Superb reminder of shield's status

By WYNNE GRAY

For those young rugby followers nurtured on the sport in the professional era it may be hard to understand what the Ranfurly Shield means to other generations of New Zealanders.

It may also be hard for them to comprehend, after recent seasons, how Auckland were once such a great rugby power they held the shield for 61 challenges in the greatest reign of all.

For a huge chunk of the monster era, from 1985-1993, Auckland and the All Blacks were similar selections. Auckland had a swag of sensational players, meteors in the game and had such talent that reserves such as Frank Bunce, Ant Strachan and Eric Rush were forced to cross the Bridge to become All Blacks.

In their peak years in the late 1980s Auckland were almost unbeatable as visiting international sides discovered.

Those were the days when there were tours, a concept gaining ground with Sanzar partners New Zealand, Australia and South Africa as spectators tire of an annual Tri-Nations series.

Club and provincial rugby, Ranfurly Shield challenges and visits from international sides were the foundation planks of New Zealand rugby, and seasoned journalist Lindsay Knight has delved into the shield history to recall part of the rich rugby history of this nation.

Knight has held a lifetime passion for rugby, a sport he has written about for a number of newspapers for more than 40 years until he felt the squeeze when Wellington's newspapers merged.

Their loss was the Herald's gain as Knight was able to help with NPC copy while staff were on Tri-Nations or Commonwealth Games duty.

It also coincided with his latest version of Shield Fever, a historical narrative about the trophy he first wrote in 1980 and then updated in 1985 after the Auckland-Canterbury classic.

His latest work covers the great Auckland era, the work of Waikato in subsequent successes and now Canterbury.

It is a classy work, which has benefited from a new format, smart photography, player biographies, and a wide variety of anecdotes which have littered Ranfurly Shield history for nearly 100 years.

There are almost as many tales about Knight, who some years ago was honoured by his colleagues in Wellington when he covered his 100th test.

It was an event when the number of stories recounted about Knight meant the evening stretched into the next day.

It will take far longer to digest The Shield, but for those who have become glazed by the surfeit of modern matches, this step back in time is a superb reminder about New Zealand, its parochial fervour and its national sport.

Knight has a prodigious memory and rugby knowledge, and to those qualities he has added a raft of interviews with coaches and players, statistics and interpretations to develop that special shield flavour.

He argues that even during some one-sided tenures, there was always a magic about the shield.

He wonders about its status when faced with the onslaught of professionalism, and suggests any decline would be a tragedy for New Zealand rugby.

Read his book and you will find it hard to dispute Knight's assessment that: "Outside the international arena, it [the shield] has been the tangible means by which many a New Zealander has reached his love of rugby."