Rugby: Pinetree's longest walk

Colin Meads was just the second All Black ever sent off, 42 years after the first (Cyril Brownlie v England in 1925). Photo / AP

The rugby legend thought his career might be over when he was sent off almost 50 years ago

Murrayfield, 1967. The All Blacks lead Scotland 14-3 with moments to go when the great Colin Meads is ordered from the field. His crime: kicking Scotland first-five David Chisholm.

Irish referee Kevin Kelleher is deaf to the protests of New Zealand captain Brian Lochore. Meads lingers a moment, bewildered. There's no context for this. It just doesn't happen. There had been only one other All Black sent from the field in a test, and that had happened four decades previously.

The partisan Scottish crowd of 60,000 begin a chorus of raucous booing. Pinetree turns for the sideline and starts the lonely walk off, still numb from the shock. He bows his bandaged head, rests his hands on his hips and thinks, "this could be the end of it for me".

"It's just a thought you have," he says, almost half a century later. "At that time when you're walking off the field, and the crowd is booing you ... you think the end of the world has come."

He chuckles now but the incident's impact on Meads is still evident in his gravelled tone. And in his memory - the anatomy of the moment is still clear to him. The first thing Meads wants to clarify is that he did not kick Chisholm.

"I actually kicked the ball," he says, with the solemnity of a sworn witness. "The referee thought I'd kicked him but I hadn't. I'd come out the back of the ruck and I'd grabbed the halfback's hand. The ball sort of skittled along the ground. [Chisholm] ran back towards the ball and towards me. He bent over to pick [it] up as I kicked it."

According to Meads, the ball left his boot at a great rate of knots and slapped into Chisholm's stomach.

"He fell over because he was so low to the ground and did a bit of a somersault."
Meads is convinced Kelleher didn't see the incident.

"I got sent off because of the Scotch hooker, Laidlaw. He came out the back of the ruck with me, and said, 'did you see that, ref? Did you see the dirty bastard?' I think he influenced the referee more than anyone."

Because a sending-off was so novel, Meads genuinely feared for his All Black career. But the team and managers Charlie Saxon and Fred Allen rallied in support.

"The response was fantastic from the great management team. They protected me from the press and really looked after me. I can always remember the next day, we flew to Wales. The press photo-graphers were all waiting there to take photos and Kel Tremain, my great mate, put a coat over my head so no one could see me."

Meads returned home even more a legend than when he left.

"When I arrived back in Te Kuiti - because I'd said things like, 'I hope it's not the end of my career' - there was a big, mayoral welcome home for me. It was great. It stopped the town for a night."

The incident doesn't overly bother Meads now but what hurt most at the time was that he'd been accused of one of the game's great taboos.

"The big thing in our day was that we never kicked anyone, and players who did kick didn't last in the game long."

As momentous as the sending-off was, Meads' excellence as a player and subsequent beatification as a Kiwi icon have relegated the matter to a footnote in his remarkable career. But he remains conscious of his reputation.

"I never thought of myself as a clean player or a dirty player. I was always fairly rugged but I thought I was fair, put it that way."