Craig Wickes appeared destined for greatness after helping Manawatū win the NPC and making his All Blacks debut in 1980, aged just 18. Then almost as quickly, he disappeared. This is the remarkable story of the only schoolboy All Black.
Craig Wickes was asleep in sixth-form economics when he got the news.
Sitting at the back of room 7E at Palmerston North Boys’ High School, Wickes was woken by his teacher. There are some reporters here to see you, the sleepy student was told. Wickes wandered out of the classroom and heard the words that should have changed his life.
“I’d been playing so much, I was knackered,” he says now. “I was still half dozy. Then they said, ‘So what do you think about making the All Blacks?’ I didn’t really know what to say ... my head was spinning. But I’m sure I came up with something; I’d done a few interviews by then.”
The microphones were packed away, and Wickes went back to class. After lunch, he had maths and English, then walked home, wondering what his parents would think.
“I was in a daze. I’d always wanted to be an AB as a kid. So it’s hard to think, ‘Bloody hell, I could be.’ It’s something you aim for, but in my circumstances, it came quickly.
“In the back of your mind, you’re thinking, ‘Geez, I don’t know if I’m worthy of it, I hope I don’t let everybody down.’ But everyone reassures you, ‘They wouldn’t have picked you if they didn’t think you could do the job.’”
Forty-five years ago, 18-year-old Craig David Wickes ran on to Eden Park against Fiji for his All Blacks debut. More than 1200 men have worn the silver fern since 1884, but Wickes remains the only one picked while still at school.
“It was huge, a massive deal at school,” says former Manawatū and All Blacks fullback Mark Finlay. “I sat next to him that year. I distinctly remember that week, because he wasn’t there. He was training with the All Blacks. But he was away a lot that year.
“He was a shooting star that burned very strongly for a short period of time. He was there – then he was gone. But he was pretty special. He’s a modest man, won’t give a lot away, but he was one hell of a player. Physically, more than anything; he was tough and just sheer pace. He was incredibly quick, electric off the mark and could finish it off.”
Finlay remembers watching his classmate win a secondary schools 100m race on a soft grass track.
“He ran it in 10.9 seconds. He won by 15 metres.”
Wickes was the star of the Palmerston North Boys’ High 1st XV in 1980, but did so much more. As well as his All Blacks appearance on the wing, he was a regular in a triumphant Manawatū team, represented New Zealand Secondary Schools, toured Australia with the New Zealand Colts and made the North Island team, replacing an injured Stu Wilson.
“He was quite a big boy, well built, good set of legs on him, but he was just too good,” says former Manawatū teammate and All Black Mark Shaw. “It was all very well being 17, but no bastard could catch him or lay a hand on him. He was an outstanding, skilful boy.”
‘Playing with your heroes’
Wickes was first noticed early in 1979. Word had got around Palmerston North about a speedster in the 1st XV backline, as the team enjoyed wins over traditional rivals such as St Pat’s Silverstream and Napier Boys.
“Someone told me he was pretty promising,” says former Manawatū coach Graham Hamer. “So I went to see him play. I actually wanted a winger at the time, and he was playing centre.”
On the sideline, Hamer chatted to Ian Colquhoun, a legendary figure who coached the Palmerston North Boys’ High 1st XV for a quarter of a century.
“Coke [Colquhoun] assured me he could play on the wing,” says Hamer. “He had that speed. He was sturdily built, like his father, and I thought you don’t put a young skinny fella out there in first division, but he can take it.”
Manawatū were a provincial powerhouse. They had a famous 13-game Ranfurly Shield reign during 1976-78 and boasted plenty of All Blacks, including Shaw, Mark Donaldson, Gary Knight, Frank Oliver, Doug Rollerson and Geoff Old.
So Wickes was feeling apprehensive when he turned up to training in his school uniform, with a duffel bag over his shoulder.
