Meads remembered a year on

LEADING THE BAY: Ian Kirkpatrick (right) leads the Poverty Bay-East Coast Combined side on to the field, alongside British and Irish Lions hooker Bobby Windsor. The Lions won the 1977 clash 25-6 in front of a crowd of 15,000. Picture by Alan Peake

RUGBY

ALL Black great Colin “Pinetree” Meads — noted for his powerful ball-running — didn’t pass the ball often, but Poverty Bay All Black great Ian Kirkpatrick says Meads would pass it to him.

Yesterday was the first anniversary of Meads’s death, and Kirkpatrick’s comments were aired on The Country, a rural and farming programme on Newstalk ZB, to honour his former teammate.

Kirkpatrick was asked about the famous 50-metre solo try he scored at Lancaster Park against the 1971 Lions, and Meads’s claimed role in the move.

Kirkpatrick emerged from a maul on the halfway line and ran diagonally to the corner alternating his ball-carrying arm to fend off tacklers.

The flanker said it was true Meads had a role in the try by passing him the ball in the maul.

Kirkpatrick said Meads never passed the ball, but “he passed it to me’’.

Kirkpatrick scored in his test debut against France in Paris in 1967 and he recalled it was Meads who passed the ball to him.

He said Meads would take part in dummy-run moves.

“He didn’t pass often.”

“He would run with the ball, then pass to me.”

Kirkpatrick’s interview originally went to air after Meads died last year and was replayed yesterday.

Kirkpatrick said Meads was at peace and it was time to “celebrate his life”.

The two friends were All Black teammates from 1967 to 1971.

Comments from fellow All Blacks Sir Brian Lochore and Andrew Hore, 1974 Commonwealth Games 10,000 metres gold medallist Dick Tayler and shearing legend Sir David Fagan, a resident of Te Kuiti, as was Meads, were also aired on the programme.