Memories fade of Harbour's split but rivalry survives

Rugby administrators have rarely come in a more strong-willed and controversial package than Ron Don, the former Auckland Rugby Union chairman. If the 80-year-old's memory is dimming his tongue still has an edge.

Don was ending his ARU reign when North Harbour was formed two decades ago, a birth that had complications as the new union broke from Auckland.

"My memory is not so good these days. ... It was a long time ago," says Don, from his St Heliers home.

But when talk turns to Saturday's NPC semifinal between Auckland and North Harbour, Don swings into action.

"I hope North Harbour supports the game in great numbers," he says.

"This might upset a few people, which won't worry me, but they are not known for giving their rep team the support it deserves.

"I'm very pleased North Harbour have come through to the top, especially this year, although I certainly hope Auckland win.

"I'm sure it will be a great game if the conditions are right. North Harbour are playing great rugby, and it should be an open type of game, as distinct from the negative, defensive tactics played all the time now by Canterbury."

Which brings back the memories all right, of Don in his heyday.

It is hard to imagine this one-time dogmatic administrator and great rugby character only holding "some reservations", as he explains it now, when 10 North Shore clubs escaped Auckland's clutches.

The mid-1980s were different times, before professional rugby, when there were still actually debates over players taking book profits.

School and referee representatives even voted under the old ARU system. The annual meeting in 1984 voted 68-43 in support of North Harbour playing the next year.

You can almost smell the committee room, see the badges and blazers.

Don says: "It was a different world ... Our sole income was from ticket sales.

"There was no acrimony about North Harbour, I don't think, although strong debates because in those good old days the guys running amateur rugby were very knowledgeable. Today everything seems cut and dried by officialdom and paid people."

Over the bridge, acrimony had certainly been sighted although promoters of the new union were not so visible, by design.

North Harbour's first coach, Peter Thorburn, says a "defining moment" was a Herald list of Auckland under-17 contenders in the late 1970s, in which only four of the 117 were from the North Shore. Generously, he does not blame bias, only the logjam and limited opportunities for all in such a big union. Something had to be done.

The North Harbour move began in 1978, with meetings to test the waters. The movement went "underground" around 1980.

Thorburn says: "Auckland actively worked against it, and you don't show your hand to the opposition because they will cut it off.

"We believed in it with all our heart and for the right reasons. People weren't prepared to be pushed aside.

"Ron Don vehemently opposed it, but for the right reasons to be fair. Auckland was fearful it would fall over, leaving them to pick up the pieces."

Thorburn, who played 40 games for Auckland, believes the split actually galvanised the country's biggest union into developing juniors properly after losing 40 per cent of their youngsters to Harbour.

But the split caused angst, including within Harbour.

Takapuna were doing well in Auckland and resisted the breakaway until the last, even though prime Harbour movers such as the first chairman, Chris Kennings, came from their ranks.

Clubs in the booming west debated whether to join; Waitemata disputed the boundary line.

The early Harbour team were free-spirited characters who zoomed through the third and second division and pushed hard in the first.

The legendary Wayne Shelford was the only Auckland regular to switch to Harbour. Future All Black wing Terry Wright left Northcote - where his father was a major figure - to retain Auckland status.

Shelford and Frano Botica quickly became the Harbour icons. Player nicknames such as "Cowboy", "Rat", "Pig", "Mad Dog" , "Sly Bacon", "Cog", "Ernie", "Bodger", "God" and "Jesus" revealed a devilment, which could win and entertain yet also frustrate, and imbued a Harbour team character for years to come.

They initially lived in the giant shadow of an extraordinary Auckland team, although so did everyone else.

Harbour were homestyle. Onewa Domain regulars avoided the front of what counted for a stand as the canvas roof was liable to hurl pools of water below. The playing surface could be sloppy.

The council banned training on Onewa's main field and many others. Takapuna needed the outside fields, so the representative side trained at clubs far and wide plus Rosmini College. Car headlights supplemented training-ground lighting. This did, however, fit a concept of taking the new team to the people.

"It was a well-meaning plan that didn't always function well," laughs Thorburn.

At a reunion this year, old Harbour bosses jokingly blamed each other for the team missing a flight to Marlborough for an NPC game.

Yet from the first season, Harbour proved they could beat first division opposition. They were the only side over a four-year period to take an NPC point off Auckland, with a 1989 draw at Albany.

Thorburn still bristles at former Auckland and All Black coach John Hart referring to Harbour - who have never won the NPC or Ranfurly Shield - as chokers.

Yet he believes relationships between the Blues brothers are stronger than ever, partly thanks to "neutral" coach David Nucifora.

With historical, geographical and Super 14 links, it is difficult to define the complicated Auckland-North Harbour rivalry. Harbour stalwarts no longer revel in Auckland defeats, Thorburn claims, although others may disagree.

Thorburn fondly recounts a story.

"I met Ron Don on a golf course years later and he said he was really sorry for Auckland being against something that had proved so successful. And yet, you could always see their point of view - we were a bit of a stab in the dark," he says.