“I came to 1st XV training one day and they told me I was joining the Manawatū squad,” says Wickes. “One minute, you’re at school, next minute, you’re playing with your heroes. It was an eye-opener.
“But you just went along with it, caught up in it. You’re a kid, and you can’t comprehend you’re playing with these jokers. Looking back, I hadn’t played club rugby, I hadn’t played anything, but you just go with the flow.”
Donaldson was Manawatū captain. Nicknamed Bullet for the velocity of his pass, the halfback was at the peak of his powers. Five years earlier, he had cut short his OE in Europe after attending a test at Cardiff Arms Park between Wales and Australia.
“Seeing them up close, I decided that level was possible for me,” says Donaldson. “I flew home to make a go of it.”
He made his test debut in 1977 and was part of Graham Mourie’s Grand Slam team a year later. He was the All Blacks incumbent, the dominant figure in Manawatū rugby, and didn’t suffer fools.
“[Craig] was quite shy, as you would be as a schoolboy coming into a very strong provincial side,” says Donaldson. “He played well above his years and I didn’t ever feel he needed looking after. He fronted, and it was like he’d always been there. He gained our confidence pretty damned quickly.”
The beginning
Wickes grew up in Bay of Plenty, before the family moved to Palmerston North when he was 11. He walked through the doors at Boys’ High in 1975 and made an early impression, but not just in rugby.
“He was a well-developed young man, a very good athlete,” says former teacher Alec Astle, who coached cricket, including the 1st XI. “He could run and had a bullet throw. Most kids in third form couldn’t get it from the boundary to the stumps. He would rocket it.”
In athletics, he came under the wing of Robin “Digger” Doyle, a long-serving track coach, and won a national title in the 4x100m relay.
“We did athletics all summer,” says Wickes. “Because rugby didn’t start until Easter.”
Wickes made his 1st XV debut in 1978, coming to the fore the following year. By this stage, Colquhoun had coached the team for a staggering 23 years (he stepped down in 1984) and was a famously hard man.
He once put his squad into a rowing eight, figuring it would be useful pre-season training, and they won the Maadi Cup. Praise was hard won, but his sentiments about Wickes were clear.
“In speed and acceleration, superb,” wrote Colquhoun in the school’s 1979 yearbook. “In the side tackle, there is power. There’s no better sight than Craig thrusting the gap and running free the man outside.”
In 1979, Wickes made his Manawatū debut, scoring a try with his first touch against Horowhenua, and was selected for the New Zealand Secondary Schools team to face England. He was also part of the Central Region team that beat that English side 12-6 at Athletic Park, along with school teammates Dean Kenny (a 1986 All Black) and six-test cricketer Derek Stirling.
A busy year was completed with the Boys’ High 1st XV’s 10-match, 45-day world tour. Believed to be the first of its kind by a New Zealand school, they played in Singapore, Paris, London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Washington and Vancouver, emerging unbeaten.
‘Fit, young and stupid’
Wickes already had a lot of experience, but no one could have predicted what would unfold in 1980. It was a frantically busy year; one weekend in May, he played three matches in three days for his school and Manawatū.
“You were fit, you were young, you were stupid,” says Wickes with a laugh. “Nowadays, they would never let it happen. But that’s what you did.”
Palmerston North Boys’ High won 10 of 11 inter-school matches (Wickes was missing for their only loss, to Te Aute College) and also competed in the Manawatū under-21 competition. Aside from Wickes, that team featured Finlay and future Kiwis and Widnes second rower Emosi Koloto.
The prospect
Manawatū opened their 1980 season against Wanganui before a trip to Eden Park. Ahead of just his third game in green and white, Wickes was fretting about his legendary opponent.
“I was marking Bryan Williams. I was thinking, ‘Holy shit’. In the changing sheds, Frank Oliver said to me, ‘Wickesy, don’t look at his thighs. His ankles are the same size as yours.’ I thought, ‘It’s all right for you to say.’”
