Neil McLean – relentless contributions

Ian Snook

Being born in Whanganui next door to rugby’s Spriggens Park and living some early years adjacent to cricket’s Cooks Gardens, Neil was destined to love rugby and cricket.

80 years later the statistics don’t lie. There has been a lifetime of playing, coaching, administrating and reporting on his favourite sports, with three separate Life Memberships of Taranaki Rugby, Hawera Rugby and Hawera High School Rugby, thrown in for good measure. Even today you can find him at the West End Bowling Club where no doubt the main topic of conversation will be rugby.

Early memories at primary school are of lunchtime pick-up games, reading lots of sports books, keeping the cricket scorebook for the Wanganui Tech club side, and cricket in the street after school and in weekends.

Rugby started in earnest at Whanganui Technical College progressing from the 7^th grade team in the third form to prop or No 8 for the 2^nd XV in the 6^th and 7^th form. In the 5^th form there was also selection in the Whanganui Under 16’s. As a medium pace bowler he made the 2^nd XI in his last two school years.

Before attending university the holidays were spent at the freezing works so that there was a bit of money in the bank and then it was off to Auckland. Hard study is not included in the notable memories but sleeping outside Eden Park from 10.00pm on Friday night so that he and his mates would get a place in the terraces to watch the 4^th Test between the British Lions and all Blacks in 1959 was remembered vividly. Attending the cricket test between New Zealand and England and spending Saturday afternoons watching Auckland University at Eden Park in the winter stick in his mind.

There were games for Trinity College at No 8, Trinity being the boarding hostel, and plenty of casual sport such as table tennis, with his friends. Back in Whanganui for the holidays it was cricket for United 2^nd grade and employment at the freezing works once again.

The following two years were spent training to be a teacher at Palmerston North Teachers College where he made the cricket squad when he wasn’t back in Whanganui, and played prop for the rugby team. His favourite memory was marking Dennys Latham in the first years versus second years match, Dennys being a Stratford boy.

But that wasn’t all. He decided to try his hand at hockey and was selected in the Manawatu ‘B’ team.

In 1962 Neil headed off to Victoria University in Wellington to tidy up some aspects of his degree and teaching diploma. His main memories were watching the powerful Wellington University side at Athletic Park, a team which included Taranaki’s Neil Wolfe. He must have worked a bit harder this year as there was a lot less sport played.

Then it was time to teach and this was his first taste of Taranaki, where he can now be regarded as a local.  He was appointed to a position at Patea High School and boarded with the Phillips family, the most well known Phillips these days being Bruce, a Taranaki cricket and bowls representative and a highly accomplished club rugby player.

There were two seasons spent coaching the 2^nd XV who won the South Taranaki 5^th grade both times, and two seasons racing in and bowling as fast as possible for the 1^st XI along with other staff members Sam Prime, Ben Smith and Wyn Primmer.

South Taranaki cricket could obviously see the energy and enthusiasm a young Neil McLean brought to the game and appointed him player/selector for South Taranaki 2^nd grade. It was back in his home town where he would bag his only ever hattrick when playing for South against Whanganui, with his father watching on proudly from the boundary.

Part way through the second year at Patea Neil decided that he would return to Victoria University the following year to complete a BA Hons, which he duly did, so prior to the journey south he spent another holiday working, this time at the cheese cool store by the Patea Wharf.

With a teaching qualification and a BA Hons under his belt he was recruited by Hawera High School Principal Pat Whelan, Neil remembering talking to him from a public telephone booth in Wellington, and in 1966 he commenced the first of what would be 33 years at Hawera.

This is where the playing and coaching really kicked in. The Hawera staff and community in general were enthusiastic sports people and as was the case in those days teachers were heavily involved in the extra-curricula activities with their students. There were many top grade cricketers on the staff such as Neil Burnett, Colin Hagan, Bill Batchelor and Mike Young and Hawera High School was a very strong team, competing in the premier grade in the South Taranaki competition.

