In a sports-mad country like New Zealand, as a sports journalist, you get to mix and mingle with some outstanding sports people, who leave you with varying impressions.
It would be fair to say that Sir Brian Lochore will always be the measure by which assessment will be made. That's the very highest standard that others have to live up to.
Yet it was a standard that was completely natural and appeared to come with complete ease to a gentleman in all respects of the word. That's what made him the man he was.
Apart from my first exposure, as barely a high school student, to his ability to impart messages meaningfully at the Gore Wool Exchange when he and Colin Meads were invited, in early 1968, by the local Tin Hut Club to speak on their experiences on the 1967 tour of Britain, I next met him when he came south with Wairarapa Bush in their quest to relieve Southland of their place in the old National Provincial Championship in the promotion-relegation game of 1981.
A game Wairarapa Bush duly won to end one of the more harrowing seasons in Southland rugby history. That game was discussed many times over in subsequent meetings.
Transferring to Wellington there was considerably more contact with him, not so much in an active playing of the game sense – he had retired from coaching in 1987 – but in seeking opinions, comments and the like. It was also a time when he headed the Hillary Commission and it was in that respect that I saw the real Lochore mastery.
The New Zealand Sports Foundation, under its chief executive Chris Ineson, decided to host a "Captain's Forum" with as many of New Zealand's international sports captains who could possibly attend, as well as the Hillary Commission chairman, Sir Brian.
Held in Christchurch, it was an eye-opener and it was a privilege to be one of two sports journalists invited to attend. What transpired was a shocking indictment of sports administration in this country as captain after captain went through the process by which they had been appointed to their roles. The common denominator amongst them all was the complete lack of preparation they had followed by an absolute lack of support once they had accepted the role.
If ever there had been a need for a long, hard look at how these matters were handled this forum certainly provided it. Sir Brian sat through it all and offered various elements of wisdom from his own experience.
One gem he offered was that at his first pre-game team talk, before the first Test against the British & Irish Lions on their unfortunate tour of 1966, he had unleashed a torrent of swearing in trying to rev his players up. He recounted that afterwards Charlie Saxton, who would be the manager of the famed 1967 team, took him aside and told him that swearing wasn't necessary under those circumstances. He was the All Blacks captain and already had the respect of the players. Sir Brian commented to the captains that he had only sworn because that was what he thought was expected. But the word from Saxton set him on the straight and narrow and he never swore again in similar circumstances.
Lochore acknowledged after coach Sir Fred Allen's funeral in 2012 that his decision to appoint Lochore as captain had been life-changing, although he hadn't appreciated it at the time. Allen had gone for Lochore ahead of other more favoured contenders like: Colin Meads, Kel Tremain, Kel Tremain and Chris Laidlaw. And Allen said in later years that had been one of the master-strokes of his career.
It was interesting that while in a break during filming of a couple of interviews we did for the All Blacks Legends series for allblacks.com, Sir Brian related an interesting sequel to that night in Gore. He and Meads were staying in Invercargill where their wives were quartered but they returned home via central Southland where they called in on fellow 1967 team member Jack Hazlett's farm. Hazlett and a crew were hard at work taking full advantage of the long southern nights and warm weather to harvest some crops he had on his farm and they ended up working through the night to give Hazlett a hand, catching up with their wives the next morning.
Such a situation would surprise no one who knew either Lochore or Meads but it was typical of the qualities that made them such icons in the game.
What will be missed now that both men have been lost is the innate wisdom they so willingly shared, Meads in a more humorous sense and Lochore in regard for the legacy he loved and represented so willingly.
Theirs has been a special generation in rugby and the game will do well to see their like repeated.
2 comments:
Those who played under him were indeed fortunate. I've never heard anyone speak ill of him. My own brief meetings (two in number) led me to agree wholeheartedly with your comments, Lynn.
Never meta better man, Lynn. Well written tribute. Thanks
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