Former All Blacks physio Malcolm Hood has revealed the fall-out from his legal gamesmanship in the deciding 1981 test against the Springboks at Eden Park. Photo / Michael Craig
Former All Black physiotherapist Malcolm Hood shares some remarkable stories from his long career with Neil Reid
Allan Hewson might have kicked the winning points when the All Blacks triumphed in the controversial 1981 series decider against the Springboks – but it was really the men in black's physio who the South Africans deemed public enemy No 1 after the clash.
Malcolm Hood has revealed publicly for the first time the tactical gamesmanship he employed – under the orders of captain Andy Dalton - during the second half of the Eden Park clash won 25-22 by the All Blacks which left the Springboks fuming.
The clash has since been infamously dubbed the 'Flour Bomb Test' after an anti-tour protester buzzed the ground in a light plane, dropping flour bombs, flares and anti-tour pamphlets over Eden Park.
But it was the actions of Hood which left the losing Boks furious the most, including an ugly dressing room incident. And the bitterness from the Springbok management was so strong that they ordered members of the touring team not to swap gear with their All Black counterparts.
"The Springboks believed that one man had beaten their team, which was nonsense. They put their loss down to me," Hood told the Herald.
"After all tests I would leave it a good period of time until everyone had faded away and know that the management would usually be hanging around in the changing room [and go in]. Win or lose, I would say 'Thanks guys, really appreciated the game'.
"I went in and [coach] Nellie Smith and [manager] Johan Claassen were in the room and they were just furious with me, so angry, and said 'You cheated'. I said I didn't cheat, they said I had and then told me, 'We will never speak to you again'.
"They came towards me very aggressively and I think they were actually going to do something. There was probably going to be a bit of a fight."
Hood said he believed it was only the arrival of the Springboks' assigned local baggage man which defused the situation.
"He knew something was going on and calmed things down a little bit," he said.
For 40 years just what Hood did to infuriate the Springboks has been a closely guarded secret, with the long-time physio saying just himself and Dalton were the only people in the All Black camp who knew what had happened.
When he spoke to the Herald, Hood said what he did had enabled the All Blacks – who at the time were under extreme pressure - to "change the game a little bit".
But he wouldn't elaborate further, saying the finer points would have to come from Dalton.
The former All Black captain – who is now a real estate agent based in Ruakaka – later revealed he had told Hood to take as long as possible to get off the field after treating an injured team-mate.
"I told him to take the slow way back off the paddock after he had attended a person, to give us a bit of time," Dalton said.
"The Springboks were on a bit of a roll at that stage.
"He essentially walked the width of the field, while everyone had to wait for him to get off the field. It was dreadful behaviour on his behalf," Dalton laughed, "but it served its purpose for our part."
Hood said what he did "tipped the balance of the game towards the All Blacks".
And it came at a point of the titanic match when the All Blacks needed "a little touch of divine intervention".
The All Blacks seem in control of the game at halftime.
Hood spent time with the team on the field during the halftime break, and was impressed with how the side was controlling their "slow release adrenaline" ahead of the final 40 minutes of the match.
But that evaporated in the moments before the restart when the plane – flown by anti-tour protester Marx Jones – started buzzing the ground.
"I was looking at the players, I didn't see the plane initially, and I suddenly saw the players go white. They just blanched. Then somebody said, 'It's a bomb'," Hood recalled.
"I looked up, saw the flare and everybody thought it was a bomb. I knew that our quick release adrenaline had come to the fore and super-seeded our slow release adrenaline. I just felt ill because I knew for the next 20 minutes our play, at best, would be mediocre."
Hood's fears were played out as the Springboks fought their way back.
That was until he was given the word by Dalton to walk the long way off Eden Park after checking over an injured All Blacks, a tactic which allowed the side to regain their composure.
"It was very subtle, subtle enough that I have gotten away with it for all these years . . . Andy Dalton, Nellie Smith and Johan Claassen are the only ones [that realised it]," Hood said.