There was a season as player/coach of the 2^nd XI before he decided to test his abilities with the Hawera club side alongside the likes of Central Districts rep Jim Whitelock and Taranaki players Trevor O’Byrne, Rex Simpson and Colin Smith.  The South Taranaki title was won in 1968/69 and in 70/71, with Neil playing 2^nd grade, he would capture 100 wickets during the season in club and rep cricket. At any level this is a huge haul and one can only imagine Neil steaming in at top pace and firing out those 100 batsmen.

The following season it was back to school to play and coach with Colin Hagan in the 1^st XI until 1975/76. There was a multitude of talented cricketers passing through Hawera High School during Neil’s tenures and he suggests that Erroll Perret, Paul and Steven Baker, Tyler Kennedy, Dennis Mihaljevich, Paul and John Plumtree, David and Aaron Good and the O’Niells, Kerry and Mark were amongst the best.

By now Neil was at the peak of his game and he decided he would turn on his magic for the Hawera Old Boys club. In 1977/78 this powerful side lifted the Taranaki Championship. They were great days alongside good friends such as Bill Batchelor, Frank Norgate, Mike Young, Peter Plumtree, Pat Raill, Ron Sutton and Gordon and Errol Perrett.

Several years later it was back to school and stints with a talented third form team and the 2^nd XI alongside Peter Exeter. He was then the 1^st XI coach for three years from 1996 to 1998 and in ‘96 Bev, Neil’s wife, was the manager.

If cricket was taking up the summer, then there was a full programme of rugby in the winter.

Following a year coaching a junior team there were three seasons with the 2^nd XV before three successful seasons with the 1^st XV. The South Taranaki Under 21 grade was won in 1969 before it was decided they should enter the Taranaki Secondary Schools competition for some stiffer opposition. A future Taranaki coach Bill Batchelor was the assistant coach during this period.

In 1972 and 1973 Neil worked with Leo Walsh as they shared the manager and coach responsibilities with the Taranaki Secondary Schools team and in 1974 with Neil as coach and Batch as manager they took the team on an unbeaten tour to New South Wales and Canberra.

These teams would include All Blacks Murray Watts (Stratford High School) and Geoff Old (NPBHS). 1972 also saw Neil coach the Taranaki Under 18’s which included Bruce Middleton, Stephen Davidson, John Cameron, Brian Quin and Kevin Jones as well as Old and Watts. All were later prolific representative players.

It was back to the 1^st XV in 1976 and 1977 with two hugely successful seasons. 18 from 20 games were won in ‘76 and in ‘77 all the local competition games were won with only two losses once again, one being to the NPBHS 1^st XV who took the victory in injury time.

There were plenty of quality players throughout these teams including the likes of Murray Evans, Foxy Rangi, Eddie Matoe, Greg Roberts, John Gopperth, Mike Crowley and Gary Lord, but none more so than No 8 Bill Van Hengel and halfback Paul Wharehoka. Wharehoka would go on to play 99 games for Taranaki.

With so much success Neil was appointed to coach the Taranaki Colts in in 1978 who toured the top of the South Island and played the curtain-raiser to the Whanganui versus Australia game on Spriggens Park. The outstanding player was a young Colin Cooper.

With provincial ‘B’ teams then coming in to vogue he was named as the Taranaki ‘B’ coach the following year, a position which he held for seven seasons. The one game that sticks out above all the others was a victory against Wellington at Athletic Park, something that didn’t happen too often.

Following on from the coaching there were a couple of seasons managing the Taranaki team including the 1981 National Champion 7’s side, coached by Bill Batchelor and containing a star studded lineup under Paul Wharehoka’s captaincy of Colin Cooper, Warren Bunn, Gavin Wetton, Peter Harper, John Cameron, Bryce Robins and Steven Hurley.

In 1976 he was elected on to the Taranaki Rugby Union on which he would sit for 13 seasons, five of those as Chairman from 1991 to 1995. This was a natural progression as he had served on the South Taranaki Rugby and Cricket Committees, many as Secretary, the Taranaki Junior Committee, Hawera Rugby Club and the Taranaki Secondary Schools Committee.

