July 17, 2026 • 19 mins
Plenty of history surrounds tonight’s clash between the All Blacks and Ireland.
Ireland’s last visit to our shores saw them claim victory in two of the three tests in 2022, and the All Blacks’ 32 year unbeaten streak at Eden Park may be on the line.
As what’s sure to be an intense match looms, Piney was joined by Frano Botica, a former All Black with a lot of history himself in the world of rugby.
They discussed his incredible career both in international rugby union, and league, and the current teams.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Vine
from Newstalks EDB counting down to All Blacks v Ireland
Live from the Kingslander in Aucklands. It's Weekend Sport with
Jason Vine and the Volkswagen Amarak V six on sale
now from eighty nine to nine ninety on your home
of Sports News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Few New Zealanders have enjoyed a career as unique or
as successful as our leadoff guest today. Frano Botica played
for the New Zealand seven side in the mid to
late eighties, was part of the first New Zealand team
to win a Hong Kong seven's title in nineteen eighty six.
A provincial rugby staff in North Harbor, he made his
All Blacks debut as a member of the famous Baby
Blacks against France in nineteen eighty six and went on
(00:51):
to play twenty seven times for the All Blacks, including
seven Test matches. Renowned for his goalkicking but also his
exciting and unpredictably dangerous running from first five, he switched
to rugby league in nineteen ninety and became a superstar
at Wigan. He scored one thousand points, quicker than any
player in the history of the game in Great Britain.
(01:12):
He also played for the Warriors for Castleford and earned
seven caps for the kiwis one of the great duel
code players in our history. Front O Botica, Welcome in mate,
Nice to see you.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Good to see you again, Pony. It's twice than two
weeks here, twice in two weeks.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
We were both together at a function a week ago
in Wellington and I took the opportunity to invite you
along to the Kingslander. Great to have you take up
the invitation. When you look back now, do you see
yourself as a rugby player who switched to league or
a league player who just happened to start off playing rugby.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
That's a good question.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Next, I'm a rugby player who switched to league. Probably
wish I've maybe switched earlier, but I will would have
always come back to union because the union is where
I started everything.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
So I want to talk about the switch to league
in a minute and all the challenges that went with
that and the decision making as well. But that all
black Stable, and not a lot of people you know
fondly remember the Baby Blacks that's forty years ago, Fozzy.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
Would you remember? That's aging us both a little bit,
isn't it.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
That's probably why I'm here at twelve o'clock, because I
might be asleep by the time the game starts.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
You might be, well, it's especially.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
If I keep having a beer like I am in
the What was it.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Like coming together as that Baby Blacks team to prepare
to play France? Because I get the feeling that some
of you wouldn't have known one another.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
We'd all met over the over the previous years at trials,
et cetera, so it wasn't foreign to us, but.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Everyone was sort of It was a new environment.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
For a lot of us, you know, and it was
something we we always strive to be part of, and
then all of a sudden there's a whole group of
us who was like walked in.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
With our eyes wide open, going what the hell has
just happened? You know?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
But it certainly helped us to start a lot of
amazing careers for a lot of players.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
You know you won that test, did you always feel
a degree of confidence going into it?
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Hell?
Speaker 3 (03:05):
No, I don't know about the rest of them, but
I didn't know I was because one of my heroes
was was Serge Blanco.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
So you know, I used to watch him score.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Tries from his own own goal line, and I'm sort
of going through my mind ship what happens if I'm
back defending and he's he's starting to attack me and
I've got to stop him, you know, and all those
sorts of things. Things go through your mind, being young.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
And and and.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Being a new territory and normally watching these games on TV,
you know. But that soon got wiped out, and we
knew that as a team of young guys we had
we really had to perform as a team otherwise, you know,
man for men, they were better than us if you
looked at it. So yeah, and that's not exactly what happened.
And that's why we probably beat them, because we played
(03:58):
together as a team and knew that that was the
only way we probably would beat them.
Speaker 5 (04:03):
At the back end of that year, the All Blacks
went to France.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
You played in that blood bath and not that day
where we all know the famous story of what happened
to buckshelf A that day.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
What do you remember about that test match? What was
it like?
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Straight off the bat? It was pretty physical, even before
we left the tunnel. You know, some of the French
were headbutting congree walls and a bit of spots of
blood were coming out of the forehead, and they're sort
of looking across going hmm, it's gonna be a tough one.
