All Blacks great and legendary rugby hard man Wayne Shelford has a bit of a chuckle when reflecting on his knighthood bestowed in the Queen’s Birthday Honours. “What are they going to put on the signs now? Bring Back Sir Buck!”
Shelford was made a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to rugby and the community, both of which have been significant. The man known universally as ‘Buck’ holds a special place in the folklore of New Zealand’s national sport – thus the banners that cropped up in the wake of his controversial All Blacks axing in 1990 – and has not stopped giving back to his game or community since.
Shelford, now 63 and living north of Auckland on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula with wife Jo (they have two adult children), is clearly someone who likes to be busy. It is fair to say this former military man (he served in the Navy from the late-1970s until the mid-1980s) has found many, many ways to serve his people.
Rugby was where he forged his fearsome reputation as a sportsman, first for Auckland, and then North Harbour on the provincial playing fields, and most notably for the All Blacks. He made 48 appearances (including 22 tests) for New Zealand between 1985 and 1990, captaining them on 31 occasions before being controversially dumped.
He was first-choice No 8 for the 1987 World Cup-winning All Blacks, went to South Africa in 1986 with the rebel Cavaliers (a decision he has no regrets about to this day), was a principal figure in one of the most storied test matches of all time, the infamous ‘Battle of Nantes’ against France in 1986, and undefeated in his 14 tests as captain of his country.
He was also credited with bringing the mana back to the All Blacks haka, helping to revitalise the traditional pre-match challenge as a vibrant, meaningful and respectful exercise.
Making a difference is pretty much what Shelford does. Having survived cancer himself (he had lymphoma, which he has now fully recovered from), he has become a committed campaigner for men’s health and a long-term ambassador for the Prostate Cancer Foundation.
He is also a co-host on TV show Match Fit, which delivers a strong message around physical and mental wellbeing as it takes ex-All Blacks on a challenging journey to get back in shape.
But that’s not all. Shelford has been and remains active in the important area of youth suicide prevention and has worked with ‘Waimarie – Whatever it takes’ community housing for the disabled. He recently became involved with ‘Te Kiwi Māia’, a charitable trust offering respite care for emergency first responders, and is a member of the Northern Region Lion Foundation Grants Committee, on the executive of Auckland RSA and patron of the Passchendaele Society.
Of course, he is president of the North Shore Rugby Club, where he’s been active for over 40 years, and is also patron of New Zealand Navy Rugby, New Zealand Defence Force Rugby and of Māori education programme, ‘Te Reo Tuatahi’, supporting Te Reo Māori in mainstream schools. He is also prominently involved with his Ngāpuhi iwi.
“I keep busy,” he reflects in a long chat with Stuff in which he talks about being “gob-smacked” by the knighthood. He says it’s an honour he shares with all Māoridom. “You stop one project, you move on to the next one. My kids keep saying, ‘Dad, slow down’. I tell them if I can’t do it, no one is going to. When I finally retire in another 10 years or so, I will kick back a little bit.”
Shelford is, by habit, an early riser. He considers 6.30am a sleep-in, and tends to have commitments most nights. He still works fulltime (with his own company), though at present is renovating his daughter’s house. He is handy on the tools, but knows when to “bring in the builders”.
Men’s health is deeply important to him. His own battle with lymphoma taught him the preciousness of life, and the recent deaths of fellow All Blacks Sir Brian Lochore, Sir Colin Meads and Andy Haden only reinforced that.
“We all become afflicted by these diseases,” he says. “I’ve got to manage it all the time. I’m free at the moment but the oncologist always says, ‘be wary, Buck, keep getting your bloods tested every year because it could come back and bite you’.”
He says his involvement in Match Fit, with a second series out soon, has also been enlightening as former rugby stars confront their post-career health issues.
“It’s about getting them to change their attitudes towards their lifestyles, because lifestyles are the biggest killer. We tell them you need to look after yourself, your body, and change your mental approach to the way you eat and the need for exercise.”
