NZ Herald editorial: Sir Colin Meads the tallest of all our rugby knights

All Blacks rugby legend Sir Colin Meads. Photo / Nick Reed

Editorial

Sir Colin Meads was one of New Zealand's nine rugby knights.

But in that exalted company, he stood tallest - an immensely durable All Black who played 55 tests and, in total, a remarkable 361 first-class games. He was the first man in black to play a half-century of tests, a figure often passed in the modern game.

Meads played when the All Blacks had a four-test annual calendar and a tour could last 16 weeks.

His talent was spotted early. As a teenager he toured Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1955 with the NZ Colts. The team went by ship, and kept in shape with on-board exercises. Meads was a star. He played all eight games, scored three tries and was identified by the Rugby Almanac as one of the season's most promising players. His test career began in May 1957 against Australia in Sydney. He was a week shy of 21.

He wore the silver fern one last time in August 1971 at Eden Park. Meads was 35, and captain. The team drew that game but lost the series 2-1 to the British and Irish Lions.

Not huge for a lock - he stood 1.92m and weighed around 100kg - Meads was an uncompromising figure on the paddock, a mobile man with a raw edge. Irishman Willie John McBride called the New Zealander "as hard as the hobs of hell".

Meads did not hold back and had a reputation as an enforcer. He was assailed in Australia for trying to drag a player from a ruck in a career-ending manner and was famously shown a red card for dangerous play against Scotland at Murrayfield in 1967.

The British press thought the Irish referee Kevin Kelleher was unduly harsh and Meads later remarked: "I have never deliberately kicked or tried to kick any man."

His longevity in the game was helped by his raw physicality. He took to the field with a broken arm in the 1970 tour of South Africa, later drolly saying it wouldn't be permitted today. Film of the tour shows Meads, a guard on his arm, at his rampant best on the hard dry ground, the ball grasped in his huge paw.

Meads came to be seen as a standard-bearer for the jersey and its traditions. He was a farmer, husband, father, older brother to Stan - an All Black too - homespun philosopher, a salt-of-the-earth King Country bloke.

After he hung up his boots, he was a coach, administrator, selector and manager of the national side. Above all he was an All Black. Alex Veysey's biography of him is simply called Colin Meads, All Black.

It seemed to annoy Meads that amateur players got a small touring stipend while the professionals were handsomely rewarded.

So he plugged trucks, deer velvet, razors and, memorably, tanalised timber, handling fenceposts as though they were matchsticks. A showstopping draw on the celebrity speakers' circuit, he would lean on a lectern, a glass of beer handy, and "say whatever comes".

His enduring nickname, "Pinetree", was bestowed by a teammate in 1958. Almost 60 years later, the mighty Tree has fallen.