Barry Donovan: Turning silver to gold

All Black Stan

It was a crisp day at the start of the spring of 1956, and I was seated between my parents on the wide backseat of a stranger's car. We were off to see the mighty All Blacks play the crucial fourth test against the Springboks. As a 13-year-old, that journey from Hastings to Eden Park in "the big smoke" seemed to take forever.

You didn't fly in those days, so getting across the Taupo Hills and to Auckland had to be by car, and a powerful one at that. We had an old Hillman, which was fine for getting around the Heretaunga Plains, but not for climbing the old rugged Taupo track. Then an advertisement appeared in the local paper offering a big car backseat for the trip to Auckland.

My parents, Les and Molly Donovan, put up their hands and early the next morning we were rolling out of town bound for the big smoke in the north and, hopefully, All Black and Eden Park glory.

We had standing-room-only tickets for that fourth test and as we walked with the thousands of excited rugby fans towards Eden Park on the morning of Saturday, September 1, it became obvious that my parents would be able to see most of the game but that a short third former would definitely be struggling.

Noticing the local schoolboys being ushered through the gates and given seating space on the ground along the sidelines, my mother pushed me in among them. Luckily, I had been coaxed into wearing my Hastings Boys' High uniform, including a Donegal tweed jacket, so found myself sitting right on the halfway line for the biggest game of all. I

f I was tremendously excited as a Kiwi schoolboy squatting on the Eden Park turf just before the start of the game, the All Blacks' "enforcer" Kevin Skinner was definitely ready to rumble. As he told Warwick Roger in his book Old Heroes: "Once you pull on the Silver Fern, if you've got anything in you at all, that should give you all the kick you need. You were, after all, in a kill or be killed situation. We weren't going into it thinking we were going to have a soft time."

Another player not preparing himself for a soft time was the rugged and fast North Auckland fisherman Peter "Tiger" Jones. With the All Blacks up 3-0 and starting to win the forwards struggle, hooker Ron Hemi bustled the Springbok halfback off the ball, dribbled it downfield, then toed it infield.

It all happened across the field from where I was sitting but the whole crowd, myself included, were on their feet as Jones swooped and kicked the ball further ahead. Springbok fullback and captain Basie Viviers hesitated about coming forward and the fast-moving All Black loose forward gathered the ball and raced away to sweep and score near the posts, sealing the game against South Africa.

More than 61,000 rugby fans in Eden Park went bananas. As the brilliant broadcaster Winston McCarthy described it: "It's a try to New Zealand. Peter Jones has scored ... I'll tell you about it when the crowd stops roaring. Listen to them. Listen to them. The crowd is going absolutely crazy."

As we all seemed to realise at that moment, the Jones try, though such an emphatic combination of players, would be the ball game. The Springboks never seemed to recover from that setback, although they gained a consolation try in the final minutes to make the result 11-5. The biggest test series ever between New Zealand and South Africa, the leading rugby nations in the world at the time, had ended with a 3-1 victory for the home side. Back then, in the days before live TV coverage, professional rugby, and major sponsorship, South Africa's tour stimulated a New Zealand national pride and rugby fervour that was all-consuming.

From the opening surprise defeat of the Springboks by the Waikato "Mooloo" team to the final match at Eden Park, New Zealanders were either at the matches or glued to their wirelesses to follow every game. And for a country that had prided itself on outstanding All Black skills and success since the first international tour to the UK in 1905 there was added intensity. The All Blacks on their tour of South Africa in 1949 had been defeated, unbelievably, in the test series by four games to nil. Since then there had been a successful New Zealand tour of the UK in 1953-54 but it was still competition with South Africa that counted most. Seven years later it was a matter of national sporting pride to balance the test match ledger.

THIRTY-ONE years after that thrilling victory against South Africa, I stood once again in Eden Park, this time with my own son Patrick, to see the All Blacks deservedly take the Rugby World Cup with a terrific effort, in particular by another great Kiwi loose forward, Michael Jones.

It was 1987, the inaugural Rugby World Cup final, and the second of what I regarded as the really big All Black games of the century at Eden Park. By then I had been living and working in Melbourne as a journalist and media consultant; son Patrick had grown up as a committed Australian Rules player and supporter.

I decided that he needed to see the real football game and the All Blacks playing in New Zealand for the genuine footy prize of winning the first international rugby trophy was the place to be.

If you ever wanted to remember the previous rugby world before professionalism and sponsorship and seven-day training camps took over, this was it. The anticipation of the final between the All Blacks and France was as intense as it could ever be, but the pre-match entertainment was something else - a Kiwi special.

The serious business of the national anthems started, then the haka let those Frenchmen - good team that they were - know that this was a real rugby contest on the other side of the world.

France had just managed to beat Australia in a thrilling semifinal match in Sydney with a last-minute try by their star fullback Serge Blanco and now it was grand final time.

After a tremendous physical tussle in the early stages - Colin "Pinetree" Meads always claimed the French forwards were the hardest to play against in his time, and he would know - the All Blacks cut loose with terrific performances by Jones, halfback captain David Kirk and runaway winger John Kirwan.

The final score of 29-9 was a fitting endorsement of the 1987 superiority of that All Blacks team - they had beaten Wales 49-6 in their semifinal - but it didn't take away any of the glory that David Kirk felt when he held the William Webb Ellis trophy aloft.

As he said some years later: "It must be how people feel at the top of Everest. They have only 20 minutes there and won't ever come back. The only way back is down. But that melancholy was overwhelmed by joy."

This country produced some of the great international touring sides of the 1900s, ranging from Dave Gallagher's 1905 team, Cliff Porter's 1924-25 side, Bob Stuart's team of 1953-54, Wilson Whineray's 1963-64 side, Brian Lochore's crew in 1967 and the continuing success of the All Blacks abroad with Sean Fitzpatrick.

Now, under another great New Zealand captain, Richie McCaw, the All Blacks, in competing again against the best in the world, have every chance today, to complete the big treble at Eden Park and experience the same joy that Peter Jones, Kevin Skinner, David Kirk, and Michael Jones have felt when they knocked the "big bugger" off. On top of the rugby world may not be quite like the top of Everest but it is a pretty good second.

* Barry Donovan is a journalist and author who played for Victoria University, Wellington's Athletic Rugby Club and Wellington province, and for Blackheath in London in the 1960s.