Rugby: Oldies play valuable roles in NPC

By Wynne Gray

Much of the interest each season in the NPC is checking on the new, young players in the sport.

The exodus of 30 players into World Cup combat during this year's series will give even more chances for that emerging talent to flourish.

How many of the New Zealand Colts side will become permanent choices for their provinces? What about Anton Edwards as Waikato hooker, Hare Makiri as an automatic flanker for Counties Manukau, Chris Jack as a Canterbury lock, Carl Hayman propping up the Otago scrum or Jerry Collins forcing his way into the Wellington loose forward line-up?

They are the sort of players New Zealand will be looking at for the next World Cup, in 2003, both here and across the Tasman.

But it was a couple of oldies who caught my eye - Frano Botica and Jim Coe - two players who will head into NPC combat again this weekend. They must be the oldest players in the first division.

Botica has passed his 36th birthday, while Coe blew out 35 candles not so long ago.

Botica will captain North Harbour again this year, the first five-eighths being charged with organising a backline who seem to have about 10 minds of their own.

A Harbour original from 1985 and still holding the union's record for most points in a game, 34 against Queensland Country in that year, Botica has played only just over 60 games for the province because of a long interlude with rugby league.

But his longevity in such physical sports is a tribute to his skill, fitness and fortune.

Coe may be even more remarkable.

The veteran lock, who heads on to Pukekohe Stadium again tomorrow against Southland, is one of the small group of New Zealand players who have played 100 NPC matches.

During last season, Coe played his 200th first-class game and joined two other Counties Manukau stalwart forwards, Alan Dawson and Errol Brain, in achieving that memorable mark.

Incredibly, they are the only three players to have registered those numbers who have not been All Blacks.

Coe has been a consistent member of the New Zealand Maori side and played more than 160 games for his province (only about 30 short of Dawson's record), was a New Zealand Colt but never made the All Blacks.

He returned to rugby last year after breaking his ankle badly in the NPC final of 1997 and once more will be an essential component of Counties tight five.

Playing top-level rugby well into your 30s is becoming less common. Only locks Robin Brooke and Ian Jones are past that age in the All Blacks, while the numbers in the first division seem to be dwindling.

Michael Jones, Matthew Cooper, Kevin Barrett, Aaron Flynn, Eric Rush, Simon Culhane and Dallas Seymour are some still going round who will not see 30 again and show that experience and guile can still match energy and ambition.

But Botica and Coe will grow grey suddenly if they contemplate New Zealand rugby records.

The oldest player to have appeared in a first-class game in New Zealand was the legendary George Nepia in 1950. He was 45 when he played for the Olympians against Poverty Bay.

Records show Mick Peachey was 41 when he played for Wairarapa-Bush in 1976 and Has Catley was 40 when he turned out for Waikato in 1955, perhaps two of the oldest to have been involved in provincial rugby.