trying to get the ball, yeah, I think you would."