It's gonna be a tough day at the office. Yeah,
i'd say we were going to earn. We're in our
(04:40):
money today, but we didn't make any money.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
So because they were that fired up, even from the start,
they were just well, I mean to anyone who you believe,
and I guess we'll never know. You know, they might
have been running on something other than adrenaline that day. Anyway,
it was just an absolutely fired up French side, right,
It was a fired up French side, and they had
some tough units in there.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
And and you know, we all felt it.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
I mean a lot of us got concussed and lost
a bit of skin, like mister Shelford did.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
But yeah, I mean I got concussed, so some of
it I forget.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
I suppose you're concussed in that game.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Yeah, I got concussed. That what happens?
Speaker 5 (05:17):
Can you remember what happened?
Speaker 4 (05:19):
No, I got concussed.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
Yeah, so you haven't tie. It hasn't told you afterwards
out it happened. Did you get no?
Speaker 4 (05:25):
I mean I stayed on. I just it was a
just got a hit.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
I just got a hit and sort of got up
and went, oh, and you're mean you just get your
smelly salts.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
And give it a sniff and what opens your eyes up?
And you carry on your different sizes different times.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Then nineteen eighty seven arrives. You're in the World Cup squad,
but there's a bloke named Grant Fox who plays in
the same position as you. You didn't get a single
minute at the Rugby World Cup and spend a lot
of the next two or three years trying to get
in the team.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
That he was in.
Speaker 5 (05:55):
What was that like? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:57):
That was I mean it was great to be a
part of it so and be a part of, you know,
helping off the field to prepare the teams for that.
I mean, look, if it was these days, I would
have come off the bench.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Yeah, I would have thought. But because of the rules
back in those days, it was just the way it is.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
And being a part of a World Cup winning team,
whether I set foot on the field or not as relevant,
I was still part of it. I would love to
have been on that field, and I thought my first chart,
my best chance would have been against Italy, but obviously
wasn't so. But yeah, but I still loved being a
part of it, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
And you were part of the All Blacks from then
until the back end of the eighties, this extraordinary All
Black side. You never played a losing All Blacks team.
That was just a remarkable period of All Blacks rugby.
What was it like inside that All Blacks environment at
that time?
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Was it was like you were a fully professional team,
you know, I mean the attitude of players.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
Obviously.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
The only difference was that, you know, you'd have a
few beers afterwards, but then you'd get the trainer would
take you out the next day and flog you and
get rid of that be pretty quickly one way here
or another.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
So yeah, the move.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
To rugby league, how did it come about? And how
difficult was it to leave rugby union behind?
Speaker 4 (07:22):
It was pretty easy to leave.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
I sort of knew that I was going to struggle
to make the team. I was working as a career driver.
I'd get up at six and them, well, I'd get
up at five point thirty in the morning, go to work,
finish at six, go to training. I worked out of
Carbine Road in Mount Wellington, so I'd run around the
(07:45):
Pamea basin a couple of times from our depot at lunchtime,
and that was some of the extra.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Fitness I had to do.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
And then I just throw water on my face, jump
back in the van. I can grab a sandwich and go.
And I think the only time I really pulled a
hammy was jumping out of a van, not actually playing road.
So I did that for a couple of years and
it just I.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Just got too hot.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
And when I got offered some money to play rugby league,
I went, well, it's surely a lot easier than playing
or working. Yeah, and and and.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Struggling to keep up with everything.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
So how was the adjustment from rugby union to rugby league?
Did you find it easy challenging somewhere?
Speaker 4 (08:29):
I think it was for certain things.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
It was easier as far as as there was less
less I had to do. But I could I could
actually have a go and have a run and if
I got caught, I just played the ball, so there
wasn't really a problem.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
So I love that side of it. That's for short.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
Some of the rules.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
I didn't realize for a while, and I messed up
a couple of times. I remember catching the ball and
in the goal area and I just stood there waiting
for them to run up to me, and then I
just pushed the ball.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
There and they said, what the hell are you doing?
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Not in those words, but Dean Bell told me, in
no uncertain in terms, don't do that again, or you'll
get off the field.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
And I'll say what I do wrong?
Speaker 5 (09:13):
I used to force it all the time in the.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Exactly, so I learned that one pretty quickly. That's for sure.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Your goalkicking, I mean it was great as a rugby
player anyway, and once you got into rugby league and
as I say, you became the fastest player ever to
bring up one thousand points in rugby league in Great Britain.
