THE BROTHERHOOD OF RUGBY: Reserves from the Counties-Australia match at Pukekohe in August 1991 pose for a photo after their warm-down together. They are (from left) Counties prop Henry Maxwell, Australian midfield back Tim Horan (whose signature adorns the photo) and winger Bob Egerton, and Counties loose forward Junior Paramore. The programme at the back of the photo is open at the page on which Henry Maxwell's pen picture is printed. Pictures supplied
An August 1991 photo of four rugby players prompted a rush of golden reminiscences of people and connections.
The first photo in the gallery above shows (from left) Counties prop Henry Maxwell, Australian midfield back Tim Horan and winger Bob Egerton, and Counties loose forward Junior Paramore. They were all reserves in the Counties-versus-Australia game at Pukekohe on Tuesday, August 20, 1991.
Semi-retired relief teacher John Holms found the photo and sent it by email from Australia to The Gisborne Herald when he learned of the death of former Poverty Bay and Counties prop and Pirates title-winning coach Henry Maxwell this month.
Holms was the editor of the match programme and took the photo after the reserves of both teams had engaged in a friendly warm-down together following the game.
Holms sent his recollections of the game's players and their connections from his home in Hervey Bay, Queensland. He and his wife Louise had shifted to the quiet tourist spot from New Zealand in 2006 to keep an eye on his elderly parents, who had moved there on the advice of a relative who said it would be good for their health. Pam Holms was asthmatic but lived to the age of 84. She died in 2008. Her husband, Grant Holms, died in 2011 at the age of 100.
The photo of the four substitutes and the impression left by Henry Maxwell inspired John Holms to mine the fields of memory.
The Wallabies were to play the All Blacks in a Bledisloe Cup match at Auckland's Eden Park the following Saturday, he said in his email message.
For those not in the test side, the Counties game was the last opportunity to press their claim for inclusion in coach Bob Dwyer's squad for that year's Rugby World Cup tournament, which Australia went on to win.
Australia's captain against Counties was fullback Greg Martin, who became a noted match commentator and a Brisbane radio presenter. Peter FitzSimons, who was a lock against Counties, achieved prominence outside rugby as a Sydney Morning Herald journalist and historical writer. Both Martin and FitzSimons missed out on the World Cup squad.
Counties, coached by former All Black hooker and captain Andy Dalton, included flanker Andrew Fleming, son of opera singer Malvina Major. Peter Curley, one of the props picked ahead of Henry Maxwell for this fixture, lost his mother to cancer the night before the match.
Captaining Counties against the Wallabies was halfback Tu Nu'uali'itia, who would be selected for 1991 World Cup giant-killers Samoa, Holms said.
Playing No.8 for Counties that day was army captain John Flanagan. The following year he was clearing mines in Cambodia, work for which he received an honour from the Queen, and he was later in charge of the Mine Action Co-ordination Centre in Pristina, Kosovo, removing cluster bombs dropped in 1999 by Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) jets.
Also among the Counties reserves – along with Maxwell and Paramore – were Counties stalwart and loose forward Errol Brain and future All Black lock Mark Cooksley. All four were clubmates at Manurewa.
As editor of the match programme, John Holms was able to quickly organise two reserves from each team for a photograph, which he thought illustrated the friendly spirit of rugby.
The player profile on the programme page in the background of the picture says of Henry Maxwell: “Needs no introduction. A player who has served Counties faithfully over the last decade. Big, strong and mobile player whose experience has a positive impact on the whole side whether he is on the field or not. Has had a new lease on life this season and his club form in particular has been very impressive.”
“The story doesn't end there, however,” Holms said in his email message.
“Following the Wallabies' eventual success in the 1991 World Cup, the Australian Rugby Union took the Cup on tour throughout the nation and one of their destinations was Queensland's Hervey Bay.
“My father, Grant Holms, the patron of a local rugby club, met Tim Horan, who was the sole representative accompanying the Cup on its visit to Hervey Bay, a city one hour's drive north of Tim's family home town of Gympie in Queensland. Tim Horan's father Michael had only that year been elected as the state MP for Toowoomba South.
“Seeing Tim was visiting Hervey Bay, Grant sought him out for a signature using the photo at hand.”
But the story didn't end there either.
After World War 2, Grant Holms had entered Wellington Teachers' Training College and then worked in the Gisborne district for four years as a probationary teacher, at schools that included Mangapapa, Gisborne Intermediate, Tolaga Bay and Te Karaka District High.
At Te Karaka, he came under the influence of headmaster Doug Jillett. Later as senior inspector of Maori schools, Jillett arranged for Kiri Te Kanawa to receive her education at Auckland's St Mary's College, where she came under the musical guidance of Sister Mary Leo Niccol.
Doug Jillett's son John, who went to Te Karaka District High, was course director when in 1982 the University of Otago introduced a course of study for an MSc degree in Marine Science. It was the forerunner of the establishment 10 years later of the university's Department of Marine Science. John Jillett was also in the public eye for his efforts to save beached whales.
Grant Holms was a former Bush rugby representative, and while living in Gisborne he became involved – with the encouragement of good friend and Poverty Bay stalwart Ian Shaw – in coaching players who would go on to be members of the Gisborne Pirates Rugby Football Club, until he moved to Auckland in 1952. That was the year the Celtic and Kaiti City clubs amalgamated to form Pirates.
