Rugby League: The Carlaw Park bloodbath

As the French launch another tour here, PETER JESSUP recalls a vicious encounter 50 years ago.

The most violent game in any code in the country's history; arguably the most tension-packed day in New Zealand sport, with a finish a movie scriptwriter could not dream up.

The New Zealand-France test at Carlaw Park on August 4, 1951, was played against a backdrop of industrial turmoil.

The 151-day watersiders' strike and lockout had ended on July 15, but on the day of the test the Herald printed the news that union champion Jock Barnes had been jailed for what was seen as the trumped-up charge of criminal libel for slagging a policeman during a Queen St battle.

League being the watersiders' game, the air at Carlaw Park was thick. It got thicker as two Kiwis were carried off with severe facial injuries, both down to foul play by the French.

Rookie fullback Des White's penalty from the sideline, that gave the Kiwis a last-gasp, 16-15 win, defused things.

The Tricolors had arrived in Auckland as world champions, having beaten England and Wales, and then taken a three-test series over Australia 2-1 with a record 35-14 win in the decider.

The French went into the Auckland test planning to intimidate. The crowd of 27,000 - "they were swinging from the trees behind the stands," White said - didn't like it. But they went berserk when his kick ended it, hurling hats and cushions in the air.

White recalls what the sports writers of the Herald and the now-defunct 8 O'clock described as the most violent game they had seen.

"We were punched, bitten, clawed and kicked," White said.

"There were stiff-arms, sprigs raked down our chests, you name it. We were very upset at the tactics they employed. Even afterwards in the dressing room the feeling wasn't about the win, it was about what they had done. We'd never seen anything like it."

However, White chuckles at the way he managed to remain injury free. "I was sweet, I was out of it at the back."

At the after-match dinner the French were gentlemen, conceding victory to a better side. Their great goalkicker, Puig Aubert, graciously shook White's hand and congratulated him on the match-winning goal.

Before that it was war.

White recalls: "I remember at one point I was going for goal and the French were lined up man-for-man against our guys 10 yards away and they were carrying on, swearing and cursing in French. Our blokes were giving it back in English.

"Someone in the crowd threw an apple and hit one of the Frenchmen fair on the cheek. It was a beauty shot. Oh yes, there was enormous feeling in the game."

No replacements were allowed. First it was West Coast five-eighth George "Geordie" Menzies forced off with a cheekbone smashed by a French head-butt.

Then it was the turn of Otago's 1946 All Black halfback, Jimmy Haig White witnessed a vicious act by the Frenchman Cantoni on Haig, who had switched codes in 1947.

"His cheekbone fell to his mouth, it looked horrible."

In mid-second half, a huge brawl erupted in the front rows. French prop Louis Nazon, that country's middleweight champion, dished out plenty.

Referee J. Griffen could not separate the combatants for three minutes. When the touch judges and officials intervened and things settled down after 10 minutes, Griffen sent off the wrong man - hooker Martin Martin - when it was Francois Montruculos who had started the fracas.

Martin refused to leave the field. The president of the French Rugby League, Anton Blain, and his New Zealand counterpart, Jack Redwood, came on and eventually persuaded Martin to go.

So the game wound down with 11 Kiwis on the field against 12 Frenchmen.

There was no ground clock or game-over hooter in those days and the players had to listen for the chimes from the University of Auckland wedding-cake tower to get an indication of time to run.

They knew that usually, it was all over by 4 pm, but this game went well past four.

In the dying seconds Kiwi wing Bevan Hough, a 1950 Empire Games sprints silver medallist, was taken out high and illegally by Cantoni when heading for a certain try in the Domain Stand corner. White was called to kick.

He remembers: "The French were abusing us. Puig Aubert brought me the ball and said something to me that I didn't hear or understand - I asked him later what it was and he said 'I don't think you can kick this.' Our blokes were saying 'Don't miss it Whitey.' It was a lot of pressure on a young bloke [he was 22], it was only my third test."

The Herald described the game as marked by violence and "dazzling bursts of play on a waterlogged ground," the players finishing battered and mud-covered.

The ball White kicked must have felt like lead, the writer said.

White remembers it as dry, the ball sailing lightly between the posts, and the crowd roaring before it got there. He had backed up against the white picket fence sideline on the domain side, and they knew it was over.

The bitterness continued. One of the Frenchmen attacked Morrie Robertson, leaping on his back as he left the field, and a touch judge was knocked to the ground. As the crowd gathered to congratulate the Kiwis, the French spat at them.

One fan told White he had won £1000 on the game.

"He offered me a suite of furniture. Another one told me he had won big and wanted to buy me an armchair, but it was in the heat of the moment, nothing came of it."

Of the 13 Kiwis, Robertson has passed on, but White, Menzies, Hough and seven others will be re-uniting for a dinner next Saturday, the day before the test.

Three of the French team from 1951, who will be with the touring side, are also invited. They are to be introduced to the crowd at Ericsson Stadium on match day.

The New Zealand Rugby League have already shifted the 50-year anniversary test from the 1951 venue and have now shifted kickoff from night to day.

The game was scheduled for 7.30 pm, but the league wanted to make it a family day, giving children free terrace seats, and it is now on at 2.30 pm. State of Origin Two is on that night.

The French go straight to Papua New Guinea after their final match, against the Residents' XIII in Huntly on June 13, and play two tests there.

French itinerary. -

Today: v South Island selection in Christchurch; Wednesday: v Central Selection in Palmerston North; Sunday: v Kiwis at Ericsson Stadium; June 13: v Residents XIII at Davies Park, Huntly.