How hard did you work on your goalkicking or was
it just something that came naturally to you?
Speaker 3 (09:37):
No, it never came naturally. Only I hardly did. I
didn't do a lot of training for goalkicking. And when
I played union because I had a mindset of of
I could never be grant fox, you know, and which
was the wrong mindset. But that's what I was going
through my mind back in those days, and I thought, well,
(09:57):
if another coach comes along and wants a running back ten,
then I'm your man. But that didn't quite happen, so
I thought, it's I'm going to have to change I
do Otherwise with Wigan, who had fourteen internationals in their team,
I'd have to I'd be sitting on the bench and
everything would be same old, same old, just a different
country and I'd be freezing sitting on the bench in England.
(10:19):
So I decided to practice. They had to look at
Foxy the way he kicked. I took a little bit
of a couple of other people and and just went
and try to mold something that suited me. And then
I practiced for two months, five days a week, exactly
the same positions on the field every time, and eventually
(10:44):
ended up being able to kick from anywhere. But I
also had just to put pressure on me. Had I
used to get all the little kids of fans that
come and watch me, and I'd say, run past the ball,
throw things past me, try and put me off, and
if I miss, I'll buy you all on ice block
or ice cream or something, and they go okay.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
So The first day was fine, there's about four or
five of them.
Speaker 5 (11:08):
Next day it was like thirty kids. I'm like, holy shit,
this is going to cost me a fortune. I haven't
got played yet. So a couple of.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Times in the early days I snuck off somewhere where
no one found me because I'm like, man, is gonna
cost me your fortune. Then I came back after while
they were all in and then I hardly missed. So
that was my incentive at the time.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
You know Irish rugby coach Andy Ferrell here in New
Zealand at the moment with the team ahead of tonight's
Test match. You played with him at Wigan for five
or six years when he first arrived. I think he
was there nineteen ninety one or two thousand and four.
You were there in nineteen ninety ninety five, so four
or five seasons together. He said this week that you
taught him everything he knows about goalkicking. Can you remember, Yeah,
(11:53):
taking him under your wing.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Yeah he wanted to. He wanted to learn how to
kick promptly and all that. So yeah, he used to
come along with me all the time. So yeah, it
was good, and it's also good just to help. I
guess sometimes it's good to just have a little competitions
against each other, to put a bit of pressure on you,
if you you know, because you didn't want to be
the one.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Buying a beer, you know.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
So you played seven tests for the kiwis my favorite
ones that went over Australia in nineteen ninety one in
Melbourne twenty four points to eight. I think you played
because was there something to do with matthew Ridge wasn't
able to play or something.
Speaker 5 (12:30):
I can't remember the exact story.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
You probably would have played anyway, Nah, I actually I
don't know, but I'll take that I would have played anyway.
Speaker 5 (12:38):
I think.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
So.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
You remember you remember much about the night teen Lonigan
doesn't remember much about that night.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Lonigan doesn't became famous after that.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
Yeah, just sort of convulsing on the ground, which.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Really you had if that's all you had to do,
I would have done that myself, but earlier.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
But beating Australia in Australia.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
That was definitely a highlight.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
I mean, obviously the putting on the all black jersey
for the first time, the Kiwi jersey for the first
time is always always special. Beating the Aussies is extremely
special because that doesn't happen often.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
Fortually.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
We won the first one, the second one, mate, I was,
I was fullback and all I saw and that second
Test when we when we lost got a hiding was
Melvininger running through the gap. I'm going, mate, can someone
tackle him before he gets to me? This is ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
I don't know how many times he came running at me.
And I'll tell you what. He threw the best dummies
with no one outside him that I bought. It was ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Great dummy, melt on you go for beautiful, beautiful bill
Blacks are twenty twenty six.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
How much enjoying watching Ruben Love play at ten?
Speaker 4 (13:51):
I love it, love it.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Ruben is playing awesome rugby, very talented, very skillful, quick
can step my sort of style of rugby, and that's
so yeah. I'm glad he's got the opportunity, and I'm
glad they're keeping the combination.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Rey guarded him together as long as possible, just not
that they needed it.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
But it is good for Reuben at that level to
be playing consistently every week against quality sides at that
test match level.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
Good of course.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
I mean rugby league player as well. Do you find
yourself watching rugby or rugby league more often?
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Now?
