Dialogue: Coast rugby's living saint will be with them in spirit

As East Coast prepare for the NPC second division final, Sir TERRY McLEAN remembers the woman who helped to keep the union on the map.

At this important moment in New Zealand rugby history, that hackneyed statement about a good woman standing behind every successful man bears a variation - behind a successful second division team in the NPC competition stands a great woman.

As long ago as 1977 a Ruatoria woman, Kath McLean, joined forces with a chirpy Maori, Wattie Goldsmith, in running the East Coast union.

Year after year, the two of them would make the long journey to Wellington for the annual meeting of the New Zealand Rugby Union. Kath was invariably the lone woman among about 110 men from the 26 other provincial unions.

Considering that she had four sons and a daughter back home, this was a considerable burden.

Before, after and between sessions of the meeting, Kath made many friends. Big shots like Tom Morrison, Jack Sullivan and Ces Blazey were delighted to become her champions.

Once, long ago, a Wallabies team paid a visit to Ruatoria for a match. It was a honey. Every man, woman and child went crazy over the Wallabies. The Aussies, who were always the friendliest and easiest of international teams I ever travelled with, replied in kind.

The team manager, Joe French, later one of the great presidents of the Australian Rugby Union, entered the bar of the Ruatoria Hotel.

"Hey you," yelled three middle-aged Maori women indulging in a pre-lunch snifter. They could not be disobeyed.

They bought Joe a drink. He paid for a round. He would have paid for another but, no, they don't bludge on the Coast. Dutifully, he took his turn.

For the two hours or so of the match, the hotel was closed.

"Aren't you breaching the law?" I asked the owner.

"The hell with the law," said the owner. "When the Wallabies come to town, what I say goes."

All too sadly, Kath McLean will not be in Napier for the vital match with Hawkes Bay on Saturday. A diabetic, she suffered a heart attack in April.

These days she lives mainly on her own. It is not the most cheerful of lives. But, being Kath, having dealt with all those rugby problems over the years - many of them a dire shortage of cash for the union - she accepts that life is not now what it was.

"I have to accept, that I must go into a retirement village," she says. Not Gisborne. It is too hot. (And a further cause could be arguments over the years with the big shots of the Poverty Bay union.)

"I think I will go to Tauranga. One of my sons lives there and that would be a help."

One hopes that, win or lose on Saturday, the East Coast players remember their great champion.

"Joe McClutchie as coach," says Kath, "has succeeded because he has always emphasised the pride of the Ngati Porou. That's superb psychology. The one white in the team has fitted in perfectly. The boys have great pride."

Pride - and amazing success. Which might be because of Her Ladyship, Kath McLean, whose valiant work for so long for so small and isolated a union, has been rewarded with miracles - on and off the field.