Moving account of rugby's humble hero

Books about, or ostensibly by, All Blacks are very common these days. Most are ghost-written and tend to be bland, but there are the occasional exceptions - Andy Haden's books, for example. Some of them are even published while the subject is still playing.
Why then, until now, has there been no book on the man who made such a huge impact on rugby in New Zealand? The answer lies in the man's innate modesty, and humility.
He needed neither praise nor publicity, and as an illuminating incident in the book about his attitude to the 1981 Springbok tour reveals, he generally kept his opinions to himself.
Over the decades he has declined numerous approaches from publishers and writers to have his story told. Why did he relent? Because Bob Howitt told him he was going to write the book anyway, with or without Sir Wilson's involvement.
There is little doubt that he was the greatest All Black captain. There is even less doubt that he was the most popular, certainly overseas, where not all All Black teams have been highly regarded for either behaviour or diplomacy. This was because diplomacy was Whineray's forte. He was highly articulate, very knowledgeable and "a perfect gentleman".
No international rugby captain, of any country, has ever received the adulation and affection that Whineray did on the 1963/4 All Black tour of Britain, culminating in the memorable final match against the Barbarians in Cardiff, where the crowd sang Now Is The Hour, and - in tribute to Whineray himself after he had scored a remarkable try - For He's a Jolly Good Fellow, accompanied by a standing ovation.
No great scholastic achiever at school, he left early. Sports-mad, he was proficient at boxing, swimming, cricket, soccer and rugby. The latter became his sport of choice, and he played provincial rugby as a loosehead prop while still in his teens. Early on, he exhibited the trait that defined him as a player throughout his career - his remarkable mobility and ball-handling skills. He was a forward who loved to run with the ball.
Under his subsequent captaincy of the All Blacks in the 60s, the results were unmatched.
Sir Wilson's post-rugby life was just as successful.
He obtained an MBA from Harvard University, and ended his business career as chairman of Carter Holt Harvey.
He also gave invaluable service to sporting and charitable organisations. He has been inducted into the International Rugby Hall of Fame, the NZ Sports Hall of Fame, and the NZ Business Hall of Fame.
He was approached by both National and Labour to enter politics, but declined. He would almost certainly have been appointed governor general had he allowed his name to go forward.
A remarkable man indeed, not just in New Zealand, but world, terms. Few, if any, sportsmen, in any code, in any country, have been so successful and versatile, or so loved and admired. Howitt has done a meticulous and methodical job of recording his story.
But the book is not without flaws. The caption to a photograph of Whineray with Welsh referee Alan Williams states that the latter was the referee to whom Whineray gave the highest rating during the 1963/64 tour. In fact, that referee was Ray Williams from Ulster. More serious is Howitt's flawed analysis of Whineray's rivalry with Springbok tighthead Piet du Toit in South Africa in 1960, which almost suggests a lack of understanding of the two different philosophies of the world's two greatest rugby-playing nations.
The NZ attitude to scrums, as expressed by Whineray himself, was that they were just a means of re-starting the game. This was a direct result of NZ's unique 2-3-2 scrum formation, which it employed until the early 1930s. The ball emerged from these scrums in a matter of a second or two, meaning they were a contest in hooking and striking terms only. Thus was forged the traditional NZ style of play - mobile forwards either playing on their own or linking with backs. South Africa, which invented the 3-4-1 scrum which is still in use, with its reserves of powerful men, regarded the scrum as an attacking weapon in which the props' role was to physically dominate their opponents.
Du Toit was one of the world's strongest and most destructive tighthead scrummagers. In an interview a few decades ago, Whineray told me Du Toit had become so much stronger than when he marked him in NZ in 1956, and that he had difficulty handling him, and in one game actually switched sides and asked tighthead prop Ian Clarke to put up with Du Toit for the second half.
The All Blacks accused Du Toit of being boring. But no tighthead ever bored in on and collapsed the world's great looseheads - like Gerard Cholley, Mof Myburgh, Ray McLoughlin, and several others.
The reality was that Du Toit was a more powerful scrummager than Whineray (and almost every other prop he ever faced), but Whineray was a greater rugby player, possessing skills that Du Toit could never dream of aspiring to.

A Perfect Gentleman - The Sir Wilson Whineray Story
by Bob Howitt, HarperCollins, $50