Retired ruckstar: A number 8 great

For former All Black Alan Smith, playing rugby was a way of breaking the monotony of milking cows twice a day. “We were dairy farmers in central Taranaki, and all the men in my family played. My Uncle Jack was an All Black and my dad represented Taranaki,” says Summerset at Pohutukawa Place resident Alan.

World Cup-winning All Black Conrad Smith is Alan's nephew. “He is a way better player than me!” Alan laughs. The eldest of four children, Alan took on a large share of the farm’s responsibility, as his mother died when he was a mere eight years old. “Dad had taken a bullet in the lung during the war, and wasn’t too good after mum died, so we had to run things, really. I did a lot of cooking.”

With strength built through physical work on the farm, combined with his towering 1.9m height, Alan was ideally placed to play the position of lock, and he was representing Taranaki aged 18. “I was strong and speedy,” he says. The All Blacks selectors saw him play, and in 1964 he joined the Junior All Blacks on their Australian tour, where he’d play either as a lock or the number 8. Alan joined the All Blacks (as #667) in 1965 and headed to England for their 1967 tour. “We were supposed to go to Ireland too, but we weren’t allowed in. England had had a foot-and-mouth outbreak and the Irish didn’t want us bringing it in!” laughs Alan.

Although sports ought to transcend politics, the reality is the two are often deeply entwined. In 1970, the All Blacks were supposed to go to South Africa, a country whose apartheid laws at the time refused to accept and recognise Māori or Pasifika players.

“We went anyway,” says Alan. “We had three Māori and one Samoan on our team. We had to take a secret flight from Wellington as there were so many protests. We just wanted to play rugby but politics encroached the whole time.”

Alan and his teammates soon saw firsthand the strength of feeling around apartheid. "The Black people liked us. But the ordinary White person in the street was not happy to see us.” This was never more apparent than when the All Blacks beat Transvaal.

"The Black spectators streamed onto the field in joy at Bloemfontein,” says Alan. “And the police just laid into them, beating them with their truncheons.”

At the public receptions, the team were treated well by the political elite. “At one function the Rhodesian (modern-day Zimbabwe) prime minister Ian Smith asked me if we were related!” says Alan. “As we were both from English stock. Turns out we had no family in common, but we spent the evening chatting and got on well.”

This fledgling friendship advantaged the All Blacks when the team headed to Rhodesia to play. “The customs official took one look at Sid Going’s passport and decided there was no way he was going to let a Māori missionary into the country,” says Alan. “We said, if they weren’t going to let Sid in, none of us would go in. It was a stalemate. Then I remembered I had Ian Smith’s phone number, and I rang him, explained the situation and he said he would sort it. Sure enough, a couple of hours later we were all waved through!”

Alan played 18 games for the All Blacks over 4 years. “It should have been 20, but the ones against Canada weren’t recognised,” he says ruefully. Alan laughs as he shows off his trophies. “In those days you got a towel or a mug! You get a bit more these days.”

Alan switched sports from rugby to cricket and played for Taranaki, where he held the record for all-time bowling average, with 40 wickets for 8. It was through cricket that he first crossed paths with his wife, Chris, to whom he has been married for 58 years. “I had played for the club side and got 164 runs and took 7 wickets for 11 runs.” Chuffed with himself, Alan was convinced that his achievement would make the newspaper. “And it did, but only a tiny paragraph! Three-quarters of the page was devoted to a Christine Bree, who had just broken eight Taranaki athletics records!”

Although she had stolen his thunder, the pair eventually began dating. “He took me to a show for our first date. The first and last time!” laughs Chris.

Plagued by injuries and continuously tearing ligaments, Alan began to need surgeries, and his cricketing career came to an end. “Some were rugby injuries, but it turned out I had broken my hip and leg as a kid and didn’t realise. My horse had thrown me when I was a child, and while I got treated for gravel burns, the doctors didn’t notice my broken leg and hip! I was 32 before I found out!”

Off the pitch, Alan decided to turn his hand to breeding racehorses. “He came home one day and said, ‘Do you mind if I buy a thoroughbred mare?’ laughs Chris. "I said sure, and then he poured all love and attention into this horse!” Alan had success breeding from her, with her grandson Abit Leica winning 14 races and becoming number three in New Zealand.

Although he may no longer play professionally, Alan’s rugby career is still bringing him connections, notably when he needed radiation treatment at a hospital in the Waikato. “The nurse there was Welsh and asked me if I had ever played against the Welsh captain Mervyn Davies. "I told her yes, I had swapped jerseys with him. It turned out she was a great fan of his and had won a poetry contest when she was 14 with a poem she had written about ‘Merv the Swerve’, as he was known! I offered her his jersey, but sadly she couldn’t accept it. A shame, as she had made my six weeks of treatment much easier. But she shared the winning poem with me!”

Back in full health, Alan keeps active, cycling regularly with Chris and taking part in the CB Fit classes in the village centre. “We love it here. We’ve made loads of new friends. We might live in a retirement community but everyone likes to enjoy themselves – everyone gives everything a go!”

This is an article from the Winter 2024 edition of Summerset Scene magazine

Click here to read the full issue