Neil is very proud of the amount of work members of the TRFU put in before professionalism arrived with many individuals applying themselves to the tasks that nowadays are carried out by paid staff. The one person who he really wanted to mention is the late Sue Mitchell who was always on hand to help Neil during his time as Chairman and later on as he began to archive the material lying in one of the back rooms.

There were many good times as well. Lion Breweries flew the Chairmen of the Lion Brewery provinces to Christchurch then on to Dunedin by train to watch the 1994 Bledisloe Cup game and in 1995 the same group were flown to Sydney with $100 spending money and their own labelled jackets. TRFU committee members and their wives were also bussed to games around the North Island, which was a reward for the many hours of voluntary service.

One of those voluntary contributions was being responsible for making up the draw for all the grades over many seasons. He would think it was complete and a couple of teams would pull out or in some instances would be added so the whole process would start over. It is rumoured though that each season Hawera would get to play Inglewood when Dave Loveridge was on test duty. Maybe, maybe not.

Another of the jobs Neil took on for nearly ten seasons was the responsibility of ringing all the senior coaches or managers each week to gather the team lists for the ‘Touchline’. The Touchline was the weekly rugby programme, and probably the most interesting read of any week, with editorials, updates, club notes, stats from each grade, and every team list from the top two grades. One can only imagine the frustrations involved with this task.

On Thursdays hundreds of Touchlines would arrive at Neil’s which needed to be sorted for people to pick up and sell as well as to be distributed to various outlets. The older brigade will remember these productions very well.

As the rugby and cricket coaching became slightly less demanding there were ten seasons spent as the Citing Officer for the TRFU, a job with plenty of responsibility and just as many critics. Those were the days before fancy television footage and much had to be done through the interview process and watching every game like a hawk. Sometimes Neil would still be at the ground nearing midnight as team coaches and managers weighed up their options.

There were also half and fulltime scores to be relayed back to Laurie Denton at Radio Taranaki from Hawera, Manaia, Eltham or Stratford, so that the province knew what was going on. He would also add his opinion, no doubt wary that he would be talking to many knowledgeable rugby people in the next day or two.

With coaching starting to play a lesser part in his life he joined the Hawera Park Bowling Club in 1994 and would remain a member until the family shift to New Plymouth in 1999.

In 1999 it was out of Hawera and in to Francis Douglas Memorial College where he would spend his final eight years of classroom teaching. This brought to an end over 30 years of travelling to New Plymouth, sometimes three times a week during his coaching and management days, which was an hour at least each way. This information brings a wry smile but never a complaint. You did what you had to do.

There were junior cricket and rugby teams to be coached at FDMC, a winning season with the ‘E’ grade side and even an award as ‘Rugby Coach of the Year’ just to show that the skills and enthusiasm had not diminished.

Things were winding down somewhat but there was and still is the West End Bowling Club to enjoy the companionship that has always existed throughout a long sporting involvement. For four years Neil would be chairman, and as it was just around the corner from his home it took up many hours, doing everything from cleaning toilets to running the bar. He still enjoys a bowl up to this day and a good solid rugby discussion.

It would be beyond comprehension just how many scrums have been packed down, how many balls bowled, how many kilometres travelled, how many phone calls made to coaches and how many ‘nayes’ and ‘yayes’ have been recorded at meetings, as well as the number of rugby jerseys washed and repaired and scones baked by Neil’s wife Bev.

A quick calculation suggests 36 years of playing and coaching cricket, 31 years of coaching and managing rugby, 30 years on various committees, sometimes two different committees in the same year, 14 years as the TRFU Citing Officer, 10 years of garnishing team lists for Touchline, and three years as a roving reporter. That’s a fair effort.

He is another of those remarkable people who give so much of their time for the benefit of others and I know that he is regarded fondly by all those who had anything to do with him. Even today he has members of his 1^st XV’s at Hawera calling in on him and Bev.

Well done Neil. There is plenty to feel proud about.

Ian Snook is a Sports News Taranaki contributor. He is a former Taranaki and Central Districts cricketer, played rugby for Taranaki and coached to a high level in nine different countries.