Rugby: The passing of Magpies 1960s Shield hero Aidan Thomas

Aidan Thomas scores Hawke's Bay's only try in a 9-8 win over Otago to keep the Ranfurly Shield in Hawke's Bay in September 1967. He died last week, aged 76. Photo / NZME

Prominent 1966-1969 Hawke’s Bay Magpies Ranfurly Shield-era rugby player Aidan Thomas died last Tuesday, aged 76, bringing back memories of some of the greatest exploits of the era’s 21 successful defences.

From Taupō, and lured by mission-driven Magpies coach Colin Le Quesne from what was then a Hawke’s Bay sub-union to play for the Hastings club during the Shield era, but then playing for Hastings Celtic, Thomas was regarded as the second-string halfback to Hepa Paewai.

But introduced to the team at the age of 20, when Paewai was injured midway through the first full season of defences in 1967, the 1.67-metre Thomas was integral to the retaining of the Shield through the last hectic fortnight - effectively turning Hawke’s Bay’s grasp on the famed Log o’ Wood from just another Shield era to one of the greatest.

Three seasons later, having been in a queue of the greatest depth of international-quality halfbacks in New Zealand rugby history, he played for North Island Probables in the 1970 and 1971 All Blacks trial series.

With two Shield matches on his CV, it was in the opening minute of the 1967 defence against Taranaki, with a crowd estimated at 24,200, that Thomas threw a deft reverse pass to first five-eighths Blair Furlong to score a try which writer Lindsay Knight, in the book Shield Fever, published in 1980, recorded as being a “devastating psychological blow” to the vaunted challengers’ hopes in a game the Bay won 16-3.

It was cemented early in the second half when Thomas scored the only other try when flicked the ball by No 8 David Bone from a scrum after a classic Kel Tremain surge to the line in a match the Magpies kept mainly in the forwards, despite the strength of the opposing pack.

A week later, in front of more than 19,000, Thomas was the hero in a 9-8 win over Otago, which included the All Blacks’ inside backs pair of halfback Chris Laidlaw and first five-eighths Earle Kirton.

It was 18 minutes into the second half, with Otago up 8-3 after scoring the first try by a challenger in the six defences to that date, that Thomas, in the words of Knight, “raced on the blindside from a scrum and kept on running into an ever-increasing gap” before diving over for the Bay’s only try, then worth three points, in a game the Bay eventually won with the second of fullback Ian Bishop’s two penalty goals.

Another week later it was Thomas, opposing then-future All Black Ian Stevens against Wellington, who flung the desperate final pass to Furlong for the dropped goal that saved the Shield with the era’s most-famed result, a 12-12 draw, in front of an estimated 26,000 fans, still thought to be the biggest crowd at any sports event in Hawke’s Bay.

Furlong says Paewai and Thomas were players of two different styles - Paewai a runner and passer, Thomas one of the best passers in the game, and it was such that he “fired” the ball back to Furlong for the triumph, planned only in the instant when second five-eighths Ian MacRae determined that, with a draw all that was needed, the drop kick was the best of three other options, ahead of conning Wellington into giving away a penalty for offside around the scrum, or Thomas running on the blind.

The pass removed the panic from the urgency and Furlong was quoted by Knight as saying: “I got a good pass. I swung my foot and as soon as I hit it I knew it was over.”

Back in the shadow of Paewai, Thomas played just two more defences - one in 1968 and one in 1969 - but proved to be a Trojan for the team, particularly on tour.

The 1968 season was notable for five of his six matches being away from home, including against Canterbury, Otago and Southland on a four-match 12-day South Island tour, and just six days after returning to the North Island, he played a Ranfurly Shield defence against Marlborough, who had come to Napier full of confidence after beating France seven weeks earlier but were beaten 30-3.

He ultimately fell one short of a half-century of first-class matches, playing 47 for Hawke’s Bay from 1967 to 1973, and the two rep trials, preceding the 1970 All Blacks tour of South Africa and the home series against the British Lions in 1971.

He scored 16 points, four tries worth three points each, and one after the value for the touchdown was increased to four points in 1971 (the value was increased to five points in 1992).

An ex-Ruapehu College First XV member and King Country schools representative, Thomas was regarded as another example of the talent-scouting acumen of Le Quesne, and made his debut for Hawke’s Bay in a non-Shield match in 1967 against Poverty Bay in Gisborne.

Furlong had kept in touch with Thomas, who last year attended a gathering of former Magpies players at a Hawke’s Bay Saracens day.

Aware of his former teammate’s failing health, he had been planning a visit in Feilding last week when he heard from wife Sharon Thomas that her husband had passed away.

His funeral service will be held at St Brigid’s Catholic Church, Feilding, on Tuesday, starting at 11am, with Furlong attending, as an ex-teammate and later a Hawke’s Bay Rugby Union president, draping a No 9 Magpies jersey on the coffin.