When Maori would sing for their supper

CHRIS RATTUE meets Pat Walsh, who led the last Maori side to Australia when they drew a three-test series in 1958.

Pat Walsh and about 20 mates will be in the Sydney Football Stadium when the New Zealand Maori side run out to play Australia next Saturday night.

Walsh, the All Black back of many positions during the 1950s and 60s, and his friends are hardly strangers to this sort of ritual.

They travel regularly to All Black tests here and overseas, sometimes taking old test men such as Kevin Skinner along for the ride.

And among Walsh's great memories as a spectator was being in Cardiff in 1982 when the great All Black George Nepia was introduced to the crowd before the Maori team played the Welsh XV.

"We were emotional, but the Welsh were even more so," says Walsh, head organiser of these travel and other adventures.

Saturday's match in Sydney will hold just as many emotions, and probably more, for the 65-year-old Walsh, who led the last Maori side against Australia when they drew a three-test series across the Tasman in 1958.

Until that point, there had been regular meetings between Australia, who were not the international heavyweights of today, and New Zealand Maori teams.

The first contact had taken place in 1889 when a team known as the New Zealand Natives, which included four non-Maori players, took on the most extraordinary tour imaginable in a privately financed venture.

Try this for burnout. The 25-man squad started with nine games in New Zealand and two in Melbourne, then headed to England where they played 74 matches.

They played another 14 in Australia on the way home, and finished with seven more in New Zealand.

For the record, the Natives won 78 of the 106 matches, but more importantly they were regarded as pioneers of international rugby tours.

That contact with Australia ended for some reason in 1958 - apart from a low-key trip there in 1979 - and the Maori have not even played the Wallabies on home soil since.

For Walsh, the 1958 tour is one of his most cherished rugby memories.

Among the many rugby photographs that hang around leaners and pool tables at the Wanderers pub he runs in Mangere Bridge, is a photo of the 1958 team standing shoulder to shoulder, with the huge frame of their coach/assistant manager Ron "Hippo" Bryers at one end.

"The star of our tour was Albie Pryor and he was my right-hand man," says Walsh of the famed Auckland forward.

"We weren't a very tall side, but he sorted out the lineouts. In fact, he invented the bullet throw.

"The wingers used to lob the ball into the lineout those days and the jumpers just guessed when it was coming.

"But Albie said that was no good. He told our wingers that he would get in the air, then they had to rocket the ball towards his inside shoulder."

There was, as was the case in those days, financial support for the players from their clubs. Employers, including the Government, who paid full wages for married men and half for unmarried, could also be generous.

But Walsh's side still sang for their supper, or make that drinks, around Australia.

"We used to practise our singing for an hour after lunch. Everyone said we were naturals, but they didn't know we put a lot of work into it. When we sang, it was beautiful," he says.

"After the matches people would ask us to sing, but we would act a bit shy, so they'd keep buying us drinks, and eventually we would sing."

All except for Hawkes Bay forward Ranui Kapua, who was told to sit in the corner and just move his lips.

"He just couldn't sing," Walsh says.

And then there was the raffle master, one Muru Walters, then a fullback from North Auckland, now the Anglican Bishop.

"He used to run all the raffles and no one else would ever win them."

If Walters cleaned up off the field, the Maori team, who included three All Blacks, just about cleaned up on the field. In 12 games they won nine, drew one and lost two.

The three-match series with Australia was shared with a win apiece and a draw. "Drawing the series with Australia was a big deal to us," Walsh says.

"The Maori game against the Springboks in 1956 had a great build-up, but we didn't play our own style of game, the long throw-ins and all that, and we lost 0-37."

Walsh's tactical advice to the present All Blacks-laden Maori side is simple: play a controlled, tight game early and hope to loosen up later. But, like everyone, he knows Australia are now a very tall order.

Walsh is unsure if any of his 1958 team-mates will be in Sydney. About half the side are dead, including Pryor, who passed away early last year.

Many of the remaining team-mates caught up with each other at his funeral - a brief chance to remember the past.