'Old-fashioned rugby bloke' kept ethics to fore

By DON CAMERON

Russ Thomas, the former Rugby Union leader who died suddenly while on a business trip to Sydney on Friday, was one of the sport's last old-fashioned administrators.

Thomas, aged 73, finished his long career in rugby administration with a senior post on the International Rugby Board and a leading role with the 1991 World Cup organising committee.

Previously, Thomas had risen through the ranks of the Canterbury union to the council of the New Zealand Rugby Football Union, to chairmanship of the council and to life membership of both the Canterbury and national unions.

Ron Don, the Aucklander who reached the NZRFU council and became a national life member last year, yesterday recalled Thomas as "one of the really hard workers for rugby, and a good bloke."

Thomas' rugby career occupied much of his time, even while he was reaching a senior position in the Foodstuffs organisation.

Brought up in a Christchurch family led by a father who believed in rather muscular Christianity, Thomas knitted a strong ethical line into his enthusiasm for the game.

He was chastened during his management of the 1978 All Blacks that he allowed Andy Haden's "dive" against Wales and John Ashworth's attack on J.P.R. Williams to be pushed to one side - even when faced by bitter English newspaper criticism.

In the following year, again as All Black manager in Britain, Thomas showed he had learned the lesson when he revealed all the facts about Brian Ford, the Marlborough wing, being found guilty of disturbing the peace at Edinburgh.

Thomas resisted strong moves to have Ford sent home. The matter had been dealt with.

In his later years with the NZRFU, Thomas became disenchanted with some modern rugby trends, especially the intrusion of legal leverage that stopped the 1985 All Black tour of South Africa, and the need for high-paid lawyers on both sides when the rebel Cavaliers (far outside the scope of Thomas' rugby ethics) toured the republic in 1986.

The economy with the truth that accompanied the Cavaliers' tour did not sit easily with Thomas, nor did the sudden revolt that moved Eddie Tonks into Thomas' seat as the national council chairman.

It was typical, too, of Thomas' forthright attitude - and faith in the good offices of rugby men - that he did not take the advice of a senior councillor who suggested he should step down before the opposition struck.

In and out of office, Thomas maintained his faith that rugby was the greatest of games and that the real rugby men were the salt of the sporting earth.

Men of Thomas' stature and enthusiasm and commonsense and love for the game built this faith over the decades.

He was, as Ron Don said yesterday, "a good rugby bloke."