At that time, only Colin Meads (133) had appeared more times for the All Blacks than Williams’ 113 games, which included 38 tests, bettered only by Meads (55) and Ian Kirkpatrick (39). His 66 All Blacks tries were also a record.
“Beegee was a schoolboy hero of everyone in our day. He was the man. In the end, I ended up marking Gary Cunningham. He was a current All Black and I was relieved. Not saying Gary was any easier, it was just a big relief.”
A Doug Rollerson try gave Manawatū a 4-3 victory, before they faced national champions Counties at Pukekohe three days later. The match, broadcast on TV1, was a thriller, with the visitors prevailing 21-19 in a spectacular contest, hailed as the game of the season.
It was also the moment Wickes came to national prominence. He scored a slashing try, beating fullback Duncan Yates on the outside with a swerve and turn of pace, and was involved heavily throughout, saving two tries with important tackles.
“Manawatū could soon have another young All Black,” wrote Roy Williams in the Auckland Star. “Against Counties, he certainly showed as much class as any winger at the recent All Black trial in Hamilton.”
Williams described him as “strongly built” (he was 84kg) and pointed out that, “unlike many wingers, including some recent All Blacks, he’s not afraid to use that weight on defence. He is a fearless tackler”.
New Zealand Māori legend Albie Pryor predicted in the Sunday News that Wickes “will be one of the most important discoveries of the season”, while Grahame Thorne described him as an “up-and-coming All Black” in another newspaper column.
In the Manawatu Evening Standard, Colquhoun described his 1st XV protege as “the fastest ball carrier in the country today”. It also helped that All Blacks selectors Bryce Rope, Peter Burke and Eric Watson were at the match in Pukekohe.
Keith Quinn was commentating for TVNZ at a time when the weekly televised match was a closely guarded secret.
“I would be at the airport on Saturday morning and people would ask, ‘Where are you going, Keith?’ and I would say, ‘I can’t say.’”
He remembers Wickes as a “real prospect”.
“He was a really good story back then. He was burly as a winger and he used that to his advantage. Manawatū was really strong then and he was there ... but tragically, not for very long.”
Wickes was selected for the next game – a 15-9 defeat to Wellington, their only loss of the season – and had become one of the first on the team sheet.
“You don’t know if you can handle the level, but I thought I’ll do my best, and if it’s good enough, they’ll keep picking me,” says Wickes. “But you’re nervous running out against men, hoping you don’t let anybody down. It was a tough team. They trained hard, played hard. There was no love at training.”
The Manawatū team included seven All Blacks, a daunting prospect for a schoolboy.
“It was a big step, but there was no problem whatsoever from what I can remember,” says Hamer. “And once he was out on the field, he just shone. The other guys accepted him because he performed well.
“I brought in young guys if I felt they could handle it, if they had it up top. I’d have a few words to him on a Thursday night, who he was up against. There was never any time he let me down.”
Others had noticed. A few months past his 18th birthday, having played just four first-class matches, Wickes was selected for the New Zealand Colts side to tour Australia.
The team photo is a reminder of that side’s quality. Wickes stands beside Kieran Crowley and Victor Simpson in the second row. Robbie Deans, Gary Whetton and Alan Whetton are in the back row, while Warwick Taylor and captain Albert Anderson are at the front.
Wickes was one of only four 18-year-olds in the 21-man squad (and the only school student), but the biggest of the backs, at 1.81m and 84kg. The Colts trumped an ACT selection featuring David Campese (Wickes scored a try) before an impressive 10-8 victory against the Australian under-21s (with Gary and Glen Ella) at the Sydney Cricket Ground in the curtain-raiser to the third Bledisloe Cup test.
Lunchtime legend
Wickes then returned to school, where he was becoming a lunchtime legend.
“I really looked up to him,” says 1st XV teammate Finlay. “I remember going to see him play [for Manawatū] and thinking how amazing it was.”
Finlay and his friends would sit on the bank at Showgrounds Oval, cheering their classmate in the No 14 jersey.