Speaker 3 (14:34):
I watched them both, But like I mentioned to you earlier,
I'm I'm a speed watcher, and very I mean I
will I will start if I'm watching at home, for example,
I'll start at twenty minutes late. Oh sorry, yeah, I'll
start at twenty minutes late. I'll still watch the hunker
(14:54):
and the national anthem, and then when there's all those
lineouts and scrums, I will fast forward it to the
next action like like, it goes ten seconds, ten seconds,
ten seconds.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
So it's quite easy to go.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
From scrum to the ball, going in and letting it
go because I got better things to do than waste
time watching the whole game.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Such an interesting observation, because but if I'm obviously I love,
I would rather watch it all live, and that's fine.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Yeah, I don't have a problem with that. But if
I'm sitting at home, you same with league as well.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
You still find yourself fast forwarding league as well. A yeah,
even though there's few astopogs.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
I'll watch, I'll watch again.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
I'll watch it later so I can fast forward a
little bit a bit more depends on if someone's told
me the score already, but generally speaking, you I'll watch
a bit more of the league. Yeah, well tonight they're
both on the same time. Listen to question here which
one are you going to be watching?
Speaker 5 (16:01):
Or will you?
Speaker 3 (16:02):
So if I start, if I start one than the other,
then at halftime and one of them, I'll switch over
and watch it, and then I'll come back and watch
the ABS.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
Again, and then when the game's finished, I go back
and watch.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
Gotcha.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
It's like I'll fast like, I'll do ten minutes worth it.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Your remote gets a good lot of I love a
lot of sports, but I don't have time to watch
a lot of sports, so I'm used to watching edited
like speed watching.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
I didn't speed watch.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
It's a it could be a new thing.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Unless it's a great, great game, and and then I'll
I'll just stick. But I still don't want to watch
forwards wandering aimlessly up to the line out and then
they stop, and then they have a chat, and then
they walk well and and then six scrums to get
a scrump. I mean, Jesus on my back, I'm not
gonna like, will you follows? Hurry up and sort your
(16:58):
shit out. If I said that alive in front of
one of the props, that probably knocked me out. Yeah, no,
front Roll was in the in the bar at the
moment front I said that the Richard Low back in
the day, he would have he would have smacked me.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
I normally say that from a distance. So that's all right.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
So it takes up most of your time these days.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I I sell real estate for Bailey's up in you,
so that's my job. Otherwise I do walk armor down
at Takapuna Beach. This is why I'm I'm live with
you now because I just had to jump over the
bridge because I live in Golf Harbor and that's way
too far.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
You never never would have got here without.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
The walker armor exactly exactly, and so that's that's how
you stay. Furt and any boys were rugby plants as well,
weren't they.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
They're still playing rugby over in France. They both go
all the way over to France. One marror is of
scott school and one mirror is an Aussie girl. It's
like made, what do you you go to France? Engine
marry a Scottish school and uh and an Australian gear.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
What the hell's going on.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
I'm sure they're lovely girls, mate, perfect, They're perfect, They're perfect,
They're fantastic, especially the scott The Scottish girl like mate, now,
she is like a comedian.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
She is so funny when she's drinking.
Speaker 5 (18:17):
Brilliant, brilliant.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
So just to finished front of I mean, do you
still keep in touch with with your former teammates and
rugby and or rugby league?
Speaker 4 (18:25):
Do you still you?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Are you still in sort of contact with many of them?
Speaker 4 (18:30):
A few of them?
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Yeah, But it's not like I'm not really I'm not
really a Facebook, I'm not a phone. Like I'm probably
in there that old. I'm a bit too old. So
I'm like, I'm sitting on Facebook and Instagram and we're
looking at ship.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
If you you know.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
I'll occasionally ring some of the boys from Wigan, Steve Hanson.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
Over there and that.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
But generally speaking not not not too much mainly around
rugby if there's a old boys and all that.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
But yeah, mate, I'm on the I'm the peninsula up.
No no one will to come and see me.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
It's like may now come once and then I'll go.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
I'll bug it there. That's too far away. Funny thing is,
my dad used to live there and I lived in Milford.
Took me half an hour to get this.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
As you're dad, you live on the other side of
New yeuland it took me half an hour to get there.
Now I live there and he lives and so I'm lying.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Go figure, mate, It's great to see you. I feel
like I talk I could talk to you all day.
I'm delighted that your walker armor coincided with the same day.
