Today my very good friend Sam Walsh invited me to the NZ Rugby Foundation’s charity race day at Auckland’s Ellerslie racecourse (the charity raises money for injured players and other worthy causes). The Radio Network, which Sam works for, had a table on the Cuvée enclosure which is where the great and the good hang out and I half expect to appear in the background of celebrity gossip magazines photographs in the next week or so.

It was a great afternoon. I received a tip for the 4^th race which I backed on the nose and made $180 (and did not place another bet) and during the course of the afternoon I had a chat with a number rugby heroes (or perhaps villains when considered from ta Welsh perspective).

First up was Shane Howarth the three times capped All Black who, after switching to NRL to play for the Queensland Cowboys, move to the UK and eventually received 23 Welsh caps at full back (before being banned from playing for Wales as his Welsh grandfather proved to in fact be a Kiwi). We had a good chat about his time in Wales and in particular the Paris game I attended in 1999 when Wales won for the first time in France since 1975 in a pulsating game which ended 33-34.

I also had a pee with perhaps New Zealand’s most revered rugby player, Colin Meads and took the opportunity to quiz him on whether he’d actually kicked Clive Rowlands, the Welsh scum half (and my wife’s uncle), during the 1963 test in Cardiff which the AB’s won 0-6. His answer was unequivocal,  ‘yes, I drop my knee on the little prick’ and that ‘there was nothing wrong with him if his dancing at the evening reception was anything to go by’. He claimed that Clive had ‘stayed down’ writhing in apparent pain to wind the crowd up and put  pressure on the referee to send him off. Clive ? Surely not.

I also had a chat with Frank Bunce who confirmed that he has not played since my scything tackle on him but when he heard that I was claiming that I had ended his career he threatened to come out of retirement to play against me again in the Mangere v Teacher Eastern game in the coming season.

Finally, I had a long chat with Buck Shelford whom I had last seen in person at the Llanelli v All Blacks game at Stradey Park in 1989, a game played in a howling gale so strong that the temporary stand erected for the game on the tanner bank was deemed unsafe and ticket holders were required cram into the terrance. The ABs, playing with the powerful wind  at their backs establish an 0-11 lead at half time, a score Llanelli supporters seemed to believe would be comfortably overcome given the strength of the  wind. However, Buck Shelford had other ideas and the ABs sealed an impressive victory with neither side scoring a point in the second half. The rules at the time gave the team in possession the put in if the ball did not emerge from a ruck or a maul. The second half, which was played almost exclusively in or around the New Zealand 22m, saw Shelford repeatedly pick up form the scrum, crash the ball up and win the put in to  the next scrum. This pattern of play went on for the best part of the forty minutes. For the purist, it was ruthless display of how to take full advantage of the rules to beat the weather conditions and the opposition. For Llanelli, it was reason enough to lobby for a change to the rules which came a year or so later. We had a good chat and he recalled with very real respect the stern challenge the Welsh club sides offered on that 1989 tour.

Having provided these men with the benefit of my immense rugby wisdom Sam and I left the event.