KEY POINTS:
Maybe Susan Devoy put it best. The 1987 World Cup-winning All Blacks, after their triumph 20 years ago, had 'crashed' a party to honour her and, world champions together, the All Blacks had wowed the guests.
Recalling this at last week's reunion for the 1987 team, she told the story of friends of hers, there that night, who later had a baby. They named him Kirwan Smith.
Right there, that says a lot about how New Zealanders viewed that one and only party of World Cup winners. It wasn't just about winning. There is a feeling of warmth because this was a warm team of All Blacks and coaches. They were one of the last All Black teams to be quite so close to fans and media.
Yes, it was another era - but that's kind of the point, really. New Zealanders watched this team grow into the tournament at a time when rugby was the point, not just the World Cup. They took pride in the athleticism and skill of this team.
From a media point of view, it was a different time too. I often tell the story of wandering around the All Black hotel (in the days when we stayed in the same hotels and had pretty good access to the players and coaches, although some essential courtesies had to be observed.)
"Lewis, get in here," I heard someone growl through an open door. I looked around the doorway. Uh-oh, Richard Loe.
I searched quickly through the memory banks for anything I'd written that might have angered the big fella. This could be face-the-music time.
But it wasn't that at all. He just wanted to put the billy on and make a cup of tea and have a yarn about this and that - the price of wool and the frosts at home - like the Canterbury farmer he still is.
Sir Brian Lochore, the head coach of that 1987 side and the only link between then and the team of today, said the fully professional players of 2007 were pretty much the same kind of blokes as 1987 but maybe they didn't have as much contact with "outside".
Assistant coach Alex Wyllie maybe said what had been on everyone's mind when he stopped MCs John McBeth and Keith Quinn in full stride to say an eloquent thank-you to the Halberg Foundation for hosting the first reunion of this team.
Wayne Shelford, obviously in the midst of his cancer treatment, reminded everyone that the players had tried 10 years ago to organise such a reunion - but had only managed 10 or 12 of them getting together and then it had just been "in some pub in Silverdale."
The 600 people attending this reunion knew they were at something special. Which begs the question: Where were the New Zealand Rugby Union?
If there was anyone there from the NZRU, I didn't see them. They certainly had no hand in the organisation and running of the event.
Curious, isn't it? Someone at the luncheon at Eden Park said that all the NZRU cared about was making money, not spending it.
That's harsh but it is downright puzzling why, in this World Cup year, the NZRU isn't dragging this team up and down New Zealand and having reunions in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. Make it a commercial, fundraising, make-a-profit event if you like. But salute what happened 20 years ago and take ownership of it.
It was a singular time in New Zealand rugby.
Lochore was the glue in a triumvirate of coaches of immensely different characteristics but who somehow made it work - Lochore the statesman; Grizz the heartland knock-em-down, drag-'em-out, give-me-a-beer personality with a face you could break rocks on and who could move men to shift mountains; and John Hart - the power behind the throne, if you like, the selector whose advocacy of players like Michael Jones, Sean Fitzpatrick, Zinzan Brooke and others set the pattern of New Zealand rugby for years ahead.
Another strong memory of 1987 was World Cup captain David Kirk at the press conference after the 29-9 win over France, fielding question from a pack of sour British journalists who queried whether the standard of the match befitted a World Cup final.
Kirk, who had just watched his forwards dismantle a tough French outfit in a clinical style of rugby, fixed them with as much of a steely glare as the affable halfback could manage.
"You guys make me laugh, you really do," he said.
Ironically, Kirk is now head of the Fairfax media empire which counts many journalists among its ranks.
So I'm going to adapt his words from that 1987 press conference and direct them at the NZRU.
You guys make me sad, you really do.