“We all went, we all watched. He was a bit of a legend. Right through the town, he was. He was given free membership to a local gym, which was a big thing, but he only went along for a sauna. Coming out of the Shield era, Manawatū was the focus of the community. So the star player of the school being picked for them was big news.”
However, not everyone was enamoured with his success.
“Some teachers treated me badly, as strange as it sounds,” says Wickes. “They used to play rugby themselves, and next minute, I’m in the Manawatū side. It was like, ‘You’re just a kid, what are you doing up there?’”
In early August, Manawatū headed south for three games in eight days, in Invercargill, Dunedin and Timaru.
It was a first taste of life on the road at provincial level. There may have been a few beers “here and there”, but Manawatū hooker Bruce Hemara, who made three appearances for the All Blacks in 1985, says they were careful not to expose the teenager.
“He kept away from that stuff,” says Hemara. “His focus was to train and play. He had his schoolmates to socialise with, so didn’t really socialise with the players. He was basically early nights.”
Shaw remembers Wickes fondly but says there was a strict hierarchy within the Manawatū team.
“He was just one of the boys. But he never got down the back seat [of the bus] ... I know that. He would have got a bleeding nose if he’d tried that bloody nonsense. He was up the front with the scarf-draggers.”
Manawatū won all three tour matches, including a last-minute win over Southland, before returning home to face North Auckland, where Wickes marked All Black Fred Woodman, with his brother (and fellow national representative) Kawhena on the opposite flank.
Another flashpoint for Wickes came a week later against Canterbury. Manawatū were top of the national championship, but any slip-ups would see Wellington overtake them. The red and blacks, with Wayne Smith, Victor Simpson, Jock Hobbs and John Ashworth, were a formidable team, but Wickes had one of his best games.
“He ran around Robbie Deans, gassed him on the outside for a try,” says Hemara. “It was a sight to behold ... left him grasping at thin air.”
That try, for which Wickes beat three would-be tacklers, took Manawatū into a lead they never gave up, winning 19-10.
“I got into Wickesy before the game and he really gave me the goods,” Hamer told media after the match.
The call-up
In a short space of time, Wickes had blazed a remarkable trail from virtual unknown to one of the most talked-about young players in the country. That was confirmed with his All Blacks selection to face Fiji at Eden Park. Most players who had toured Australia that year were rested, but it was still a strong team.
Mourie was captain and had Frank Oliver, Andy Dalton and Geoff Old beside him in the pack, while Bill Osborne, Doug Rollerson, Jamie Salmon and Mark Donaldson were among the backs. Wickes will never forget his teacher waking him in that economics class on the morning he was selected.
“I’d played two games that weekend and I was knackered,” he says. “The teacher woke me up and said, ‘Some reporters want to talk to you.’ And I was going, ‘Oh okay.’”
He left the room for some photos in his school blazer and a couple of interviews, while his classmates tried to focus on the lesson.
“He got called out of class and we all gave him a round of applause,” says Finlay. “He was really modest, quite shy. He didn’t really like all that attention; he liked to fly under the radar.”
Correspondence flooded into the Wickes household, including a telegram from local MP Michael Cox – “Well done. Play hard” – and a letter from former All Black (and captain) Rod McKenzie.
“It gives me great pleasure to congratulate you,” wrote McKenzie, who played 35 games for New Zealand from 1934-38 before serving in World War II. “I trust you keep free of injuries, and I am sure you will uphold the good game of rugby for New Zealand for many years to come.”
‘Meteoric rise’
Wickes travelled to Auckland on the Tuesday before the Fiji match. The team stayed at the Barry Court Motel in Parnell, and the letter of selection reminded players to bring training gear, road shoes and match boots.
The squad received a daily allowance of $11.50, while those who had driven to Auckland were entitled to reimbursement at 18c per kilometre.
“There were familiar faces,” says Wickes. “It wasn’t like I was just chucked in.”