We're broadcasting from here, so you could pop and I
hope you enjoy the rest of your beer. I've kept
you from it for long enough, so thanks for joining us, mate.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
Cheers. Thanks body.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
For more from Weekend Sport with Jason Fine, listen live
to news Talk said B weekends from midday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Vine
from Newstalks EDB counting down to All Blacks v Ireland
Live from the Kingslander in Aucklands. It's Weekend Sport with
Jason Vine and the Volkswagen Amarak V six on sale
now from eighty nine to nine ninety on your home
of Sports News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Few New Zealanders have enjoyed a career as unique or
as successful as our leadoff guest today. Frano Botica played
for the New Zealand seven side in the mid to
late eighties, was part of the first New Zealand team
to win a Hong Kong seven's title in nineteen eighty six.
A provincial rugby staff in North Harbor, he made his
All Blacks debut as a member of the famous Baby
Blacks against France in nineteen eighty six and went on
(00:51):
to play twenty seven times for the All Blacks, including
seven Test matches. Renowned for his goalkicking but also his
exciting and unpredictably dangerous running from first five, he switched
to rugby league in nineteen ninety and became a superstar
at Wigan. He scored one thousand points, quicker than any
player in the history of the game in Great Britain.
(01:12):
He also played for the Warriors for Castleford and earned
seven caps for the kiwis one of the great duel
code players in our history. Front O Botica, Welcome in mate,
Nice to see you.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Good to see you again, Pony. It's twice than two
weeks here, twice in two weeks.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
We were both together at a function a week ago
in Wellington and I took the opportunity to invite you
along to the Kingslander. Great to have you take up
the invitation. When you look back now, do you see
yourself as a rugby player who switched to league or
a league player who just happened to start off playing rugby.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
That's a good question.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Next, I'm a rugby player who switched to league. Probably
wish I've maybe switched earlier, but I will would have
always come back to union because the union is where
I started everything.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
So I want to talk about the switch to league
in a minute and all the challenges that went with
that and the decision making as well. But that all
black Stable, and not a lot of people you know
fondly remember the Baby Blacks that's forty years ago, Fozzy.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
Would you remember? That's aging us both a little bit,
isn't it.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
That's probably why I'm here at twelve o'clock, because I
might be asleep by the time the game starts.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
You might be, well, it's especially.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
If I keep having a beer like I am in
the What was it.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Like coming together as that Baby Blacks team to prepare
to play France? Because I get the feeling that some
of you wouldn't have known one another.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
We'd all met over the over the previous years at trials,
et cetera, so it wasn't foreign to us, but.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Everyone was sort of It was a new environment.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
For a lot of us, you know, and it was
something we we always strive to be part of, and
then all of a sudden there's a whole group of
us who was like walked in.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
With our eyes wide open, going what the hell has
just happened? You know?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
But it certainly helped us to start a lot of
amazing careers for a lot of players.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
You know you won that test, did you always feel
a degree of confidence going into it?
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Hell?
Speaker 3 (03:05):
No, I don't know about the rest of them, but
I didn't know I was because one of my heroes
was was Serge Blanco.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
So you know, I used to watch him score.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Tries from his own own goal line, and I'm sort
of going through my mind ship what happens if I'm
back defending and he's he's starting to attack me and
I've got to stop him, you know, and all those
sorts of things. Things go through your mind, being young.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
And and and.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Being a new territory and normally watching these games on TV,
you know. But that soon got wiped out, and we
knew that as a team of young guys we had
we really had to perform as a team otherwise, you know,
man for men, they were better than us if you
looked at it. So yeah, and that's not exactly what happened.
And that's why we probably beat them, because we played
(03:58):
together as a team and knew that that was the
only way we probably would beat them.
Speaker 5 (04:03):
At the back end of that year, the All Blacks
went to France.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
You played in that blood bath and not that day
where we all know the famous story of what happened
to buckshelf A that day.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
What do you remember about that test match? What was
it like?
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Straight off the bat? It was pretty physical, even before
we left the tunnel. You know, some of the French
were headbutting congree walls and a bit of spots of
blood were coming out of the forehead, and they're sort
of looking across going hmm, it's gonna be a tough one.
