Bryan Craies (left) with then Barbarians president Mike Mills in 2014. Photo / Supplied
Bryan Craies (left) with then Barbarians president Mike Mills in 2014. Photo / Supplied
OPINION:
Bryan Craies, who coached Auckland to a Ranfurly Shield victory in 1979 was one of the most wonderfully outspoken men rugby has ever seen. He died this month, aged 85.
After the 1979 Shield win over Northland, and a breath-taking defence against Counties at a sold-out Eden Park, Craieswas told by a high-ranking NZRU official he could work his way to an All Black position, if he "kept his cool" and took a place on the North Island selection panel.
Craies' reply? "Well, thank you very much. Thank you, very, very much. That's just what I'd like to do in my weekends. Get on a Fokker Friendship and fly all around the North Island for 10 years. Perhaps you don't realise, but there are guys called coaches who can get out there with their boots on and actually run things. I'd rather be a coach."
The official backed off saying: "I'd heard you were an awkward bugger." The NZRU never came calling again.
As a player, Craies was a very astute, very quick halfback, who only played 11 games for Auckland from 1961 because he was competing for an Auckland spot against the great Australian Des Connor, who came to New Zealand in 1960, and was an All Black the following year.
Like all good halfbacks, Craies was a high-decibel, relentless talker on the field – and he didn't turn down the volume as a coach.
Players responded to him because as well as passion he had a keen sense of humour, not least about himself. When he coached the Auckland second XV for an unbeaten four seasons until 1977, he mocked anti-Auckland sentiment by outfitting the whole side with T-shirts with the slogan "Queen Street Yanks" across the chest.
Bryan Craies (right) and Garry Allen (centre), former Waitemata halfbacks, with Josh Duffin at the Barbarian Rugby Football Club clubrooms at Eden Park in 2017. Photo / Supplied
In 1980, at a time when journalists were regarded by most coaches as potential spies, he allowed me to tape his Auckland team talk before a Ranfurly Shield challenge from King Country.
At the Mt Roskill Rugby Football Club, he burned with the fervour of a Mississippi revivalist preacher.
"King Country are playing for the greatest day in their history. So, you don't expect them to come up here and shag around, DO YA? Colin Meads (the King Country coach) says they don't have any chance. That's an insult. It is to me, and you should take it as an insult that he thinks he can bull**** you through the paper.
"People criticise us all the time. I want you to go out there and shove it to them the only way we can, and that's to bloody well annihilate King Country!"
King Country were duly well beaten, 29-3, and Craies' talk, recorded on a cassette machine, would get a second chance to inspire when in 1985 Downstage Theatre in Wellington would stage "Foreskin's Lament", a hugely successful, groundbreaking play by Greg McGee.
McGee, who had played for the Junior All Blacks, knew that the team talks by rugby coach, Tupper, in the play weren't exaggerated. But the Wellington actors were restive. Nobody in real life, they believed, would express himself so vehemently.
I loaned McGee the Craies tape. It was played to the Downstage troupe. Some, I was told, turned ashen as the speech roared out. But there were no more issues with the veracity of Tupper's approach.
There was a lot to like about Bryan Craies, and loyalty to his players was deeply ingrained in him. Who knows how far he could have gone if he had toed the party line more?
But in 1980, he explained to me why he wouldn't run from controversy. "A lot of coaches are worried that if they open their mouths they'll get into trouble. I've fought up from the bottom, and I've had my trap open the whole time. If I see my Auckland players suffering and not getting into the All Blacks, I've got to fight for them."
