100 Greatest All Blacks: Richard Loe

Mischief followed Richard Loe so it seemed inevitable that he appointed himself as the All Blacks media committee on the tour to France in 1990.

For those with cryptic minds they will also understand why he acquired the nickname Guthrie on that trip. Loe liked being upfront and possessed a huge slap to the back greeting which he liked administering to his media family.

Life in the sticks and powerful genes gave Loe an enormous capacity to take and inflict punishment. He was a very tough hombre.

After some late night in-house revelry on the All Blacks tour to Australia and Africa in 1992, Loe was being such a pest his head split open like a ripe tomato when it took the brunt of a camera case. Loe inquired about some stitching and because of his state and various other details, he incurred the suturing without anaesthetic.

That ruggedness brought him plenty of notoriety too as earlier on that tour his elbow jolt damaged Paul Carozza's beak. It was reckless but in real time, Carozza risked some attack until he grounded the ball.

Loe remains in high demand on the speaking circuit in Australia because of that act and others and is quite happy to send an invoice for replays about his pantomime villainy.

Late that same year, I knew there was something up after the Waikato-Otago NPC final when Greg Cooper was very evasive about what happened to his vision during the game.

Word seeped out that TV had caught footage of Loe's eye-gouging fingers and we were off on another Loe-blow story.

Loe was suspended for six months but returned to play test rugby until he was almost 37 before a neck injury halted a frame most opponents couldn't overcome.

Statistics
Date of birth: 6 April 1960
Position: Tighthead prop
Test debut: 22 May 1987 v Italy at Auckland
Final test: 18 November 1995 v France at Paris
Matches: 78
Tests: 49
Provinces: Waikato, Canterbury
Test tries: 6
Test points: 25