It's gonna be a tough day at the office. Yeah,
i'd say we were going to earn. We're in our
(04:40):
money today, but we didn't make any money.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
So because they were that fired up, even from the start,
they were just well, I mean to anyone who you believe,
and I guess we'll never know. You know, they might
have been running on something other than adrenaline that day. Anyway,
it was just an absolutely fired up French side, right,
It was a fired up French side, and they had
some tough units in there.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
And and you know, we all felt it.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
I mean a lot of us got concussed and lost
a bit of skin, like mister Shelford did.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
But yeah, I mean I got concussed, so some of
it I forget.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
I suppose you're concussed in that game.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Yeah, I got concussed. That what happens?
Speaker 5 (05:17):
Can you remember what happened?
Speaker 4 (05:19):
No, I got concussed.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
Yeah, so you haven't tie. It hasn't told you afterwards
out it happened. Did you get no?
Speaker 4 (05:25):
I mean I stayed on. I just it was a
just got a hit.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
I just got a hit and sort of got up
and went, oh, and you're mean you just get your
smelly salts.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
And give it a sniff and what opens your eyes up?
And you carry on your different sizes different times.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Then nineteen eighty seven arrives. You're in the World Cup squad,
but there's a bloke named Grant Fox who plays in
the same position as you. You didn't get a single
minute at the Rugby World Cup and spend a lot
of the next two or three years trying to get
in the team.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
That he was in.
Speaker 5 (05:55):
What was that like? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:57):
That was I mean it was great to be a
part of it so and be a part of, you know,
helping off the field to prepare the teams for that.
I mean, look, if it was these days, I would
have come off the bench.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Yeah, I would have thought. But because of the rules
back in those days, it was just the way it is.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
And being a part of a World Cup winning team,
whether I set foot on the field or not as relevant,
I was still part of it. I would love to
have been on that field, and I thought my first chart,
my best chance would have been against Italy, but obviously
wasn't so. But yeah, but I still loved being a
part of it, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
And you were part of the All Blacks from then
until the back end of the eighties, this extraordinary All
Black side. You never played a losing All Blacks team.
That was just a remarkable period of All Blacks rugby.
What was it like inside that All Blacks environment at
that time?
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Was it was like you were a fully professional team,
you know, I mean the attitude of players.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
Obviously.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
The only difference was that, you know, you'd have a
few beers afterwards, but then you'd get the trainer would
take you out the next day and flog you and
get rid of that be pretty quickly one way here
or another.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
So yeah, the move.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
To rugby league, how did it come about? And how
difficult was it to leave rugby union behind?
Speaker 4 (07:22):
It was pretty easy to leave.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
I sort of knew that I was going to struggle
to make the team. I was working as a career driver.
I'd get up at six and them, well, I'd get
up at five point thirty in the morning, go to work,
finish at six, go to training. I worked out of
Carbine Road in Mount Wellington, so I'd run around the
(07:45):
Pamea basin a couple of times from our depot at lunchtime,
and that was some of the extra.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Fitness I had to do.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
And then I just throw water on my face, jump
back in the van. I can grab a sandwich and go.
And I think the only time I really pulled a
hammy was jumping out of a van, not actually playing road.
So I did that for a couple of years and
it just I.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Just got too hot.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
And when I got offered some money to play rugby league,
I went, well, it's surely a lot easier than playing
or working. Yeah, and and and.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Struggling to keep up with everything.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
So how was the adjustment from rugby union to rugby league?
Did you find it easy challenging somewhere?
Speaker 4 (08:29):
I think it was for certain things.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
It was easier as far as as there was less
less I had to do. But I could I could
actually have a go and have a run and if
I got caught, I just played the ball, so there
wasn't really a problem.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
So I love that side of it. That's for short.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
Some of the rules.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
I didn't realize for a while, and I messed up
a couple of times. I remember catching the ball and
in the goal area and I just stood there waiting
for them to run up to me, and then I
just pushed the ball.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
There and they said, what the hell are you doing?
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Not in those words, but Dean Bell told me, in
no uncertain in terms, don't do that again, or you'll
get off the field.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
And I'll say what I do wrong?
Speaker 5 (09:13):
I used to force it all the time in the.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Exactly, so I learned that one pretty quickly. That's for sure.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Your goalkicking, I mean it was great as a rugby
player anyway, and once you got into rugby league and
as I say, you became the fastest player ever to
bring up one thousand points in rugby league in Great Britain.
How hard did you work on your goalkicking or was
it just something that came naturally to you?