"It was subtle, but it was what a game can hinge on at that level.
"It was perfectly within the rule book. But the Springboks picked up on it, they regarded it as cheating.
"I do agree that something happened in the test match that I was instrumental in participating in. But if you read your rule book, and I read my rule book inside out, upside down and every which way you could, I did nothing that wasn't in the rule book."
Unhappiness about the result – and potentially the conditions the Springboks had toured under amid large and at-times violent protests – later saw the tourists' management issuing an edict post-match that no playing gear was to be exchanged with the All Blacks.
That included Hood's pre-arranged swap of his issued All Black jersey with Springbok doctor Augie Cohen.
"The instruction went out that no, not one piece of gear gets left in New Zealand."
Hood later secured a Springbok jersey at the after match function from Springbok captain Wynand Claassen who was disappointed the physio's previous deal with Cohen had been blocked.
"Then the Doc came up and asked if I had swapped jerseys with Wynand. I didn't really reply, I was evasive, and he said quietly, 'We'll swap tracksuits, but don't tell anyone'," Hood remembered.
"I don't think any, or many, of the players got anything. To the best of my knowledge, no one [else] got anything."
A postscript to the Boks' management frustration towards Hood happened five years later when he travelled to South Africa as physio of the rebel Cavaliers rugby team.
Hood saw both Smith and Johan Claassen – who have both since died - at Pretoria's Loftus Versfeld ground early in the tour.
"I walked over with my hand extended out, said 'I am looking forward to having a good tour' and they both turned their back on me," he said.
Video nasties: Police showed showered with bags of 'fish hooks, razor blades and excrement'
The at-times shocking contents of secret police videos highlighted to Hood the perils officers in the frontline protecting the All Blacks and Springboks had placed themselves in.
In the lead-up to the dramatic third test the Springboks at Eden Park, the All Blacks and members of the travelling police contingent shared accommodation at a hotel on Auckland's North Shore.
During the stay, Hood walked in on a viewing in a hotel lounge of graphic videos showing some of the attacks on police around Lancaster Park and Athletic Park; the venues of the first and second tests.
In his tour diary, shown to the Herald, Hood wrote: "The worst part was what to me as a medical person would regard as attempted murder.
"Plastic bags filled with human excrement and razor blades were hurled at the police, not only to wound, but infect.
"While HIV and Aids were not a known problem of consequence in those days, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C were potential killers and at the [very least] would make people ill if infected."
Hood told the Herald the bags also included fish hooks mixed with human excrement, adding the idea to throw the projectiles at police was "sick".
"What on earth gets a person to do that? What sort of person calls themselves a New Zealander and does that," he said.
The Springboks' presence in New Zealand led to more than 50 days of civil unrest, with the violence levels in protests rising as the tour went on.
Both police and protesters were seriously injured in clashes around Eden Park on the day of the final test.
Earlier, New Zealand Rugby Football Union officials, including chairman Ces Blazey, had infuriated the anti-tour movement by issuing their invitation for the Springboks to tour here in late 1980, and then refusing to retract that invite in the months that followed amid growing opposition.
More than 40 years on, Hood said rugby's powerbrokers were never going to buckle to the pressure from those opposed to the tour.
"The people who were making the decisions in New Zealand both at a political level and a rugby union level whether the tour should go ahead, or not, were nearly all World War II veterans," he said.
"And what did they fight for? They put their lives on the line so we had the freedom to choose and the right to have people visit our country, and leave our country."
Hood also revealed his involvement with the All Blacks in 1981 resulted in him losing referrals for customers seeking physiotherapy treatment.
At the time of the tour, New Zealanders had to be referred to a physio to gain specialist treatment.
"In 1981 one of the doctors rang me up – and in those days we had our patients referred to us – and said, 'If you go on, I will not send you another patient'," Hood said.
"They were economically trying to blackmail me. That was an apparently sane and sound New Zealander."
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