Obituaries: The rugby players and pioneers we lost in 2019
CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND - JULY 21: Springbok Chester Williams puts on his shirt before training at Jade Stadium before Saturday's TriNations test against the All Blacks in Christchurch. (Photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images)
Chester Williams (Western Province, Golden Lions and South Africa)
Died September 6, aged 49
A central figure in South Africa’s fairy-tale 1995 World Cup triumph in that he was not only a star wing but also the only player of colour in a squad that was being promoted as representing the entire rainbow nation.
Despite the huge pre-tournament billboards featuring Williams it all went sour initially when a hamstring tear forced him out of the squad before a dramatic return two weeks later. Pieter Hendricks received a ban for his part in the Battle of Port Elizabeth when the Boks and Canadians spent much of the evening using each other as punchbags. A fit-again Williams was gratefully parachuted back into action and made a sensational return with four tries against Western Samoa at Ellis Park in a feisty quarter-final.
Williams was again a starter in the semi-final at a drenched Durban and also took his place in the final where, although attacking opportunities were rare, he was part of the well-organised Boks defensive effort to shackle Jonah Lomu.
Despite scoring 14 tries in 27 Tests between 1993 and 2000 Williams never quite became a fixture in the South Africa teams of the late 90s. Some feel there was an element of discrimination in that, although the Boks didn’t lack for talent out wide during this era.
After retiring Williams, by his own admission, found life tough as he dealt with personal and professional issues. As a coach, after a successful spell with the South Africa Sevens squad, he struggled to find his true niche moving from job to job.
After a spell with the Cats he became the Uganda national coach before he took charge of Mpumalanga Pumas.
When that ended he was on his travels again coaching Tunisia before taking up what proved to be his final appointment with Timisoara Saracens in Romania.
Williams is the fourth member South Africa’s successful World Cup side from 1995 to pass before his time. Flanker Ruben Kruger died of a brain tumour aged just 39 in 2010, Joost van de Westhuizen succumbed to MND two years ago in July this year at 45 and wing James Small, like Williams, died of a heart attack this year aged 50.
Micky Steele-Bodger (Cambridge University, Harlequins, Barbarians, England)
May 9, aged 92
One of the biggest characters in the game, Micky Steele-Bodger was going to be an England great and had been ever present at wing forward in the first two seasons after the War when he wrecked every ligament in his left knee during training, an injury that was to shape his life.
Although small in stature Steele-Bodger was a famously hard case. A young Richard Burton, then in the RAF, once tangled with him in a chairty match at the end of the war and later wrote that his opponent was the most onomatopoeic player in rugby history. “He was made of steel and was a bodger with the ball in hand.”
Nothing would stop him off the field either. He once spent 30 hours on a train from Edinburgh, helping dig the locomotive out of ten foot snow drifts, to make it down to London to play Scotland with the Bodger arriving just in time to help England to a 24-5 win.
When his playing career ended, Bodger threw himself into off the field activities with a vengeance. In 1948 he took a team to provide Cambridge University with meaningful opposition in their last hit out before the Varsity match and the tradition continued until 2018 when he took charge of his last Steele-Bodger’s XV. Son Guy has picked up the mantle this year.
In 1948 he played for the Barbarians against Australia – the tourists hadn’t conceded a Test try on that tour but the Barbarians managed three – and that also began a lifelong association with the club, culminating with a marathon stint as president. Only a man with his connections and drive could have kept the Barbarians afloat during the difficult transitional times when rugby turned professional.
Steele-Bodger was also a long-serving England selector and was the assistant manager on England’s first overseas tour, to New Zealand and Australia in 1963.
That comprised six matches in 17 days – including three Tests – but as the Bodger remarked; “Jet lag hadn’t been invented then so we didn’t think twice about it.” He also served as a Lions selector, was president of the RFU in 1973-74 and a former chairman of the IRB.
Sir Brian Lochore (Wairarapa-Bush and New Zealand)
Died August 3, aged 78
All Black number 637. One of the New Zealand greats on and off the field, Lochore captained, selected, coached and managed the All Blacks during his long association with the game.
Lochore learned his rugby at Wairarapa College and spent his entire career with the local Masterton club and the Wairarapa provincial team. In a strong era for New Zealand rugby breaking into the All Blacks Test team was not straight forward but he eventually made his debut against England at Twickenham in 1964 and thereafter, barring injury, was an automatic selection at either lock or No.8 up to his retirement.
As captain he led New Zealand to a crushing series victory over the Lions in 1966, a Grand Slam tour of Europe the following year – although the Irish leg was cancelled – and a home series win over the reigning Five Nations champions France in 1968.
