Ross Flintoff and daughter Karen Gibson.
King Country will go in as underdogs when they take on Hawke’s Bay for the Ranfurly Shield on June 26 – today Paul Charman takes us back to a time when Ross Flintoff played in a team that went an entire season unbeaten
Nineteen sixty-five is the year the King Country won every game of the season, becoming the first ever provincial rugby side to do so.
It was an experience one the few surviving players, Ōtorohanga’s Ross Flintoff, will never forget.
Though weighing just over 76kg (12 stone), the No 8 was a relentless tackler who scored more than his share of tries.
But much of this success was due to, he says, to playing alongside “giants of the game”, his fellow forwards including locks Colin and Stan Meads and a front row comprising Maori All Blacks Bill Wordley, Howard Paiaka and Rocky Parr.
Legendary rugby writer Terry McLean said in the Meads brothers King Country had the best locks in the world and probably its “ugliest front row”.
“Actually Bill, Howard and Rocky were good looking men; what Terry was referring to was their ability to ‘get ugly’, when opposing sides tried to push the Meads brothers around,” Ross said.
Ross captained the Taumarunui High School 1st XV, played club rugby for Ongarue and got into the King Country team aged 22-23.
The wiry little Number 8 put in big tackles but never head-high ones. Opposing forwards under-estimated him at their peril.
As a ball carrier prepared to run over the top of him, Ross would drop down in the last fraction of a second, taking the surprised oncomer down with both arms thrown around his legs, just below the knees.
What was rugby like back then?
“Well, way better – because we had rucking,” Ross said.
“Since they outlawed rucking the game’s just gone backwards; its just become a game for big overweight men who just love to smash into little backs.
“In my time we had a solid forward tight five who were always very quick to the breakdown. It was my job to get there first and Pinetree would say ‘we’re no good at running back so if they get the ball on the ground behind us and hang onto it; we’ll get there (soon enough)’.
“So I did. I’d grab the ball and run into the opposition, get tackled and just hang onto it, which you could do a lot longer in those days.
“My team would get there, walk over the top of me, ruck me out the back of the thing, and as I was coming out I just give the ball a little flick and the halfback would grab it and away we’d go again.
“All I ever got was a few scrapes on the body. In eight years playing for King Country I only got kicked badly once (in the leg), playing Thames Valley.
“The game flowed better with rucking. Now they just have these big thickies charging and, boof, it’s on the ground and they have fellows diving over it. The ref doesn’t seem to know who to penalise; whether the guy diving on, or the one hanging onto the ball.
“It’s a lottery.
“But, of course, all this frees up all the other tight forwards and so they just spread out along the backline, in front of the backs, and if the other side win the ball then they have to run through a brick wall of big over-weight tight forwards.
“Also, they always tackle too high and that’s where you’re getting a lot of head injuries. Head injuries are the worst thing about modern game; I don’t know why the powers that be can’t see that and do something about it.”
Each of the games in Country’s record-breaking season were hard, and only won by close margins.
The game that sticks in the mind for Ross was against a side made up of the best players from Thames Valley, Counties and Bay of Plenty.
“This side wanted to play us as a warm-up for their match against the Springboks, who were then touring. Against such classy opposition, sports writers predicted the end of our unbeaten record – but they were wrong.”
Ross made the try saving tackle for King Country by pushing a winger into touch just before the whistle blew.
“Old Curley, our selector, rushed up and, to my great embarrassment, gave me a hug.
“Players didn’t hug in those days; if anyone had tried to hug Colin Meads he would have punched them in the head, but I put it down to the emotion of the moment.”
The following year, 1966, King Country combined with near neighbours Wanganui to defeat the British Lions 12–6 in one of the biggest triumphs for rugby in the region.
“They thought the little guy at the end of the lineout was nothing, but if you go low enough and just tie their feet together, they’re just top heavy – they just come down. It’s simple physics.
“We made sure they virtually got no ball from lineouts. I think we were the first combined team in New Zealand to beat a touring international side.”
