Wellington against international teams: versus England 1973

Match Details

Result: England 26 – Wellington 15
When: 5 September 1973
Weather: Fine and sunny
Crowd: 30,000

The Tour:

1973 was supposed to be the year of the Springboks. But a letter from Prime Minister Norman Kirk to the NZRU in April asking them to defer the tour owing to apartheid. This in turn threw the international season into disarray. Who would the All Blacks play that year, if anyone?

A four-match internal tour was arranged between the All Blacks against the New Zealand Juniors, the New Zealand Maori and two invitational teams, while the feelers went out for a full international side. Scotland weren’t available at short notice, but England was.

Thus, a decade after first touring New Zealand, England landed in New Zealand at the end of August to play provincial matches against Taranaki, Wellington, Canterbury and a one-off Test against the All Blacks in Auckland.

In a mud bath, they lost to Taranaki 3-6, lost to Wellington 16-25 and lost to Canterbury 12-19, and weren’t given much chance against the All Blacks. But in the Test at Eden Park they were to learn the lessons from their provincial opponents and they beat the All Blacks 16-12.

The Match:

For Wellington, little could be gleaned from the tourists’ form from their first match, although Wellington had already beaten Taranaki twice earlier in the season. Wellington had also beaten Canterbury and Otago and were to go on to win 14 of their 19 representative matches.

The Wellington team contained three capped All Blacks, Grant Batty (Marist St Pat’s), Mark Sayers (University) and John Dougan (Petone) and two future All Black captains in the loose forwards, Andy Leslie (Petone) and Graham Mourie (University).

Wellington went into this match with their 9-47 loss to the British Lions in 1971 still fresh on their minds, so were motivated to put that behind them.

Taking a page out of the 1971 Lions’ playbook, Wellington had struck upon an enterprising style of rugby. Wellington captain John Dougan told the Dominion before the match that “ It’ll be as we normally play, when it’s on we’ll be spinning the ball….that’s our rugby philosophy and we can’t change it now.”

As predicted, Wellington came out firing on all cylinders and took it to England. The result was a match winning 21-3 lead at halftime. Wing Graham Wallis (University), who had replaced an injured Batty in the team, opened the scoring with a converted try. Both sides exchanged penalties until Wellington’s other wing, Keith Hawea (Ories), ran on to a stab kick by fullback Brian Cederwall (Athletic) to score. Second five-eighth Richard Cleland (Petone) added the extras and suddenly Wellington had a commanding lead.

There was no further scoring until midway through the second half when Graham Mourie burrowed over to score to increase Wellington’s lead and effectively wrap up the match. England came back with a late flurry but it was too little too late.

The Dominion summed up victory the next morning: “In a dazzling first spell display everything just fell Wellington’s way and, up 21-3 at halftime, Wellington was well equipped to hang on when England finally did rally over the last 20 minutes.”

The Rugby Weekly summed the win up afterwards: “The most heartening thing of the match was that Wellington won by following the open game.”

“The ghost that has hung over Wellington rugby since its rout at the hands of the Lions in 1971 has been finally put to rest.”

The Teams:

Wellington: 1. G.A. Head, 2. K.D. Horan, 3. A.E. Keown, 4. N. B. Hawkins, 5. D.W. Martin, 6. D.M. Waller, 7. G.N.K. Mourie, 8. A.R. Leslie, 9. D.J. Henderson, 10. J.P. Dougan, 11. G.R. Wallis, 12. R.S. Cleland, 13. M. Sayers, 14. K. Hawea, 15, B.W. Cederwall

England: 1. M.A. Burton, 2. J. White, 3. F.E. Cotton, 4. J.A. Watkins, 5. R.M. Wilkonson, 6. C.W. Ralson, 7. P.J. Hendy, 8. R.M. Uttley, 9. S.J. Smith, 10. A.G.B. Old, 11. J.P.A.G. Janion, 12. P.J. Squires, 13. P.M. Knight, 14, G.W. Evans, 15. A.M. Jorden

The Players:

Apart from a couple of years in the Hawke’s Bay Ranfurly Shield team in 1968-69, John Dougan was Wellington’s first choice first five-eighth for several years up to the mid-1970s. As well as leading to Petone to several Wellington Premier club titles, he was at the forefront of Wellington’s positive brand of rugby.

Dougan was called up to the All Blacks in 1972, making his Test debut against Australia and scored the first four-point try in Test rugby in this international. He made the All Blacks again in 1973, playing in the Eden Park Test loss, before being dropped and never to play of the All Blacks again. In all, he made 12 appearances for New Zealand. His uncle Jackie was a famous club player for Petone and Onslow and representative player for Wellington in the 1950s. John Dougan died in 2006, aged 59.

Graham Mourie, a then 20-year old university student, played for the New Zealand Juniors against Dougan and the All Blacks in 1973 and scored a try in an upset 14-10 win in Dunedin.

Mourie also made his first-class debut for Wellington in 1973, this match against England his first time playing against an overseas international team. Mourie also represented the New Zealand Colts and New Zealand Universities during his stint living in and playing for Wellington.

He later made the All Blacks in 1976 for the first time out of his home province Taranaki – as captain to Argentina - going on to play two home Tests against the 1977 British Lions. He captained the All Blacks on their Grand Slam tour to the Europe in 1978 and, apart from not playing against South Africa in 1981, went on to lead the All Blacks until his retirement at the end of 1982. Mourie later coached both Wellington and the Hurricanes.

Prop Al Keown (Wellington College Old Boys) played 149 matches for Wellington and later captained Wellington to their first NPC title in 1978, before dying of cancer soon after retiring at the end of 1979. Keown was considered unlucky never to make the All Blacks, but earlier in 1973 he played in the New Zealand President’s XV’s 35-28 win over the All Blacks on Athletic Park.

During his career, Keown trialled for the All Blacks in 1971, 1972 and 1974. His Wellington career spanned 1966-1979.

Today, the Al Keown Memorial Cup is awarded annually to the WRFU Academy’s best performed player.

References

• The Dominion newspaper, September 5 and 6 1973
• Arthur Swan and Gordon Jackson. Wellington’s Rugby History Part 11 1950-1979. WRFU, 1979.
• The Visitors - The History of International Rugby Teams in New Zealand by Rod Chester, Neville McMillan. MOA Publications, Auckland, 1990
• The Encyclopedia of New Zealand Rugby By Ron Palenski, Rod Chester, Neville McMillan. Hodder Moa Beckett, Auckland 1998
• All Blacks A-Z on www.allblacks.com
• Adam Julian ‘A beer with an All Black: Graham Mourie, 2015
• www.petonerugby.com website 
• Rugby Weekly, September 1973
• Photo credit: Graham Mourie scoring his try - Rugby Weekly 15/16 September 1973