After retiring he quickly turned to coaching Wairarapa before the call inevitably came to assist with the All Blacks, first as a selector and then head coach. It was Lochore who guided the team to the 1987 World Cup title, no easy task given that New Zealand rugby was in turmoil at the end of 1986 after the divisive Cavaliers tour to South Africa.
The New Zealand public had fallen out of love with their players and the first thing Lochore did was to send all his squad out for a couple of days to work, live and play with regular New Zealand families in an effort to reconnect. He also realised that the public needed to be excited by a new dynamic brand of rugby and he knew full well he had a new generation of players that could deliver on that score.
As a manager he was an approachable, avuncular figure who had the total respect of his team and the opposition and he proved a notable success at RWC1995 when he oversaw a near faultless campaign until the final. Even then he refused to blame the alleged food poisoning within the All Blacks camp although there was undoubtedly some illness that day.
Away from rugby Lochore was a family man and an ambassador for the Wairarapa district never failing to sing the praises of its famous wines.
Michel Crauste (Racing Lourdes and France)
Died May 2, aged 85
Dapper-looking with his neat moustache and undeniably skilful, Crauste was nonetheless one of the toughest and most enduring French forwards in history and the ferocity of his play earned the nicknames Mongol or Attila the Hun.
The squat No.8/flanker – six foot and 14 stone – was virtually ever present for France between 1957-1966. He won 63 caps which for a long time in that era of fewer internationals was a world record.
Crauste played initially for Racing in Paris where he was a student and won his first couple of seasons of Test rugby out of that club and helped them to the 1959 French championship before moving to FC Lourdes where he played in two championship-winning sides, in 1960 and 1968.
His long spell in the French national team coincided with the first truly golden era of French rugby with Les Blues winning three Five nations titles between 1959 and 1963 and sharing the other with England in 1963. The high point of those halcyon days probably came in 1962 when the title-chasing French beat England 13-0 at Stade Colombes and Crauste became the first Frenchman, forward of back, to score a hat-trick of tries.
In 1961, while captaining France in a midweek match on tour in New Zealand, Crauste found himself under attack from an unlikely quarter in a game against South Canterbury in Timaru. Towards the end of the game Crauste punched South Canterbury centre Ted Smith after the two had fought a running battle all afternoon. Everything seemed to be settling down when one Hilda Madsen, a 54-year-old grandmother and a South Canterbury supporter, marched onto the pitch.
New Zealand scribe Terry McLean takes up the story. “Quiet, retiring Ms Madsen was as vengeful as Madea. Bear-headed, fur-coated, possessed by total indignation she advanced on Crauste with her hand upraised and with it she fetched him as sore a dunt on the back as in her power.” Inspired by this, South Canterbury went on to a famous 17-14 victory.
BRENDAN GALLAGHER
David Matthews (Leicester), Died June 19, aged 82
A Leicester Tigers legend having played 502 games for the club between 1955-74, mainly as a flanker. Also served as a first XV club director and president. Matthews was ever present for three seasons – 1961-62, 1962-63 and 1968-69, scoring a then record for a forward of 21 tries in 43 games in the latter.
He ended his career with 119 tries, a record for a forward only bettered subsequently by Neil Back. Matthews, from a farming background, learnt his rugby at Oakham School and appeared in three Final England tries without ever earning selection.
He was a regular for Leicestershire, Midland Counties (East) and a proud Barbarian.
Billy Mainwaring (Aberavon and Wales), Died April 3, aged 79
Mainwaring was a legendary one club man, making over 700 appearances for the Wizards before retiring in 1977. Such was his consistency alongside either Max Wiltshire or Allan Martin that he was voted player of the season in his last full season, Aberavon’s centenary year.
Played in six Tests for Wales but ultimately lost out to Delme Thomas. His mother Evelyn was probably as well known as Billy being Aberavon’s most loyal and loudest supporter.
No opposition players were spared except on one occasion when Billy started laying into Gareth Edwards and Mum commanded him to “put Gareth down, he’s playing for Wales next Saturday.”
Cecil Pedlow (Lurgan, Ireland, Lions), Died November 9, aged 85
Talented all-rounder who represented Ireland at the age of 17 at Wimbledon and was almost unbeatable in veteran squash competitions around Ireland.
Turned his full attention to rugby while a dental student at Queen’s and subsequently won 30 Ireland caps and toured with the 1955 Lions when he enjoyed arguably his finest moment.
