All Black legend steps back into the limelight

Sir Colin Meads at last night's celebrity-studded gala charity dinner in his honour. Photo / Richard Robinson

All Black great Sir Colin Meads last night recalled the time he flattened his coach two days before a test at Eden Park.

Sir Colin, 74, told how he was tuned up by Fred Allen at a team meeting.

He was a bit worse for wear after a night out, and was struggling to stay alert during the prickly coach's team talk.

"Am I boring you," Allen barked at him.

"Well, he was, but I was too scared to say so," Sir Colin confessed to 800 guests at a gala dinner in aid of the Frank Bunce Charitable Foundation.

Shortly afterwards, at practice, the forwards called a move which put the big lock on a collision course with Allen.

Recalled Sir Colin: "As he went down, I said to him, 'You are boring me now, you old bastard'."

Sir Colin, who played 55 tests, said he ranked Sir Fred as his best All Black coach.

He also recalled a meeting with the Queen Mother during the 1963 tour of Britain. Players met her at her home, Clarence House, where she appeared with two corgis.

The King Country farmer raised an eyebrow. "I thought to myself - dogs in the house?"

Besides Sir Fred, former All Blacks Waka Nathan, Ian Kirkpatrick, Alex Wyllie, Ian Jones, Laurie Mains and Bunce were in the SkyCity audience.

Of the modern game, Sir Colin said he missed rucking, but the All Blacks' defeat of the Springboks at Eden Park in July was the best he had seen in 30 years.