By DJ CAMERON
Former All Black Ron Hemi has died of cancer in Waikato Hospital, aged 67.
The rugby career of the fair-headed young dasher started like an express train, from his schooldays as a goal-kicking, try-scoring threequarter to the engineroom of the scrum as hooker for the Frankton club, Waikato and
New Zealand.
The first of his 31 matches for Waikato came as a try-scorer for a Waikato XV in a Rugby Park curtainraiser on a day when Auckland had a rare Queen's Birthday Weekend win in the main match.
Two months later, on August 1, 1953, Hemi's apparently indestructible mentor, Has Catley, was injured as Waikato were losing the Ranfurly Shield to Wellington, and the 20-year-old Hemi came on as a replacement.
Three Waikato matches later, Hemi was in the northern All Black trial, a series leading to the selection of the All Black side for the 1953-54 tour of Britain and Ireland.
By September 9 he reached the final North Island trial, on September 12 he played for North Island against South and, after seven first-class games, was an All Black. Before long the fresh-faced novice had become the quick-footed No 1 hooker of the tour, and he retained that special skill and zest until injury cut him down in South Africa in 1960.
Hemi will always be remembered as the player who smashed past "Popeye" Strydom in the fourth test against the 1956 Springboks, toed the ball clear from the touchline and set up the bouncing ball that Peter Jones turned into, for many people, the greatest try in All Black history.
He played 46 matches, including 16 tests, for the All Blacks. Before all this, he had thrice opened the batting for Auckland during the 1950-51 Plunket Shield cricket season.
He is survived by his wife, Margaret, two sons and a daughter.