With the first Test finely poised in front of 95,000 at Ellis Park Pedlow finished off a sweeping Lions back movement, a try rated by Cliff Morgan as one of the five most memorable he had ever witnessed.
Born into a rugby family his grandfather and great grandfather both played for Ireland as did his great uncle James Cecil Parke.
Stan ‘Tiny’ Hill (Canterbury and New Zealand), Died October 2, aged 99
All Black number 574, Tiny Hill was an Army man all his life and a hard case, so much so that he was dropped from the New Zealand team to play South Africa in the second Test in 1956 because the selectors considered he had been overly physical against the tourists when playing for Canterbury against them!
His only tour with the All Blacks was to Australia in 1957 where he played in both Tests while two years later he was ever-present in the four Tests against the Lions.
A basketball enthusiast he was assistant coach to the Tall Blacks, his sons Stan and John both played basketball for NZ as did grandson Stan Junior.
Bruce Deans (Canterbury and New Zealand), Died August 16, aged 58
All Black number 891, scrum-half Bruce Deans, younger brother of Robbie, played for the All Blacks between 1987 and 1989 making ten Test appearances. A member of the 1987 World Cup-winning squad he lost out in selection to David Kirk during that tournament and after Kirk’s departure to Oxford University he was briefly the All blacks first choice before they opted for Graeme Bachop.
A fiercely proud Cantabrian, Deans made 23 appearances for the All Blacks in total and enjoyed one memorable family moment against Wales in 1989 when he scored a try in their 52-13 win, 84 years after his great uncle Bob Deans had famously been denied a ‘winning’ try at the Arms Park.
Ibrahim Diarra (Castres and France), Died December 18, aged 36
Powerful Castres flanker who originally made his name at Montauban. Capped just the once against Italy in 2008 but could and should have made many more appearances for Les Blues.
His best years were with the underrated Castres team who consistently punched above their weight in the T14 and confounded all the critics by beating Toulon 19-14 to win the 2013 final.
Diarra was magnificent that night in opposition to Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe, Danie Rossouw and Chris Masoe, producing a match-winning performance. Diarra started experiencing health difficulties soon after retiring 18 months ago and died after a series of strokes.
Professor Johan Claassen (Western Transvaal and South Africa), Died January 6, aged 89
Classen, who in later years was a professor of Biblical Studies, was a tough-as-old-boots and much respected lock who found himself at the epicentre of anti apartheid demonstrations on controversial tours to Britain in 1969-70, when he coached the side, and in 1981 when he managed South Africa during their tumultuous tour of New Zealand.
As a player he came to prominence with Western Transvaal and was one of the world’s best locks between 1955 – when he made his debut in the famous first Lions Test at Ellis Park – and 1962 when he retired having skippered the Boks to a Test series win over the Lions.
Raoul Barriere (AS Beziers) Died March 8, aged 91
Diminutive prop who won just the single France cap but the coach who inspired one of the most brutal mean machine sides in rugby history. Between 1971 and 1978 Barriere guided Beziers to seven consecutive French championship finals of which they won six.
Throughout that period their ruthless pack featuring the likes of Alain Paco, Armand Vaquerin and man mountain Alain Esteve made them nigh on unbeatable. Just as Ray Prosser in Pontypool experienced the rugby of his dreams on the Lions tour to NZ in 1959, Barriere had his Damascus moment touring South Africa with France in 1964 and set out to reproduce the Boks ruthless physicality with Beziers.
John Thornett (New South Wales and Australia), Died January 4, aged 83
Archetypal bronze Aussie, Thornett was a magnificent all-round sportsman and was heading for a place in Australia’s water polo team at the 1956 Olympics alongside his brother Dick when he opted to concentrate on rugby.
A fit, tireless lock, Thornett embarked on no fewer than eight overseas tours for Australia between 1955 and 1967, being the tour captain on four occasions, the highlight probably being a drawn series in South Africa in 1963. In total he played 114 games for Australia including 37 Tests, captaining the side in 14 internationals. He was inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame in 2013.
Lloyd McDermott (Queensland and Australia), Died April 8, aged 79
McDermott was a proud Aborigine from Eidsvold in Queensland and was a trailblazer on and off the field. As a promising player at Queensland University – where he studied law – McDermott became only the second indigenous Australian to play for Australia when he played two Tests on the wing against the All Blacks in 1972.
The first ever had been Cec Ramalli in 1938. McDermott declined to tour South Africa with Australia in 1963, refusing to travel under the guise of an ‘honorary white’. Later in his professional career he became the first indigenous barrister in Australia and later still he was a driving force with NICE – the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence.
BRENDAN GALLAGHER
