South African Jaco Peyper refereed this morning's opening match of the World Cup with a special whistle first used in an All Blacks match played 110 years ago.
The whistle originally belonged to Gill Evans, a Welshman who controlled the England-New Zealand match in 1905 at London's Crystal Palace featuringthe famed 1905 All Blacks "Originals".
After his career was over, Evans gave the whistle to Albert Freethy, a schoolmaster and a Welsh referee. Freethy used the whistle at the last time rugby was played at the 1924 Olympic Games when the USA beat France and again the following year when the All Blacks played England at Twickenham in a bruising match infamous for the sending off of New Zealander Cyril Brownlie for allegedly kicking an opponent. It was the first time that a player had been sent off in a rugby test.
After the Twickenham Test, Freethy gave the whistle to the manager of the All Blacks, Stan Dean who gave it to the New Zealand rugby museum in Palmerston North when it opened in 1969.
The coin used at this morning's toss to decide which team kicked off the England-Fiji encounter also had Kiwi links. It had been sent all the way from the Palmerston museum and was first used at the toss of the 1925 match between England and the All Blacks "Invincibles", won 17-11 by New Zealand.
The coin used at the toss before this morning's World Cup opener.
The captains, England's Wavell Wakefield and NZ's Jock Richardson, came out onto the field together to do the toss but referee Freethy did not have a coin.
A New Zealander, DG Gray of Dunedin, came forward and proffered a florin coin which was given back to him afterwards. Gray had the coin embossed with a rose on one side and a fern on the other and in 1973 his family donated it to the rugby museum. It was used at the tournament opener in the first World Cup hosted by New Zealand and Australia in 1987.
Australian ref Bob Fordham used the coin and the whistle in 1987, Scotsman Jim Fleming in 1991, Welshman Derek Bevan in 1995, New Zealand's Paddy O'Brien and Paul Honiss in 1991 and 2003, England's Tony Spreadbury in 2007 and Irishman George Clancy in 2011 when Richie McCaw's team triumphed.
