Partr 3 of 3 Blog on Otago v Sth Africa 1981.

I remember we secured ball from the kick off. Getting hammered in the scrums and the lineouts where we were just out weighed out sized but were tenacious in getting at them with little ball and no ball.
No chance to get hand on the pill and running around in a pack following everyone – helter skelter…. (a small pack – compared to 6’8” 20 stoners, I think their Captain Wynand Claassen who was my size was the smallest in their forward pack 1.88m and 95 kg’s may have been a bit heavier).

After 10 minutes Otago 10 South Africa nil.

What the hell… if we stick together, we can take a scalp here. They started slow and don’t blame them if they are sleeping in squash courts! Barrie Wright scooted over for as try Gary Smith kicked the conversion. He was still straight on toe kicker and probably one of the last of those at that level in those days (It was now the 80’s)

Then a scrum outside our 25 our put in …we are going backwards at a rate of knots. I try and get the ball back but the velocity of our pack going back is quicker than the ball …..it finally pops out but not good ball for Dean. Their loosies are steaming in and I go down on the ball and they are appealing…Penalty. Tobias takes the kick and it hits the upright. The ball seemed to stay in the air for ages and no one from our team seemed to move as though in a state of shock. We were when Ray Mordt comes through and scored the try. They convert it…Shit what a bugger. Keith on the TV said it was a lack of experience but I would like to see him did go down on the ball with a Springbok forward back bearing down on him like Killer Whales and big buggers as well. Burger, Geldenhuys, Van der Merwe , Bekker. (most of their sons are now retired from International rugby!)

Then after a maul I came out and was running to a line out and then noticed my right index finger was feeling unusual. I looked at it and thought it was dislocated. I tried to put it back but it kind of collapsed. I knew it was broken and said to Dirk Williams as we ran to a line out…’Dirk I have broken my finger’…the reason being that I was asking for advice on what to do. Though one of the best loose forwards I have played with or against and only 20 years old, he had had a few games at this level and thought that he would offer more than ‘Huddy, it’s all in the head’
Bugger, that’s what I thought. And for a fleeting moment it was ‘I can’t come off after 10 minutes in my first game for Otago…Colin Meads played with a broken Arm… Red Conway the legend from Zingari, Otago and All Blacks had his finger chopped off so he could play in the trial to later make the All Blacks and play after he broke it in a softball game!

Half time and Larry the physio says I have broken it badly and I said chop it off (joking) he bandaged it up and I said we will see how it goes.

Same old – support – ruck like fuck – get mullered, get up -support- ruck like fuck -get mullered, repeat, repeat and so on. Then with a few minutes to go their Captain goes over for the try and they convert. Final whistle goes and we have lost 13 -17.

A close one but it was, apart from a bloody sore finger a game where it was over and done with very quickly. Don’t think I touched the ball! I must have and I did four times as the ODT had pictures of me in 4 different times with the ball. Must have been a very sharp and sIick photographer and I did not see these until 40 years later!

Straight to the hospital and was they’re for a couple of hours.

They asked originally how I did it and said it must have been an impact where I decked one of the South Africans and the Doctor came back and said ‘no Mark your finger is broken in four places someone has snapped it…It can’t have been David Callon as he was our reserve loose forward and he was in the stands.

What a top man he was by the way. He was a rep for a cigarette company and following year or two always came into the training room with a carton of cigs and said ‘Vue (nick name, too long to tell why) here you go get these down your neck!’ No motive of course!
Anyway, they put it in a splint and that was my season over with. I got back to the Hotel where the Dinner was and that was when I started to know the man that is Ken Bloxham. The Otago Captain had saved a seat opposite the SA Captain Wynaard Classen and on entering the dining room with the fish heads and other alickadoo’s was waving me over to sit in the seat he had saved. We were friends the whole time during my period down in Dunedin and along with others he will be missed.
Wynnaard by the way said ‘You broke finger?’ and my reply was ‘No I did not break my finger’

One story I have to relate about Ken was a year or two later was Lawrie Mains was now coach of Otago and then later the All-Black Coach.

He (Lawrie) was keen on discipline, was the first Coach that we knew dictated what choice of meals that we had, no laughing and charffing as he called it, the night before a game, he did get us quiet hotels however (the Cambridge on a Friday night is the not the best place for a quiet night before a first-class game in Wellington) and his training with former All Black Lyn Jaffrey (ciggy in hand) was pretty tough.

One weekend we had a game for Otago on the Sat and we were training on the Sunday morning whilst the country boys were still in town It was a 9.00am start. We won the game on the day but that was no guarantee that it was going to be a light session the following morning. We had the usual for then which was to do the official, court session and then was to go out for a few beers. I was even afraid to have a too late a night as when Lawrie was in the mood it could be a fairly good (or bad) blow out.

Anyway at 3.00am in the morning I got to the hotel and who was leaving for somewhere, was Ken. He had a white station wagon and he was about to jump in when I pulled up in the taxi. He said Vue come with me I’m off to a party. I said something like ‘but we have training in a few hours’ and his reply was ‘we will only be a couple’ and I said ‘No I am going to bed’. His reply as he jumped in and consequently accelerated out of the car park tires screeching was ‘you soft Auckland bastard’!

After the after match of the Bok game the majority of the team went back to one of the players houses and there was a few crashed out and staying the night. It was a good intro and I loved the time I spent with them. It was then that it was known that I snored and Wayne Graham picked up on it first the following morning. It was also then that most of the time I had a room to myself with the teams I played with on away games including Wellington and Canterbury later on in my brief rugby career.

Back to reality, first test match at Lancaster Park, Christchurch and the AB’s just won and finally just won the last test match at Eden Park in the last minute with an Alan Hewson penalty. This was one of the iconic scenes of the tour when flour bombs were dropped into the park. They won the series 2-1. The Otago game was the closest of the provincial games against a bloody big strong Bok team which would be the last of that ‘kind’ to tour to NZ ever.

The following Tuesday I went back to the Māori Club and things were pretty much the same about organising demonstrations for future games and the effects of action in Christchurch and Dunedin a few days before. I did not notice any uncomfortable feeling and far as I was concerned, I was against Apartheid and I played against them for the right reasons. It was after that meeting a friend came up to me and said ‘Well done on coming along as they thought you would not’. I said ‘why not?’ and her reply was ‘you have got balls and well done’.

It was then that I thought I have been naïve about this and did not want anyone with in the Māori Club to feel awkward because of my presence. Nice people.

Forty years later I get a call from the ODT for an interview about the game and the buildup and consequences. You can read this article where they talk to a Demonstrator, Policeman and a Player following.

Kia Kaha
Mark

These views and opinions are remembered back forty years ago and strictly those of the writer. The events are as close as the writer remembers.