N.Z. rugby maverick joins game’s elite

Press, 17 November 1981, Page 40

N.Z. rugby maverick joins game’s elite

PA Wellington New Zealand rugby’s ageing itinerant, Andy Haden, aged 31, joins the game’s elite in La Rochelle tomorrow when he plays his 100th match in the All Black jersey.

The maverick who once listed his occupation as rugby player and who has often treated rugby administrators the same way he treats on-field opponents, now ranks with such noncontroversial greats as Colin Meads (133), lan Kirkpatrick and Bryan Williams (both 113) and Bruce Robertson (102).

The first that national rugby heard of Haden was in 1972 when he went to Australia with Eric Warson’s

Juniors side — the team which produced a crop of Al! Blacks and gave Mr Watson more than just a south-of-the-Waikato reputation for coaching expertise. From that team, the 22-year-old Haden joined the likes of Grant Batty and Joe Karam in the 1972-73 tour, and made his All Black debut in the unlikely rugby town of New York, helping the New Zealanders on October 21, 1972, to a 41-9 win over Metropolitan New York. While it may have been thoughtful of the team’s management this year to rest Haden tomorrow and let him gain his century at the Parc des Princes — just as tour selections for Williams and Robertson were ar-

ranged to allow them to go into three figures at the Arms Park, Cardiff — it is still fitting that Haden gets his century somewhere . in France. For Haden, France was his rugby nursery and classroom. He first entered the country fresh-faced and green in 1973, but returned 18 months later for two seasons with the Tarbes club in the rugby-mad south-west — a , tough school where he learned not only to speak French like a native, but also the hard, sometime brutal, facts of French club play. The boy became a man in the daily grind of French rucks where it’s even harder if you’re not French, and he returned to New Zealand in

1976 ready to resume being an All Black. The selectors — J. J. Stewart, Jack Gleeson and Mr Watson — were not as ready, however, and Haden was one of the surprise leftovers once the All Blacks had gone to South Africa.

He did go to Argentina, however, where, according to Mr Gleeson, he played rugby comparable to Meads at his best.

Haden’s elevation to, and retention in, the real All Blacks after that was a formality and he made his test debut in 1977 in the first test against the Lions. In playing terms and in his influence and example on tours since, Haden has been the backbone of the All Blacks; the experienced adjutant in the planning, the fearless lieutenant in the execution.

He tellingly gives the lie to the myth among non-rugby people that All Black forwards and intelligence do not go together. His worldly airs,

his shrewd brain, and his sharp, sometimes acerbic wit have often had him in trouble with the game’s hierarchy. Bushy eyebrows were raised and puce cheeks mottled in that holy of rugby holies, the East India Club in London, when Haden one season doubled by playing for the elitist Harlequins — headquarters, Twickers — on Saturdays and for the frowned-upon Algida club in Rome on Sundays.

His reception in Wellington’s equivalent of the East India Club, the Huddart Parker Building where -the New Zealand Rugby Union is headquartered, has sometimes been frosty. It was not wildly appreciated when he

was seen as a behind-the-scenes organiser of several players going off to South Africa in 1979, two of whom did not have the permission of the N.Z.R.U.

And the game’s still-rigid amateur laws do not exactly say that players are allowed to write newspaper columns. This year has been an especially eventful one for Haden.

Signs of the old rebel turning into a respectable pillar had been apparent in 1979 and 1980 but this year has showed that the old has not been completely submerged by the new. Early in the season, he opted out of Auckland’s annual match against Waikato in Hamilton, after an apparent disagreement

with his coach, Bryan Craies. and then he and Gary Whetton had a set-to in a club match, with Haden being suspended from the first test against Scotland as a result.

Haden’s reaction to the suspension was dry, enigmatic and typical: “It’s a strange wheel that doesn’t turn full circle,” he said. Peter Burke compounded the Haden frustration when, after the first test in Dunedin, he retained the same 15 for Auckland, in spite of obvious deficiencies at Carisbrook. But in Auckland, Graeme Higginson was injured at training and Haden was called back in. The bad boy had been forgiven.

The wheel had turned full circle.