Wings relished sweet service of Colin McDonald

Press, 29 June 1983, Page 26

Wings relished sweet service of Colin McDonald

I: COLIN MCDONALD.

It’s nearing l Ranfurly Shield time again, and to many of today’s spectators and followers, there has never quite been a Shield “era” to match that of 1953-56. RAY CAIRNS talks to some of the special heroes, none of them, as it happens, All Blacks.

Talk of the Canterbury teams of the 19505, and three-quarters play, and few self-proclaimed rugby buffs of the day will hesitate. Elsom, Dixon and Smith; or Smith, Elsom and Dixon; or Dixon, Smith and Elsom will roll off their tongues. Each of them was a great and special performer in his own way, each of them an All Black, though Ross Smith, the greatest tryscorer (after Ron Jarden) and the most intuitive player of his day, won only a single cap. Allan Elsom and Maurie Dixon, apart from being the greatest comedy team since the national rugby council which decided Vic Cavanagh wasn’t worth being an All Black coach, had vast rugby talents. Elsom was the tackler who would leave any young Wellington opposite pining to swap a Canterbury spring day for a Wellington southerly; Dixon the terrier, the harasser, who would have Jarden wondering why he ever thought playing rugby against Dixon could ever be fun. So it came to pass that when Jack Morton settled on his back-line to play the 1956 Springboks, these three should be chosen in a team which had only three who never wore an All Black jersey; Stuart (“Buddy”) Henderson, the champion goal-kicker, Ewan Hern, the champion prop; Neil Roberts, the champion No 8. He told the young Marist centre in his squad that leaving him in the quaint little No 1 stand for that match was the hardest job of his rugby career. Now, as he sits in his office of the family grain and seed business, Colin McDonald acknowledges that this was the greatest disappointment of his representative rugby career. His greatest disappointment of all wjjfcbe mentioned later. CoO McDonald came

into the Canterbury team in 1954, when there was a need to introduce one young three-quarters to cover for the All Blacks. The 1983 McDonald says he felt it was between him and Henderson, and impishly muses that Duncan White, a Marist man, might have tipped the scales his way; Henderson had only a year to wait. Colin McDonald was the sweetest deliverer of a pass to his wing to be seen in Canterbury rugby in many a day, indeed, vast numbers — and not just thjSafe' who had their educatibSyat St

Bede’s or. Xavier or St Thomas’s colleges — will swear that he has not been equalled in Canterbury’s rugby history. “I learnt that as a young lad,” he reflects. "There was a teacher at St Bede’s named Father Hogan; he died when I was very young, but when I was in the bantamweights, he was the first XV coach. He said: 'lf you’re a centre, you feed the wings’. “He even used to pick me up behind my ears and march me across the quad-

rangle. ‘Now what did I tell you about rugby?’ he would ask. ‘I feed my wings, Father,’ I’d gulp out.” Figures of McDonald’s career actually tell very little about the quality of the player. In 1954, there were six matches (two of them Ranfurly Shield challenges) and five tries (two of them in shield matches); in 1956, six matches (two for the shield) and two tries (one in a shield match). Towards the end of his career, in 1958 and 1959, he totalled another 15 matches and scored just three tries. But 1955 and 1957, either side of the disappointment of not playing against th° Springboks ... ah, thoswere the days of McDonald. It is rare for one to question the facts presented by the Rugby Almanack; the opinions are another matter. So it has to be a matter of gratification to agree fulsomely with the 1955 view that “McDonald improved at every appearance and could not be left out of the side.” The bare figures tell that McDonald played a virtually full programme of 14 matches, for eight tries, and in his six (of seven) shield matches, there were five tries. In 1957, when the shield had left home, there were 16 appearances, five tries. In all, 56 appearances, 23 tries; 10 shield matches, eight tries. McDonald started a theme common to the men in and around Christchurch, these men in their fifties now, who were part of the shield days. .‘"®e shield era was quite

outstanding, there was such a great team spirit. They were the real golden years, and one knew then, and reflects now, how lucky one was to be there. I never really worried very much that I was never an All Black.” The 1955 season McDonald found highly enjoyable: he was a virtual first-choice, and had no injury problems. The 1957 season might have shaded it, however. “The shield pressure was off; we had a highly enjoyable northern tour; and the team spirit, under Bob Duff, was tremendously high. “We had a highly satisfactory match that season, too, beating the All Blacks. Old Neil McPhail, our forward coach that season, was really keen to have a win and we were very keyed up for it. “In fact, I remember that as one of the more memorable matches, quite different to but ranking with the defence against Auckland in 1955, when we struggled a bit but got out with a 12-6 win — and that was after losing Kevin Stuart with a broken collarbone.” But the McDonald career did not have much longer to run after that 11-9 win against the All Blacks; his interest waned. “The problem was that the rugby pattern was changing in the late 19505, and that was a pity. It became a stereotyped game that I didn’t enjoy, and no game was worse than that shocker against Taranaki in 1958. More than 100 lineouts, weren’t there? “That was the day Allan Elsom played at second five-eighths and hated it. I guess one of us had to play there, just pleased it was him, not me! Centre was my place — I didn’t like the wing, either, but I had to play there sometime&4° 6 et a game.

“Come 1959, I wasn’t playing brilliant rugby, and that came with my interest waning. I suppose I was playing reasonably, but then I got a bad dose of the flu, and missed the All Black trials in Timaru. “Neil McPhail did ring me, and got me into the final trials in Wellington, which was very good of him, but long before the season was out, I’d had enough.” Colin McDonald was obviously disappointed that his rugby career had to finish on such a disappointing note at representative level. Yet he says now that his greatest sorrow of all in rugby came in a club match. “It was against Varsity, in 1958, I think, and they beat us, 15-14: Barry Dineen kicked four penalty goals and a dropped goal, we got four tries — some of them beautiful tries — and kicked one conversion. “And if that wasn’t bad enough, there was a try I scored after John Collier made a break on our goalline. He gave me the ball inside the 25, and I scored under the clock, with Jim Douglas still outside me. “But the referee was still barely over halfway, the touch-judge was nowhere to be seen, and after I’d forced it and was walking back, and while they were still arriving, a ’ University placer was lying on the But McDonald makes the observation without rancour. It was a long time ago, he says, and the thought of being nearly 30 years on brings him up with a start. “We thought we were pretty modern then, you know, but when you come to think about it, 30 years before us was the time of the Invincibles and all that!” Ah, yes, but the likes of Colin McDonald are far from the sere and yellow still.