A privileged tale to tell: The last remaining All Black beaten by Wales

Enjoying a catch-up at the Marist Rugby Club centenary celebrations are former player, coach and All Black Bill McCaw (93, left) and former Marist player Tony Fahey (88). Photo / Karen Pasco.

Fair to say that the 1953 test between the All Blacks and Wales is not Bill McCaw's favourite topic of conversation.

And yet, as the last remaining All Black of what has become an historic game, he also feels privileged in still being able to tell the tale.

Wales won that day by 13-8, their third victory in the first four meetings between the countries.

But a very promising start to the growing rivalry has taken a long Welsh turn for the worse.

In one of sport's most famous bad streaks, they have lost 31 straight over 68 years.

This leaves Courtenay Meredith, a prop in that 1953 win, as the only player alive to have beaten the All Blacks wearing Welsh colours.

The 94-year-old McCaw, the old Southland loose forward, lives in a Christchurch retirement home.

After taking NZME's phone call McCaw adjusts his hearing aids, ensures the tour diary he filled out every day is at hand, and starts clicking the memory into gear.

"I suppose I feel pretty honoured to still be alive, to be able to talk about it," he says.

"It's not such a good thing carrying that 'honour' of being in that team to lose to Wales - you can't get that one off your back. But it's still a big item of rugby history, isn't it?

"We always like to think we struck the Welsh at a time when they were at their peak with players like Bleddyn Williams and Ken Jones, and they had some pretty notable forwards too.

"Yes, it always gets thrown up at you - 'you were in that team which lost to Wales'. I just ignore it."

The game was ultimately decided by a speculative kick from Welsh forward Clem Thomas which Ken Jones - an Olympic sprinter - pounced on to score, the most famous moment in the flying wing's illustrious test rugby career.

McCaw says: "I can still picture this - the forward was on the sideline, he looked a bit confused about what to do, and he put in a cross kick.

"Jones and (All Black wing) Ron Jarden converged, and it bounced perfectly for Jones.

"We were very unlucky to lose. The first half was more or less even, with us leading 8 - 5 at halftime.

"We did everything but score in the first 25 minutes of the second half, then came the Welsh penalty under the posts for supposed interference by Bill Clark while he was on the ground.

"Wales were only in our territory four or five times in the second half. It was very bad luck. The Jones try was the difference."

As his diary attests, the famous Welsh singing was a highlight, although an entry also notes the crowd was often quiet during the game.

"Great crowds line the street all the way to the ground. Packed to capacity with over 56,000. Atmosphere very tense. The pre-game singing was beautiful," his diary records.

McCaw says he never misses an All Black test thanks to the record button, and is pretty handy with the internet. This is a world away from the 1950s.

That northern tour was the first time he had seen television, and two days after the Cardiff test the team watched a TV replay which he says confirmed how unlucky they had been to lose.

The tour experiences included a trip to White Hart Lane on Christmas Day, a week after the test loss, to watch an English first division football game between Tottenham Hotspur and Portsmouth.

The All Blacks had been due to meet the Queen - who was crowned only months earlier - but a delay caused by fog at the London airport scuppered that. They did, however, meet the great Irish statesman and leader Eamon de Valera.

Meanwhile the 95-year-old Meredith, a famously destructive scrummager, lives in the Welsh seaside town of Porthcawl.

Meredith played for Neath, a club known as the 'Welsh All Blacks' because of their black strip, although other historical reasons such as their vigorous forward play have been offered up.

Neath rugby historian Mike Price says: "Courtenay Meredith is probably too modest to realise it but he is a legend here where he is still spoken of in revered tones by players, older supporters and those aware of the club's great forward tradition."

Price recalls Meredith attending the funeral of a former captain at the Neath club, but in 2018 the veteran British rugby writer Peter Jackson portrayed a man not known for great social interaction anymore.

"His memories of that famous day would be worth recounting but whatever his thoughts, Meredith is keeping them to himself," Jackson wrote.

"He has kept not so much a low profile but a subterranean one."

At a rare public sighting during a function at the Cardiff Stadium, Jackson says Meredith told reporters "I don't do interviews."

If that is so, then McCaw presents a delightful contrast happy to talk past and present.

He avidly follows the game and his son John, who played for Canterbury, has recently been a Northland development coach.

That 1953/54 All Black test side contained famous forebearers.

Brian Fitzpatrick's son Sean became an All Black captain and legend as did Nelson Dalzell's grandson Sam Whitelock, who leads the side against Wales on Sunday morning.

Naturally, Bill McCaw has often been asked if he is related to a certain Richie McCaw.

"I tell people look, I'm not related to Richie, but I was the first McCaw All Black," he chuckles.

"On my 90th birthday, my family took me out for a helicopter ride and of course who was the pilot but Richie.

Former All Black captain Ritchie McCaw and former All Black Bill McCaw after Bill was taken for a helicopter ride on his 90th birthday. Photo / Peter Maynard.

"We all enjoyed it and he is such an easy guy to talk to, very down to earth. We didn't get into match specifics at all - his record is too overwhelming."

McCaw says the only other surviving squad member from the 1953/54 tour, the Manawatu wing Stu Freebairn, is great at keeping in contact.

And famous old names still swirl in McCaw's thinking.

He recalls that 1953 Welsh captain Williams and speedster Jones accepted invitations to join a 1953/54 All Black reunion in Auckland.

"All those great names still come forward in my mind. All Blacks like Kevin Skinner, Tiny White…they all resound in my memory," he says.

Fate is a fickle business, as they say, and Bill McCaw can rejoice in his.

One of his loose forward opponents in that December 1953 test was Sid Judd, also a schoolteacher, who scored the first Welsh try. Leukemia claimed Judd's life just five years later, at the age of 30.