THE late Colin Meads played a significant role in Fiji’s rugby history.
The King Country lock played his first game against an international team against Fiji in 1957, before coming to play a couple of times in Suva in 1968 and later in an invitation side.
The 1957 Fijian team were a powerful side and had planned to repeat the unbeaten tour made in 1939.
The coach and manager were locals. Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau was the manager and coach was Saunaka, Nadi’s Apakuki Tuitavua.
Both Ratu Penaia and Tuitavua �were members of the unbeaten 1939 team and under their leadership the team vowed to repeat the unbeaten tour and the champion Auckland team, with 12 All Blacks was the first target.
They won the first two matches thoroughly then thrashed Auckland 38-17 at Eden Park.
The fourth match was to be against King Country and they were the lowest rated side in the itinerary.
Playing his first game against an international side was an unknown Colin Meads and Fiji were not prepared for this six-foot four young sheep farmer of Te Kuiti.
According to an account by the halfback of that team, Suliasi Vatubua, Meads took all lineout throws and starved Fiji of possession. King Country upset Fiji and there ended the unbeaten campaign.
Colin Meads later became the most famous All Black of his era and personified a rugged rural masculinity that evoked a bygone era even in his playing days.
Meads reputation as the best All Black ever has been challenged by another farm boy, Richie McCaw, whom All Black coach Steve Hansen rated as the best All Black ever.
McCaw reinvented the role of the number seven, who was traditionally the link between backs and forwards, the man with deft handling skills but who also saw the opponents’ outside-half with a target rather than the number ten on his back.
But McCaw had sheer brute strength, capable of mixing it with bigger men at the breakdown as well as possessing the speed and handling skills to play the traditional tearaway and free the backs.
At 6ft 2in and nearly 17 stone McCaw was a formidable physical specimen and turnovers became his specialty and a powerful weapon of any side he played in.
However, the gallant efforts of that 1957 team in thrashing New Zealand champions Auckland 38-17 and winning both Tests against the New Zealand Maoris by big margins (36-13 at Wellington and 17-8 at Dunedin) established Fiji’s status as one of the world’s rising rugby powerhouse.
Meads played 133 games for the All Blacks between 1957 and 1971, the last four as captain. In his 55 Test matches (then a record) he scored seven tries.
In 1999 he was named New Zealand Player of the Century and the International Rugby Hall of Fame rated him ‘the most famous forward in world rugby throughout the 1960s’.
While many rugby forwards of modern day rugby of New Zealand come through the grades development, New Zealand selectors never forget the farmers, who are naturally a powerful breed because of their daily physical activity.
Being a farming country most All Black forwards grew up in farms, including Sam Whitelock who recently addressed a group of farmers, saying that ‘farmers are tough but not bullet proof’.
Meads’ playing style was physical and uncompromising, but according to an autobiography by Barry John, who was responsible for the British Lions series win over the All Blacks in 1971, the big Kiwi forward also had a sense of humour.
He had a reputation of rucking away everything in his sight and he had ended Aussie halfback Ken Catchpole’s rugby career by drove him out of a ruck.
Barry John was lying at the bottom of a ruck when the great Kiwi forward began one of his famous rucking drives.
Just when he thought he was going to be rucked with the ball, he heard the rough, hoarse voice from above, “Move your head boy, if you don’t wanna get hurt.”
Meads may have passed on but he had the ruggedness, the toughness and that aura of invincibility.
He definitely left behind a legacy that every rugby forward in New Zealand and all over the world will carry on as long as there is rugby to be played.