Rugby star and water rescue hero Eric Hogge farewelled

Eric Hogge, who died on Friday, pictured at Marewa Park, Napier, in November 2000. Photo/File

A former national surf lifesaving champion who played for Hawke's Bay in two of the provinces most famous rugby matches of the late 1950s and early 1960s was farewelled at a funeral in Napier on Tuesday.

Eric Arthur Hogge, a recipient of the Royal Humane Society's bronze medal for a rescue off Napier's Marine Parade, was 84 when he died on Friday at Princess Alexander Hospital in Ahuriri.

At rugby he played at lock against the South African Springboks at McLean Park, Napier, in 1956, and in the Ranfurly Shield challenge against Auckland at Eden Park, Auckland, in 1961.

They were leanish years for the Bay, being beaten 20-8 by the Springboks, a record 52-12 by the British Isles in 1959 and 5-3 in the Ranfurly Shield match.

It was perhaps fortunate that he missed the Bay's 1959 nadir against the Lions, but locking with Maori All Black Heitia Hiha in 1961 he was a key performer in an effort which, while not achieving the goal of bringing the Ranfurly Shield back to Napier, did set the path for establishing the Hawkeye Guys, or Magpies, teams that won the shield in 1966 and held it for three years.

His 41 matches for Hawke's Bay from 1956 to 1962 also included a 1956 Ranfurly Shield challenge against Canterbury, lost 9-21, and a 1958 match against Australia, won 8-6.

Born in Gisborne on July 5, 1933, he was Gisborne Boys High School Sportsman of the Year in 1952, as well as being a prefect and captain on the first fifteen rugby team.
He was also a member of a strong Waikanae Beach Surf Lifesaving Club 6-man R and R team which won the Junior title at the New Zealkand surf lifesaving championships in 19521.

He was runner-up in the senior beltman final in 1954 and the next year studied at Teachers Training College at Ardmore, South Auckland.

In Napier he became a district physical education instructor with the Hawke's Bay Education Board, while wife Diane (nee Bickerstaff), a prominent swimmer he had known since his early teens in Gisborne, became a teacher at Napier Intermediate School.

His water skills were evident in a rescue off Marine Parade in 1956 for which he was awarded the Royal Humane Society's bronze medal.

He was also prominent in the development of Camp Kaitawa, which was established in 1967 on an old school ground near Tuai.

He became a stalwart of the Napier Technical College Old Boys Rugby Club, known for both his playing career and also his days running get-fit classes in the club's gymnasium.

Tom Johnson, who played club rugby with Eric Hogg at Napier Tech in 1959-60 and became his Hawke's Bay captain, said he'd be "definitely" going to the funeral held at the Napier Sailing Club, where Di Hogge's funeral was held after she died on September 27, 2015. He described Hogge as tall for a lock of that era, and mobile.

"He was a very good athlete," he said.

He was the son of the late Dick and Maude Hogge and a had a sister and a half-brother, both also now deceased.

Eric Hogge was the second Tech club life member and 1959 Magpie to die in less than a fortnight.

Former teammate and wing Eddy Watts, who served three years as chairman of the Hawke's Bay Rugby Union, died on May 15, aged 79.

Watts played six matches for Hawke's Bay in 1959, but also missing the humiliation against the Lions. He was a member of the HBRFU management committee in 1974-1978, said union archivist Adrian Hill, and became chairman in 1981, in a controversial selection ahead of former All Black and eventual chairman Kel Tremain.

He was made a life member in 1992, and was the longest-surviving of five life members just before his death.