KEY POINTS:
He was known never to shy away from confrontation on the field, but ask All Black great Colin Meads about rugby trivia and you might see the back of him.
"I'm pretty bloody hopeless, to be honest - I can't even remember half of the games when I
was playing, so I don't know how good I'll be with these questions ... Some of the questions are so hard, and you'd need to be a bit of a rugby nerd," he said.
The All Black legend was in Auckland on Thursday for the regional finals of the Heineken Rugby World Cup trivia series, contested by 20 pub teams from Taupo to Northland.
The competition has seen more than 3500 players from teams throughout the country pit their Rugby World Cup knowledge against each other to win a trip for four to the final of this year's tournament in France.
Meads was a "ring-in" for a group representing central Auckland bar the Bluestone Room, helping out on some of the evening's more gnarly questions, such as "what country was Japan representative Bruce Fergusson born in?"
The answer: Fiji, correctly picked by Meads.
"Colin came through for us on that one. He's a pretty humble sort of guy and knows a lot more than he makes out ... He's a legend," said Gendy Smith, one of the Bluestone team.
Meads, a former All Black manager, said there was no need for the All Blacks to push the panic button following their 20-15 loss against the Wallabies last week.
But the 71-year-old had some words of wisdom for the All Black management: "I think the whole management have to take a look at themselves. We replaced four players just after half time and the four that came off were shaking each others' hands and laughing. To me, that was overconfidence."
"They just thought they had the game won at halftime and were a bit cocky."
In between seemingly dozens of handshakes and photographs with fans, Meads said the reconditioned All Blacks had "still not hit their straps" but felt things should come right for the World Cup.
"I'm an old rugby player and put it this way: it didn't happen like that in our day. Mind you, we didn't have the long season like they do these days.
"Then again, Australia had no reconditioning, and look how well they did."
Despite his concerns over injuries and the locking and centre positions, he expects the All Blacks to win the World Cup after four failed attempts since the inaugural 1987 tournament.
"I think we're always the favourites going into the World Cup and will be the favourites again this year.
"But it's time the favourites came home. It's time it came back, and I'm sure that if we get all the injuries right we'll be okay."