Donaldson, with 30 games (including 13 tests), was one of the senior men.
“He was thoroughly deserving,” says Donaldson. “I don’t think there was any doubt he was the rising star. No one questioned his selection.”
“There were some reasonable outside backs around, but he was just so outstanding,” says Finlay. “They were taking a punt, but his attacking potential was so extreme, they couldn’t ignore it.”
The days in camp were a blur for Wickes, before an unusual incident the morning of the match.
“My boots had fallen apart,” he says. “They got someone to glue them back together for me. Apart from that, it was more intense, but still just rugby as usual. Obviously, expectations are higher.”
Still, it was a lump-in-the-throat moment when he pulled on the black jersey.
“It was a special feeling. You hear the crowd and you go, ‘Man, it’s the All Blacks.’”
Wickes was listed at No 18 in the match programme, which featured ads for Old Spice, DB, the National Bank (promoting its new chequebooks for left-handed customers) and Caltex’s downtown service station, open 24 hours “regardless of petrol restrictions”.
The profile noted his “meteoric rise over the last year”. He was described as a “dynamic tackler, strong and fast runner [who] looms as an outstanding future prospect”.
It added that his track times ranked him alongside Fred Woodman and Paul Reilly (Counties) as the fastest players in the country. Wickes sat in the main grandstand (seat 8, row G) until being summoned just after the hour mark when Ken Taylor was injured. The 18-year-old was straight into the action, as Donaldson called a blindside move.
“I would give the winger a look before I put the ball in the scrum, and if they were awake to it and alert, I’d have a go,” says Donaldson. “And I could give the ball pretty flat. Oh yeah, he’s awake to it ... bang.”
Wickes was strong defensively, but play didn’t really come his way on a sodden Eden Park.
“He had a few runs, made a couple of good tackles,” says Finlay. “But it wasn’t really a day for outside backs.”
But Wickes has special memories.
“It was a great feeling being out there. Just getting on the field for the All Blacks was brilliant. It was a shame it wasn’t longer, but I wasn’t thinking about that at the time. I figured there would be another chance.”
The All Blacks won 33-0 and, on Sunday morning, Wickes flew back to Palmerston North with the Manawatū contingent. A few hours later, they were running out to face Hawke’s Bay.
Wickes was superb, scoring two tries as the NPC leaders ran out 43-23 winners. He was back in class on Monday, after a head-turning week.
“I didn’t think I was any different, but obviously people think you are once you put the All Black jersey on,” he says. “Let’s put it this way, you had a lot of friends afterwards. But I was way behind. I’d missed a lot of school and they put on an extra teacher to help me get up to date.”
Wickes scored the first try in a convincing 41-9 win over Bay of Plenty the following week, which sealed the first division championship, the only one in Manawatū’s history.
The Palmerston North Boys’ High team also enjoyed a successful season, winning all but two games, but rued the absence of Wickes on occasions because of his representative duties.
“He was that good,” says Finlay. “With him playing, we had the most lethal backline in the country, and when he wasn’t there, we were pretty ordinary. He made that much difference.”
“Craig slyly whipped his way from school to top rugby selection,” concluded Colquhoun in the 1980 school yearbook. “All respected his modesty, knowing well this speedster had achieved a youngster’s dream. Between big games, he never missed a school practice – the less staunch would have found ‘the big time’ enough. The team were proud of Craig as a person and a player.”
1981: Season of troubles
Wickes’ 1981 season was fragmented by injuries. But he was selected for the All Blacks trial in Wellington, in the Possibles team that stayed at the Blue Heron Motel in Porirua. Triallists had to undertake a fitness assessment, including a 12-minute run and shuttle, and received a daily allowance of $4.
Wickes also made the New Zealand Colts alongside Kieran Crowley, Arthur Stone, Warwick Taylor and Rod Latham. They faced Australia at Eden Park, with David Campese and Gary Ella among those in green and gold, while the curtain-raiser between Ponsonby and North Shore featured Wayne Shelford, Joe Stanley and Peter Fatialofa.