Much later, Grant Holms laid claim to the title of oldest rugby player in the Southern Hemisphere when he played golden oldies rugby at the age of 86.
Another thread between that 1991 Counties game and Gisborne was the fact that coach Andy Dalton's two younger brothers were at Auckland Grammar when Dick Glover – now Poverty Bay Rugby Football Union president – was teaching there in the 1960s. Glover was Auckland Grammar first 15 coach in 1968 and '69.
Holms said he found it fascinating that all these connections occurred in New Zealand's great egalitarian game.
He recalled that after the Maori All Blacks played the 1959 British Lions, Sonny Rutene came over and shook his father's hand.
“He had had my father as a teacher at Te Karaka District High School.”
John Holms said his father featured in the book Rugby Nomads by Bob Howitt and Dianne Haworth. Grant Holms played for Bush when rugby commentator Winston McCarthy was their halfback and All Black Athol Mahoney was one of their loose forwards. Mahoney supplied a “good number of the photos” for Neville McMillan's book Men In Black.
“McMillan was a teaching colleague of Dick Glover as well,” John Holms said.
In 1990, the Hervey Bay Rugby Club hosted a Japanese club team who had a 75-year-old in their side. Grant Holms was cajoled into playing because of that, and the following day Australian-based New Zealand journalist Robert Messenger checked on age records.
“Bob Messenger's brother Ron, incidentally, was president of the New Zealand Rugby Football Union in 1976,” John Holms said.
“So next moment we have not only Bob promoting this story but television cameras turning up and Grant having to feature in golden oldie tournaments either in Hervey Bay or elsewhere, including Ballymore Stadium in Brisbane.
“He ended up getting an Australia Day award. He became, at the age of 100, the oldest World War 2 veteran in the Wide Bay area of Queensland at the time.”
Grant Holms turned 100 on February 18, 2011, ceremonially kicked off the season for the Hervey Bay Mariners Rugby Club, of which he was patron, and died that September.
The story of his 100th birthday and his obituary were carried by the Fraser Coast Chronicle, for whom he had been a regular contributor of reports of local rugby games.
His Gisborne connections were with the Holms-Chote and Watts families.
Grant Holms had become prominent in education as president of the Auckland branch of the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) and, shortly before he and his wife moved to Australia in 1988, he was made a life member of the New Zealand Parent Teacher Association (PTA).
“His involvement in NZEI was partly due to the influence of Doug Jillett and Gisborne Intermediate’s Ralph McGlashen, both of whom were national presidents of the NZEI,” John Holms said.
“They remained firm friends in Auckland where they resided till Doug passed away in 1965 and Ralph passed away in 1975.
“Ralph received the OBE for services to education. He was chairman of the Auckland Education Board and president of the New Zealand Education Boards Association. He had been headmaster of Gisborne Intermediate from 1945 to 1954. His son Don McGlashen was on the Whakatane Borough Council for six years (1968 to 1974) and was deputy mayor for his last year on the council.”
John Holms said he understood that Doug Jillett had approached St Mary’s College about a place for Kiri Te Kanawa only after he had been turned down by St Cuthbert’s College.
“At Doug Jillett’s funeral in St David’s Presbyterian Church in Khyber Pass Road in 1965, the cantor was none other than Kiri Te Kanawa, who at that stage was well credentialled.”
John Holms had one last story with a Gisborne connection.
“My mother, when pregnant with me, moved up to Auckland to stay at her parents’ place in Mt Eden before my father shifted north from Gisborne.
“She took a Road Services bus and sitting next to her, also going to Auckland, was a teacher by the name of Eugene Cheriton.
“He, I am sure, originally lived in Gisborne. For the 10-hour trip, my mother and he had a most engaging series of conversations. When she got off the bus at Greenlane she, being pregnant, had difficulty trying to move her large suitcases from the bag rack.”
Eugene Cheriton got out of his seat and said, “Leave it to me. I’ll do it”, and hauled the bags out before climbing back on board the bus. It transpired Cheriton had a connection to the Holmses. At St Patrick’s Silverstream, he had been a classmate of Tony Bird, who married Grant Holms’s sister Jean, the sister-in law of the pregnant woman whose luggage Cheriton had unloaded from the bus.
During his time at Mount Albert Grammar (1957 to 1976), Cheriton became a revered first 15 coach, counting among his charges Bryan Williams, the All Black great, and Chris Liddell, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Co-ordination in the Trump Administration.
Chris Liddell and his brother John played senior rugby for the Teachers club in Auckland in support of Cheriton, who was the club’s senior coach.
Karate black belt Cheriton’s training methods and fitness regimes were unique, Holms said.
Eugene Cheriton used to have tackle bags of coal and sawdust in sacks.
He’d get players to run – with sprigs on their boots – over the bodies of teammates to toughen them up, and get his charges to run from the school up to Mt Albert and back before lessons. He used ballet techniques to build speed.
Cheriton also coached the school swimming and athletic teams, and his stretches and training techniques were ultimately used nationwide following a national coaching session in the 1970s.
“When Eugene Cheriton passed away,” Holms said, “two busloads of Mount Albert Grammar old boys went to his funeral in Taupo.”