Eddie Butler : Rugby
Before the game against Ireland two weeks ago, Sean Fitzpatrick, perhaps surprised to be above ground and not in the changing room, agreed to do a BBC interview for Grandstand. The captain of the All Blacks, his international career spanning 11 years and 91 caps, was missing his first Test ever through injury. A wounded knee was keeping the shirt off his back.
If he was hurting inside he revealed nothing on the outside. He was immaculately attired in his dark-grey suit. He wasn’t even limping. “Remind me,” he said as he approached the interview area at Lansdowne Road, “Who’s that?”
“Steve Rider,” said his BBC escort.
“No, not Steve. The tall guy he’s interviewing.”
“Jeremy Davidson.”
“Of course.” And Fitzpatrick went and shook the hand of the big Irishman who was also missing the match through a knee injury.
“Jeremy,” said Fitzpatrick. “Congratulations on a fantastic Lions tour in the summer.”
Little things, little things. The right line at the right moment, before going on air to give an interview with smooth, if chilling charm. A smile comes readily to the face of this rugby institution, as it does to the rounded features of many a front-row forward, but you suspect that this may be the same smile that he once flashed at Johan Le Roux, the South African prop who did a Tyson on one of his ears.
Fitzpatrick is a smiler but you don’t survive at the topmost level for over a decade in the most hostile sporting environment outside the boxing ring by meaning it. It would be an insult to call Sean Fitzpatrick a “nice guy”.
He has indubitably been an inspiration. It seems strange to be doing a piece on a New Zealander who is not part of the All Blacks currently forging a name for themselves as one of the finest sides of all time, but Sean Fitzpatrick remains a presence even when only making an appearance as a substitute in the midweek team, as he did this week against the English Rugby Partnership XV.
You can’t help but feel that there is after all a spirit of romance in the All Blacks. Sean Fitzpatrick was born into rugby. His father was an All Black who injured his knee in the 1953 game in Wales, which was the last time the All Blacks lost to Wales, thanks to a cross-kick by Clem Thomas and a try by Ken Jones. (Sorry – that, of course, is Welsh romance.)
But just when you grow to like the idea of Fitzpatrick junior being raised on legends from the past, you discover that his own career was launched into a period that was starkly unsentimental. He made his Test debut in 1986 at home against the French as part of the Baby All Blacks. The game was won 18-9, but this was a time of division in New Zealand, as a result of the tour that same year by the New Zealand Cavaliers to South Africa.
The rebel Cavaliers were banned and the Baby All Blacks faced the French in three Tests, that first one at home and then two away in Toulouse and Nantes. The All Blacks won in Toulouse but were brutalised in Nantes. They lost 16-3 and afterwards Wayne Shelford had to have his testicles sewn back together.
The All Blacks returned home and regrouped for the first World Cup of 1987. The old- guard Cavaliers were brought back. Hooker Andy Dalton was made captain. It looked like the young Fitzpatrick would have to wait.
But Dalton was injured. Fitzpatrick played all the way through the victorious campaign and carried on playing without interruption until 1995 when he took a rest for the World Cup pool game in South Africa against Japan.
Strangely enough, just as his side of 1997 seem to be doing well enough without him, so in 1995 they just about held things together. New Zealand won 145-17, a victory which may not have done wonders for the game on the northern flank of the Pacific Rim.
There has never been much fear of getting rid of Fitzpatrick. He survived the return of Andy Dalton, he survived the clean-out after the World Cup of 1991, which had ended when a vibrant Australia outclassed an ageing, moody New Zealand side in Dublin. He survived food poisoning on the eve of the World Cup final of 1995, survived losing the final itself to the Springboks.
His basics are impeccable. The All Black scrummage – bar Nantes – has rarely been under pressure. His throwing-in, with a trademark two-handed style, is accurate to all jumpers, even to Michael Jones at the tail in the wet. He set new trends by being the first hooker to have the confidence to stay out wide as an extra wing.
In the more confined spaces of the scrummage, the hooker, suspended helplessly between his props, is traditionally the most suicidally inclined towards barbed banter. Nobody apparently has a crueller tongue than Fitzpatrick. Even when his position as world number one was threatened, as it was by Phil Kearns of Australia around 1991, he reinvented himself with new training schedules and new levels of commitment.
I remember him on the Lions tour to New Zealand in 1993. At the start of the trip he was invited to meet the press. He had just flown back into Auckland from a Super 10 encounter – or whatever the number was in those days – in South Africa. He paused outside the Stu Wilson’s bar in Takapuna, visibly shook the fatigue from his eyes before entering to shake the hands of everyone inside, smile at the ready.
It was chilling even then; here was a consummate professional ahead of his time.
At the end of the 1993 tour, with the series level at one-all, his team went into the final Test at Eden Park, Auckland, whipped by the most hostile domestic press since Graham Taylor suffered tabloid transmutation into a veg. No smiles then, but Fitzpatrick led the All Blacks to a storming triumph. He has been one of the most determined performers of his age.
But can he survive now? Can he take his Test tally to 100 and take New Zealand to the World Cup in 1999? Every part of his 34-year-old body, and especially his gammy knee, must be saying no. It is time for the monster to calm its cruel tongue, take the chill off its smile, and become as genial as the rest of the non-rugby-playing population of New Zealand. Sean Fitzpatrick, nice guy. It has a certain ring to it.
But remember the enigma value. Why not strike a blow for the sentiment in which you probably don’t believe, Sean? Take the surgeon’s knife, reinvent yourself, be mean and foul-mouthed where it matters most. Don’t smile and say “Well played”. Make them want to bite your ears off. That’s romance.