Shoulder and knee issues restricted his provincial season, though he took the field against the touring Springboks. Wickes remembers phone calls to the house, with his parents told he shouldn’t be allowed to play against the apartheid-era South Africans.
“The family got so many threats,” he says.
Another flashpoint came in a 36-7 win over Waikato, with Wickes on the end of some 1980s-style rucking by legendary hardman Miah Melsom, with his head split open.
“That Miah Melsom got hold of him and roughed him up a bit,” says Shaw. “I can remember we all lined up that Melsom ... I think you’ll find he went off on a bloody stretcher. We had to get rid of that bastard.”
Later in the season, Wickes and Frank Oliver were invited to play in a memorial match on the Sunshine Coast, in honour of a player who had died from a rugby injury. Playing for a Sunshine Coast Invitation XV, Wickes faced Brendon Moon, Andrew Slack, Michael O’Connor and Roger Gould in the Queensland team.
The injury
The course of Wickes’ career changed dramatically during a pre-season game in 1982, as he felt his right leg give way under a tackle.
“That was the start of something rotten for me. But I didn’t know it at the time.”
Wickes had torn his anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments. It was a similar injury to the one Michael Jones would suffer in 1989, but in 1982, surgical procedures were less advanced. The operation wasn’t a success.
“They opened the knee right up, with screws and bolts, and he never ever came back,” says Finlay. “It was just a mess. Not only did the procedure not go well, but everything that happened after it.”
Heat treatment during rehabilitation caused another adverse reaction.
“Things weren’t communicated properly between doctors, and the pins heated up and burnt all the tissue around my leg,” says Wickes.
After a year of recovery, he came back, put weight on his knee and felt it go again. This time, he was referred to a top Australian surgeon.
“He had a look and said he couldn’t do much. He just said, ’Don’t play again.’ It was just a cluster of bad things. It was a really bad injury anyway, but he told me the ligaments had been threaded the wrong way. I’m not blaming anyone, it’s just what happened.”
Finlay feels timing was everything for his former teammate.
“The technology changed. He would have been able to come back and play again if it had just been a few years later. When he hurt himself, I felt his pain; he had the world at his feet.”
Wickes endured years of operations, consultations, opinions and rehabilitations before one last comeback in 1986.
“For my own mental health, I just wanted to make the Manawatū side again,” he says. “I played a couple of games and then woke up one day and could hardly walk. I thought, ‘I’ll never play again,’ so I didn’t.”
By this time, Finlay was well established in the Manawatū team.
“He was never anything like he was,” says Finlay. “He was being picked on reputation and he knew it.”
After four games, Wickes decided no mas.
I pulled the pin. That was the best decision I made because I’d have been a cripple. Well, I’m a cripple now, but I’d have been a complete cripple then.”
Starting over
The post-rugby period wasn’t easy.
“You got cut off at the knees and it was quite a shock. The people you thought were around you were suddenly not there.”
After time at the freezing works, he ran a country pub near Whanganui for a few years, owned by his father.
“It was a tough place,” says Finlay. “There were gang disputes, dust-ups. Craig had to be pretty good with his hands.”
After relocating to Auckland, he established a successful food operation at the booming Victoria Park Market for almost a decade before a lease dispute turned sour. With two young children, it was a tough time.
“I lost a lot of money. I had to refinance the house and start again.”
It was 2000. He got a job in software distribution before starting his own business, Customised Distribution, in 2011. From a base in Silverdale, the company has grown impressively, with 20 employees and some big corporate customers using its warehousing, distribution, logistics and packaging services.
“It has been the biggest success of his life,” says Finlay. “It took a while before he had the confidence to have a crack on his own. But he’s got street smarts, intelligence, an eye for a deal and the people skills.”
Too much, too soon?
Reflecting on Wickes’ career four decades on, was it a case of too much, too soon?