Of course, rugby is what we all know Buck Shelford for. As a No 8 they did not come any more fearsome. His All Blacks career was not as long, or littered with achievements, as some, but he played with such commitment he has gone down in history as one of the true legends of the game.
Shelford was synonymous with the arrival of North Harbour as New Zealand’s newest union in 1985 (switching his allegiance from the powerful Auckland setup) and led the team’s rapid ascent from the third to the first division of the provincial game.
He became an All Black in 1985 in Argentina, but did not play test rugby until the 1986 visit to France. Before then he was part of the contentious 1986 Cavaliers tour to South Africa that he had no hesitation signing up for.
“Life is short,” he reflects. “I was 28, and said to myself, ‘if I don’t take this opportunity I will never get to South Africa as a rugby player’. There are no regrets … I enjoyed it and it made my career. It showed me a lot of things I wasn’t and I watched my game get better and better over there.
“It was brutally tough and I learnt a lot of lessons. We took that into the All Blacks in ’87 and we won that World Cup in a canter really.”
Later in ’86 Shelford was at the centre of another challenging occasion in Nantes when France exacted some brutal revenge on the All Blacks for their first-test defeat in Toulouse.
Shelford was No 8 for the ‘Battle of Nantes’ and ended a tumultuous day with a torn scrotum which had to be stitched up for him to continue, three lost teeth and a major concussion. It was only the latter that eventually forced him reluctantly from the field.
“It was the most brutal test match I played in,” he says. Everyone was bleeding after the game. It was pretty quiet. The All Blacks don’t like losing …
“It wasn’t the down below that was the major, it was the head. I couldn’t focus. I was in la-la land. My head was throbbing, and I just couldn’t keep up with the game. If it was today, I would have been gone off straight away. But a lot of people back in the day played on with concussion after concussion.”
Then came ’87 and the inaugural World Cup on New Zealand soil.
Late in the semifinal against Wales in Brisbane, won 49-6, Shelford got involved in a dustup. Welshman Huw Richards had punched All Black lock Gary Whetton, and Shelford responded as he knew how. When Richards eventually came to, it was to the sight of the red card brandished his way.
“That was very instinctive. I was just trying to look after our players. I’m not proud of it,” says Shelford who abhors violence on the rugby field. “I think in my whole career I only threw about five punches, and out of all the games and minutes you play, that’s not a big thing really.”
It was the next day he remembers most vividly. The All Blacks were watching France-Australia in the other semifinal, and they knew exactly who they wanted in the final.
“Every time the French scored we cheered. We wanted them back. In Nantes the year before, we lost a bit of mana that day. I remember the day of the final, sitting there having breakfast, and you could cut the air with a knife. There was real tension in the hotel and I knew we were going to have a big day.
“John Gallagher left his boots behind on the bed. He was so focused on the game he forgot to put them in his bag and they only arrived five minutes before we ran on the field. It was a great week, and the quietest week I’ve ever had in the All Blacks because we were so focused.”
The All Blacks’ 29-9 triumph also achieved one other notable thing. “We brought the game of rugby back together again,” says Shelford. “We lost a lot of people in ‘86 – the Cavaliers tour split the country in half. John Hart told us we had to reunite the rugby fraternity … and we did.”
Later came the ‘Bring Back Buck’ campaign, when the people’s hero was dropped summarily after the home victory over Scotland. “I turned it into a joke,” reflects Shelford now. “I used to say it’s cost me a lot of money to keep this thing going. The signs were around for a long, long time, and we still see them crop up every now and again.
“But I moved on straight away. It’s a game of rugby. I’ve talked with Grizz about it, and he said, ‘mate, if I had my time over, you would have still been the captain, but that’s the decision I had to make’. I told him you have to live with it, I don’t.”
As we’ve seen, the Buck in no way stopped there.