Speaker 3 (09:37):
No, it never came naturally. Only I hardly did. I
didn't do a lot of training for goalkicking. And when
I played union because I had a mindset of of
I could never be grant fox, you know, and which
was the wrong mindset. But that's what I was going
through my mind back in those days, and I thought, well,
(09:57):
if another coach comes along and wants a running back ten,
then I'm your man. But that didn't quite happen, so
I thought, it's I'm going to have to change I
do Otherwise with Wigan, who had fourteen internationals in their team,
I'd have to I'd be sitting on the bench and
everything would be same old, same old, just a different
country and I'd be freezing sitting on the bench in England.
(10:19):
So I decided to practice. They had to look at
Foxy the way he kicked. I took a little bit
of a couple of other people and and just went
and try to mold something that suited me. And then
I practiced for two months, five days a week, exactly
the same positions on the field every time, and eventually
(10:44):
ended up being able to kick from anywhere. But I
also had just to put pressure on me. Had I
used to get all the little kids of fans that
come and watch me, and I'd say, run past the ball,
throw things past me, try and put me off, and
if I miss, I'll buy you all on ice block
or ice cream or something, and they go okay.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
So The first day was fine, there's about four or
five of them.
Speaker 5 (11:08):
Next day it was like thirty kids. I'm like, holy shit,
this is going to cost me a fortune. I haven't
got played yet. So a couple of.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Times in the early days I snuck off somewhere where
no one found me because I'm like, man, is gonna
cost me your fortune. Then I came back after while
they were all in and then I hardly missed. So
that was my incentive at the time.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
You know Irish rugby coach Andy Ferrell here in New
Zealand at the moment with the team ahead of tonight's
Test match. You played with him at Wigan for five
or six years when he first arrived. I think he
was there nineteen ninety one or two thousand and four.
You were there in nineteen ninety ninety five, so four
or five seasons together. He said this week that you
taught him everything he knows about goalkicking. Can you remember, Yeah,
(11:53):
taking him under your wing.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Yeah he wanted to. He wanted to learn how to
kick promptly and all that. So yeah, he used to
come along with me all the time. So yeah, it
was good, and it's also good just to help. I
guess sometimes it's good to just have a little competitions
against each other, to put a bit of pressure on you,
if you you know, because you didn't want to be
the one.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Buying a beer, you know.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
So you played seven tests for the kiwis my favorite
ones that went over Australia in nineteen ninety one in
Melbourne twenty four points to eight. I think you played
because was there something to do with matthew Ridge wasn't
able to play or something.
Speaker 5 (12:30):
I can't remember the exact story.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
You probably would have played anyway, Nah, I actually I
don't know, but I'll take that I would have played anyway.
Speaker 5 (12:38):
I think.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
So.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
You remember you remember much about the night teen Lonigan
doesn't remember much about that night.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Lonigan doesn't became famous after that.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
Yeah, just sort of convulsing on the ground, which.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Really you had if that's all you had to do,
I would have done that myself, but earlier.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
But beating Australia in Australia.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
That was definitely a highlight.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
I mean, obviously the putting on the all black jersey
for the first time, the Kiwi jersey for the first
time is always always special. Beating the Aussies is extremely
special because that doesn't happen often.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
Fortually.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
We won the first one, the second one, mate, I was,
I was fullback and all I saw and that second
Test when we when we lost got a hiding was
Melvininger running through the gap. I'm going, mate, can someone
tackle him before he gets to me? This is ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
I don't know how many times he came running at me.
And I'll tell you what. He threw the best dummies
with no one outside him that I bought. It was ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Great dummy, melt on you go for beautiful, beautiful bill
Blacks are twenty twenty six.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
How much enjoying watching Ruben Love play at ten?
Speaker 4 (13:51):
I love it, love it.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Ruben is playing awesome rugby, very talented, very skillful, quick
can step my sort of style of rugby, and that's
so yeah. I'm glad he's got the opportunity, and I'm
glad they're keeping the combination.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Rey guarded him together as long as possible, just not
that they needed it.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
But it is good for Reuben at that level to
be playing consistently every week against quality sides at that
test match level.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
Good of course.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
I mean rugby league player as well. Do you find
yourself watching rugby or rugby league more often?
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Now?