“Probably,” says Finlay. “I don’t think our bodies were ready. You’re not far off, but you’ve only reached full height a year or two earlier. All your muscles are still strengthening, and in those days, there was no gym work, so you didn’t have that endurance under your belt. If Craig had had the ability to ease into it a bit more, he probably would have lasted.”
Hamer, who settled in Tauranga after his retirement, disagrees.
“It was unfortunate he got the injury, and then of course all of a sudden, you had [people] saying, ‘Oh, he should never have been put in there, he’s only a schoolboy, put in too early’ and all that sort of thing.
“But he handled it. There was no problem whatsoever. He was just a bit unfortunate he got such a bad injury. When he was there, he proved as good as anyone.”
‘Destined for huge things’
But Wickes will always be special. Not just as the only All Black picked from school and the second-youngest to wear the hallowed jersey, but also for the impact, especially in 1980, when he lined up for the New Zealand Colts and All Blacks, was selected for the North Island team and became a key member of the national provincial champions.
(The youngest All Black on record was Lui Paewai, who took the field at 17 years and 36 days, against New South Wales in 1923. Wickes, at 18 years and 200 days, remains the second youngest.)
These days, Wickes would be an internet sensation, but few images remain and we are mostly left with memories.
“He was destined for huge things,” says Donaldson, now based in Wairarapa. “He was unbelievable in terms of pace. He had a bit of size about him and he was still quick.
“He had quite a long stride, so he never really looked like he was accelerating, he was just in, out and gone. The guys didn’t even touch him. He didn’t just beat them, he beat them by a lot ... they just gave up. Wickesy was bloody unlucky.”
At 69, Shaw is retired after years running a pub on the Kāpiti Coast.
“He was a bloody good footballer,” Shaw says of Wickes. “He had a few outstanding games. It was unusual to pull someone out of school. He was mature beyond his years.”
Former teacher Alec Astle still shakes his head at Wickes’ impact.
“Rugby has been the most popular sport in New Zealand since about 1905. So for a kid to make the All Blacks is an incredible step in anybody’s imagination. It was basically unheard of. It was a big deal for a humble young man and his family.”
Finlay, a commercial property developer in Auckland, will never forget playing alongside his classmate.
“If he broke, or looked like breaking, the line, you had to absolutely gun it to try and keep up. He was the only midfielder I played with that, if he was away, and you hadn’t seen it coming, you couldn’t catch him. You don’t get many with that track athlete speed on a rugby field, that Dougie Howlett-type speed.
“[And] he was tough, one of the most competitive people you can ever meet. He was so focused when he played – he was almost a danger to himself. He put his body on the line; he would line people up and absolutely smash them, anyone taking a high ball.
“There were a lot of good wingers around, and there always are in New Zealand, but I’m pretty sure he would have had a long All Blacks career. He was at that level.”
Finlay and Wickes still catch up for an occasional round of golf.
“I’ve never really asked him too much about the way he felt,” says Finlay. “He’s had 13 operations: wrist, shoulder, back, knees. He’s still paying for it now.”
Wickes is philosophical about his rugby career.
“I only played that one time for the All Blacks, then got injured, so it’s hard for me. Obviously, I’d have loved to have played a lot.
“I still followed the pathway, but mine was quick. People think I went straight from secondary school to the All Blacks, but I played New Zealand Secondary Schools, Colts, Manawatū.
“I had my years, I just did them early. I was 17 playing in the first division. I can’t see anyone doing it now. There’s not that pathway. I might have been reasonably good, but I was in a well-coached 1st XV – too good for the other school teams.
“With Manawatū, they had a good coach and were at the top of their rugby. And we had a good Secondary Schools side and Colts team. So things went in my favour.
“I’m proud to be an All Black, I just wish I’d played more often.”
Michael Burgess has been a sports journalist for the New Zealand Herald since 2010, covering the Olympics, Fifa World Cups and America’s Cup campaigns. He is a co-host of the Big League podcast.