Forgotten heroes of rugby and war

By CHRISTOPHER PUGSLEY*

When the All Blacks take to Stade de France on November 11 - Armistice Day - it will be the 35th time New Zealand has played France in a test.

The Armistice Day Test, a time to honour those who fell during the First World War, is also an opportunity to remember a little-known group of men from New Zealand military and rugby history.

Soldiers of the New Zealand Division of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force serving on the Western Front played a number of unofficial rugby tests during the war, including four against France.

No other country's teams were accorded the honour of playing France at the Parc des Princes during the war.

The New Zealanders fought on the Western Front from April 1916 until November 1918.

The All Blacks beat France during the Originals tour in 1905-06, and in French eyes these matches were a continuation of that contest against the finest rugby side in the world.

At the start of the war, New Zealand had a population of one million. About 250,000 men were eligible for service, and 100,000 - including most of the country's finest rugby players - went off to war.

When New Zealand went to war in 1914, the citizen soldiers were organised by district and province with each unit bearing a provincial name - Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury and Otago.

In war, as in peace, rugby was an integral part of the New Zealanders' lives. Within each battalion, inter-company rugby competitions were bloodily and fiercely fought. These matches often resulted in a line of walking wounded parading to the medical officer with broken bones and bruises the next day.

It was the same everywhere the New Zealanders went, whether resting from trench duty in the front line, or in training and convalescent camps in Egypt and England.

Impromptu rugby teams were raised and challenges issued to other New Zealanders or to neighbouring British and Australian units.

After the Battle of the Somme in October 1916, a call went out among the 20,000-strong New Zealand Division for a rugby team to be assembled to play against other divisions of the British Empire and to accept an invitation to play a French selection in Paris.

The word went out for the best players to gather at the Divisional Training School, where they would train as a football team, and "receive instruction in bayonet fighting, physical drill and bombing."

But rugby was the primary purpose.

Every effort was make to pick the best pre-war representative players in the Division.

The "Trench All Blacks," as they were known, were - backs: G. Scott (Otago), E. Ryan (Petone and Wellington), G. Murray (Ponsonby, Auckland, Wellington and North Island), H. Adams (Wellington), J. McIntyre (Auckland), S. Cameron (Taranaki), and C Brown (Taranaki, North Island and New Zealand); forwards - R. Casey (Auckland), R. Fogerty (Otago), A. "Ranji" Wilson (Athletic, Wellington, North Island and New Zealand), L. Cockcroft (Southland), J. Moffat (Wellington), C. King (Wellington), W. Bell (Wellington) and R. Taylor (Taranaki).



The game was played on March 26, 1917 in front of a crowd of 25,000, the "All Blacks" winning 40-0.

An English newspaper said the "exhibition of rugby was one of the best ever seen in Paris, and the Blacks, as usual, kept the game fast and open".

After the game, the team members went back to their battalions as the division prepared for its key role in the Battle of Messines.

Paris was Reg Taylor's last match. He was an outstanding wing-forward in the winning Taranaki Ranfurly Shield side against Auckland in 1913, and played two tests against the touring Australian side in the same year. He was one of the many New Zealanders killed at Messines in June 1917.

The New Zealand victory at Messines was followed by hard and bloody fighting before Passchendaele in October 1917.

During the New Zealanders' first successful attack on October 4, Sergeant Dave Gallaher, who had captained the 1905-6 All Blacks, was mortally wounded by artillery shrapnel fire.

He was evacuated to the 3rd Australian Casualty Clearing at Poperinghe but died that day. His grave at Nine Elms Cemetery is now a place of pilgrimage for rugby followers the world over.

After a bloody winter in the Ypres Salient the "All Blacks" were called from the trenches to play a French selection in Paris on February 17.

It was a closely fought game which the New Zealanders won 5-3 before a crowd of 25,000. The proceeds were used to provide footballs for French soldiers.



During the game, the referee, Lieutenant A. S. Muhr of the United States Army, made a mistake by playing only 30 minutes in the first half. It was agreed to play 45 minutes in the second spell.

The French team consisted of a number of international players drawn from the French armed forces, and was captained by Lieutenant Maurice Boyau, one of France's leading fighter pilots with 12 German aircraft to his credit.

A remarkable film of this match, taken by the New Zealand Division's official cameraman, survives in the New Zealand Film Archive.



There was little time for rugby during the German offensive between March and July 1918.

In August 1918 the Allies mounted a counter-offensive, and began driving the exhausted Germans from positions they had held for four years.

In October 1918, with victory certain, it was again time for rugby between the "All Blacks" and France.

Playing before a capacity crowd at Parc des Princes, the New Zealanders had no Maori members. So the game began with a young Maori corporal of the New Zealand Pioneer Battalion leading the team in the haka.

The New Zealanders won 14-0.

In the evening the team were the guests of the French Rugby Union at a banquet held at the Cafe de Weber, the French Government represented by Monsieur Cains, the Minister of the Interior, and a general and an admiral representing the French Army and Navy.

After the signing of the Armistice on November 11, 1918, the Divisional team toured the United Kingdom, where it played a New Zealand "All Black" team drawn from training depots and convalescent camps.

From these two teams was formed a combined "All Blacks" team which played under the captaincy of Jimmy Ryan in the King's Cup in 1919.

This was a round-robin tournament between teams from the Royal Air Force, the Canadian Expeditionary Force, the South African Forces, the Australian Imperial Forces and England.

New Zealand beat all except Australia.

It then defeated England again 9-3, in front of King George V to maintain New Zealand's supremacy in the rugby world.

* Christopher Pugsley is a former New Zealand Army officer and an authority on New Zealand in the First World War. He is about to take up a position as senior lecturer in the Department of War Studies at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, in England.

- NZPA