Widely respected former Bay of Plenty Times sports journalist Peter Reilly, who died last Thursday in Tauranga, once made the proud boast that he could guarantee returning home from the opening day of each duck shooting season with his limit bag - without firing a shot.
As the voice of Thames Valley sport in the 1960s and early 1970s, Reilly, pictured, was always on call by news media interests in the Waikato region.
At each duck shooting opening he could radio his reports with the observation of "blue skies above, ducks too high, and few around."
Such palaver kept the townies in Hamilton, but ensured Reilly his limit as he bagged a duck from each mai mai, the owners grateful for yet another accurate forecast "for them." "I was the only hunter to come home with a limit bag each year without firing a shot!"
Reilly extended his entrepreneurial skills to writing and the technical side of newspaper production, while contributing articles to newspapers around the country.
He was elevated to national prominence when almost single-handedly he produced the nationally-distributed Rugby Review, published in Tauranga in 1978-79.
Reilly was at his journalistic apotheosis in those two years. It, briefly, propelled him to a national prominence he deserved, in which his prescient rugby and general knowledge gained a wider audience and following. He gained respect from his peers.
Reilly had an intrinsic knowledge of all sports - rugby, cricket, horse racing, bowls (at which he was adept) and tennis.
He took pleasure too in the sporting successes of his wife Alison, Thames Valley's Sportsperson of the Year in 1975, who was ranked 10th in squash nationally in those days and, later, seventh. As a pair, Alison and Peter won many prizes at tennis age-group tournaments.
Reilly was the last of the old style footpath journalist who adjusted with the times.
He seldom worked without a pen behind his ear, generally under a cloth cap. It signalled he was at work and on the record. His work kit, he liked to call it, was removed only for haircuts, while he'd regularly jot notes or important phone numbers on the back of a cigarette pack which was never far from his grasp.
Reilly's Rugby Review prominence rose with its 1978 appointment by All Black Grant Batty and Tauranga printer Don Kale, in opposition to Bob Howitt's established Rugby News.
Reilly switched from the Bay of Plenty Times to work for the Batty/Kale bracket; such was his measure that two years later he returned to the Bay Times when the Rugby Review folded, warmly welcomed by its editor Ernie Beer and management.
Kale and his Christchurch backers pulled the plug in the middle of the 1979 season - Batty had since been released from the partnership.
Reilly engendered well-established contacts. Soon, such noted rugby glitterati of the day, All Black coach J J Stewart and retired captain Brian Lochore, became regular contributors. Top journalists like Lindsay Knight were also attracted to write for it.
Sport and journalism coursed Reilly's veins when young. At Feilding Agricultural High School, after being reared in Wanganui, he edited the school's magazine. He forged a lifelong friendship with Jack Gleeson, later the All Blacks coach. He was a reedy but tall and fast winger at Feilding. His senior rugby lasted some 20 years, knobbled between times by a triple leg fracture.
He was established as a rugby tour leader, heading tours to all parts of the globe. He established friendships in particular with celebrated rugby commentator Keith Quinn and the legendary Bill McLaren.
Reilly wrote voluminously and aptly, covering mainly cricket, rugby and golf for the Bay Times until his retirement in 1996.
The affable Reilly had one rare quality; he seldom burnt bridges. Many, players, supporters and coaches crossed such bridges to affix themselves to his savviness and raffishly warm company.
Reilly will be farewelled tomorrow at Club Mt Maunganui at 1pm.