Bowls: All Blacks take to greens

By LINDSAY KNIGHT

Unlike their soldier counterparts, old rugby players don't just fade away. Instead many reinvent themselves as lawn bowlers, some of them becoming extremely competitive.

Take this week's special bowls tournaments for rugby personalities at the Mt Maunganui club. Started 12 years ago by a club member and 1949-50 All Black wing Peter Henderson, the tournament had 42 teams of fours.

A quick skim around the Mt Maunganui greens revealed a who's who of New Zealand rugby, including true legends of the game such as Bob Scott, Fred Allen, Kevin Skinner and Colin Meads.

And there were other All Blacks of renown: Neil Wolfe and Adrian Clarke, who played in the same four as another first five-eighths Ross Brown. Others who wore the black jersey included Pat Walsh, Snow White, Bruce Watt, Barry Thomas, Keith Nelson, Henderson and Percy Tetzlaff.

There were several others distinguished at provincial representative levels, along with former referees, coaches and administrators.

Of all the teams, perhaps the one evoking the most nostalgia was that of George Nola, Jim Graham, Bryce Cowley and Jack Bullick. All four played together in the Waikato Ranfurly Shield teams of 1951-53, and most memorably in the famous win against the Springboks in 1956.

Nola now helps organise the tournament and says it is a special thrill to be able to play sport with his mates half a century after they were in their rugby heyday.

Scott, Meads and all of the legendary players echo Nolas' feeling that the bowls tournament mirrors the best values of rugby before the takeover of professionalism.

Meads said: "This is what rugby used to be like and it is like the times when there used to be an aftermatch function and before players were told they couldn't have a drink because they had another important game next week."

The most damning comment came from Scott, the great fullback of the 1940s and 50s, who said he had no doubt that in the professional era rugby had lost too much.

"I'm not just talking as an oldster living in the past," he said. "It should be obvious to anyone that they have let the old competitive structures fall over. Good club and provincial competitions were what made New Zealand rugby."

And champion as he was as a rugby player, Scott rates bowls - which he took up 20 years ago and in which he was a Thames Valley junior representative and in fours a centre champion - a tougher game to play.

"I also played golf for many years and played off scratch and was in two New Zealand Opens, but bowls is the hardest sport I've played by far.

"It is a test physically and mentally, but especially mentally. You have to concentrate on every bowl, not just your own but if you're the skip the bowls of everyone else."

Scott was a sentimental favourite to win the tournament because Thursday - appropriately enough, he jokes, a day when everyone is given a holiday - was his 82nd birthday.

The Scott four were highly competitive but a 9-8 loss in one of their post section matches, their only setback in eight games, meant they finished a close third on a countback of ends with first place going to a Walton four skipped by former Auckland union administrator Ewan Hope.

Meanwhile, Meads was in a four containing some of his old King Country mates, which vied for the honour of having played the most bowls.

A newcomer to the game, Meads confirmed that it had been much more frustrating than trying to snaffle lineout ball.

"I started like a rocket but as the day got longer and hotter I got worse and worse and more and more bowls started going in the ditch," he said.