Obituary: Don Clarke

By ARNOLD PICKMERE

* All Black fullback. Died aged 69.

Donald Barry Clarke, the All Black hero who has died of melanoma in South Africa, had the farming background which New Zealanders used to expect would produce hard, durable All Black rugby players, especially forwards.

In the late 1950s at Hoeotainui in the Waikato, Alec and Ann and their five large sons (Douglas, Brian, Graeme, Ian and Don) were changing their new 156ha (385-acre) farm from sheep to dairying. There was plenty for the boys to do.

Apart from helping build a new house and a modern herringbone cowshed there was the milking of 170-plus cows ( a very big herd back then) and countless farm tasks such as fencing, weed-clearing and haymaking.

Each year the boys spent weeks around the district picking up thousands of hay bales in the hot sun.

Pictures show them in shorts and gumboots, sometimes a shirt, usually open down the front and hardly a hat in sight.

It was the way things were, and the boys - all five of whom played for Waikato in one game against Thames Valley in 1961 - kept fit by their farm labours. The only thing they had to get right for the rugby season, All Blacks Don and Ian used to say, was their wind.

They would begin to "straighten out" with long runs around a paddock about February each year and practise their skills, especially Don's goal kicking.

It was a straightforward life on the farm near Morrinsville. Mum expected all the boys to help with things like the washing-up and kept up their energy with "a sheep a week with plenty of good vegetables".

Mum kept the cake tins full while Dad, who was always involved with rugby, washed all the Kereone club, Waikato jerseys and other gear on Saturday nights "before the mud got set in".

Don Clarke's achievements as an All Black fullback are rugby legend - The Boot played 31 tests for 207 points, 89 games for the All Blacks in all and 781 points. That included 8 tries, 173 conversions, 120 penalty goals, 15 dropped goals and 2 goals from a mark.

A big powerful man, with the old-fashioned square-on toe style of place kick, he could kick great distances and drop-kick goals off either foot. A towering punt often carved off great chunks of territory, even when the leather ball was wet and heavy.

In an era without modern balls or kicking tees his 6.67 points a test, commonly indicating success with better than one in two place kicks, was then regarded as exceptional.

His positional sense on attack and defence made him a presence which oppositions found imposing. He was the first New Zealander to score 1000 points in first-class rugby, in a career spanning 1951 to 1964, with some breaks for knee problems.

Rugby writer Sir Terry McLean, who watched all of Clarke's tests and most of his other games, believed his exceptional talent lay in his sublime confidence in his ability to kick the goals that mattered.

Summing up Clarke's career, McLean added that in the early years of the fullback's success one often encountered people who felt sure he was vain and big-headed.

"In fact," McLean said, "he was straight and uncomplicated and the criticisms of him were an expression of the narrow envy suffered by the successful."

Clarke was also a man who, in 1959, three years after his triumphs for Waikato and the All Blacks over the 1956 Springboks, was still replying personally to the dozens of letters from small boys and others from all parts of the world. His rugby boots - he wore a new pair for every test, even if they gave him sore feet afterwards - were donated to various delighted schools and sports bodies.

Tauranga Boys College got one of his right-foot boots from the 1959 Lions tour, but not the one that created a world-record 18 points from six penalties that beat the Lions in Dunedin after they had scored four tries. That was apparently stolen in Auckland.

Then there was a "Legendary boots safe" Herald headline dealing with an Opotiki Primary School fire in 1986, which threatened their valued Clarke boots in a trophy cabinet.

Clarke, or "Camel" (another enduring nickname), had run-ins with the rugby union about not allowing live telecasts to enable those who could not get to the ground to see games as they happened. And he several times cautioned against introducing boys to rugby too young (under 11 years) so that the repetition by the time they reached 19 or 21 made them sick of it.

After leaving the family farm Don Clarke (also a good provincial cricketer) worked variously as a stock and station agent, later with Rothmans with running great Peter Snell and also an Auckland wine and spirits firm.

Taranaki-born Don was the third son of the Clarke family, who moved to the Waikato when he was 10.

He left New Zealand for South Africa with his wife Patsy (they married in Morrinsville in 1962), son Glen and daughters Leigh (eldest child) and and Shelley in 1977.

That followed an early 1970s court case in which a trivial theft charge involving shoplifting a 70c packet of sticking plasters from a Takapuna supermarket was dismissed. Clarke left the court sobbing.

In South Africa he worked for a manufacturing company and as a sales manager for South African Breweries for a time.

Visiting New Zealand towards the end of the 1981 Springbok tour he professed to be staggered by the reaction of so many New Zealanders to the tour and to "see so many hassles and problems among people who are unaware of what is really happening in South Africa".

Later he had his own tree-felling business, another outdoor occupation. When he found he had melanoma in 2001, he confessed he was a "macho type of guy" who thought he was indestructible and would not listen to advice to keep out of the sun.

"I have spent half my life in the sun ... that has been my problem. I didn't listen," he said of his South African years and his early years on the farm.

A memorial service will be held at Waikato Stadium in Hamilton on January 12.