Speaker 3 (14:34):
I watched them both, But like I mentioned to you earlier,
I'm I'm a speed watcher, and very I mean I
will I will start if I'm watching at home, for example,
I'll start at twenty minutes late. Oh sorry, yeah, I'll
start at twenty minutes late. I'll still watch the hunker
(14:54):
and the national anthem, and then when there's all those
lineouts and scrums, I will fast forward it to the
next action like like, it goes ten seconds, ten seconds,
ten seconds.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
So it's quite easy to go.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
From scrum to the ball, going in and letting it
go because I got better things to do than waste
time watching the whole game.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Such an interesting observation, because but if I'm obviously I love,
I would rather watch it all live, and that's fine.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Yeah, I don't have a problem with that. But if
I'm sitting at home, you same with league as well.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
You still find yourself fast forwarding league as well. A yeah,
even though there's few astopogs.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
I'll watch, I'll watch again.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
I'll watch it later so I can fast forward a
little bit a bit more depends on if someone's told
me the score already, but generally speaking, you I'll watch
a bit more of the league. Yeah, well tonight they're
both on the same time. Listen to question here which
one are you going to be watching?
Speaker 5 (16:01):
Or will you?
Speaker 3 (16:02):
So if I start, if I start one than the other,
then at halftime and one of them, I'll switch over
and watch it, and then I'll come back and watch
the ABS.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
Again, and then when the game's finished, I go back
and watch.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
Gotcha.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
It's like I'll fast like, I'll do ten minutes worth it.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Your remote gets a good lot of I love a
lot of sports, but I don't have time to watch
a lot of sports, so I'm used to watching edited
like speed watching.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
I didn't speed watch.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
It's a it could be a new thing.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Unless it's a great, great game, and and then I'll
I'll just stick. But I still don't want to watch
forwards wandering aimlessly up to the line out and then
they stop, and then they have a chat, and then
they walk well and and then six scrums to get
a scrump. I mean, Jesus on my back, I'm not
gonna like, will you follows? Hurry up and sort your
(16:58):
shit out. If I said that alive in front of
one of the props, that probably knocked me out. Yeah, no,
front Roll was in the in the bar at the
moment front I said that the Richard Low back in
the day, he would have he would have smacked me.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
I normally say that from a distance. So that's all right.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
So it takes up most of your time these days.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I I sell real estate for Bailey's up in you,
so that's my job. Otherwise I do walk armor down
at Takapuna Beach. This is why I'm I'm live with
you now because I just had to jump over the
bridge because I live in Golf Harbor and that's way
too far.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
You never never would have got here without.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
The walker armor exactly exactly, and so that's that's how
you stay. Furt and any boys were rugby plants as well,
weren't they.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
They're still playing rugby over in France. They both go
all the way over to France. One marror is of
scott school and one mirror is an Aussie girl. It's
like made, what do you you go to France? Engine
marry a Scottish school and uh and an Australian gear.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
What the hell's going on.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
I'm sure they're lovely girls, mate, perfect, They're perfect, They're perfect,
They're fantastic, especially the scott The Scottish girl like mate, now,
she is like a comedian.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
She is so funny when she's drinking.
Speaker 5 (18:17):
Brilliant, brilliant.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
So just to finished front of I mean, do you
still keep in touch with with your former teammates and
rugby and or rugby league?
Speaker 4 (18:25):
Do you still you?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Are you still in sort of contact with many of them?
Speaker 4 (18:30):
A few of them?
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Yeah, But it's not like I'm not really I'm not
really a Facebook, I'm not a phone. Like I'm probably
in there that old. I'm a bit too old. So
I'm like, I'm sitting on Facebook and Instagram and we're
looking at ship.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
If you you know.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
I'll occasionally ring some of the boys from Wigan, Steve Hanson.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
Over there and that.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
But generally speaking not not not too much mainly around
rugby if there's a old boys and all that.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
But yeah, mate, I'm on the I'm the peninsula up.
No no one will to come and see me.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
It's like may now come once and then I'll go.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
I'll bug it there. That's too far away. Funny thing is,
my dad used to live there and I lived in Milford.
Took me half an hour to get this.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
As you're dad, you live on the other side of
New yeuland it took me half an hour to get there.
Now I live there and he lives and so I'm lying.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Go figure, mate, It's great to see you. I feel
like I talk I could talk to you all day.
I'm delighted that your walker armor coincided with the same day.
We're broadcasting from here, so you could pop and I
hope you enjoy the rest of your beer. I've kept
you from it for long enough, so thanks for joining us, mate.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
Cheers. Thanks body.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
For more from Weekend Sport with Jason Fine, listen live
to news Talk said B weekends from midday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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