Former All Black loose forward Alan Sutherland has died in South Africa after a short battle with cancer.
Alan Sutherland on the burst for New Zealand, 1972-73 tour of Britain and France. Photo: Photosport
He was 76.
Sutherland played 64 games for the All Blacks, including ten tests between 1968 and 1973, and was part of three controversial All Black touring sides.
He was also member of the history making Marlborough Ranfurly Shield winning side of 1973.
He toured South Africa twice, in 1970 and 1976 and after the second tour stayed on to farm there and breed race horses.
In 2013 returned to Blenheim for the 125th anniversary of the Marlborough Rugby Union.
At the time he spoke to the Marlborough Express saying his first role was as "a professional rugby player - probably the first of all time".
"I started off in Rhodesia as a player-coach for a season and then I went down to Witts [Witwatersrand] University as player-coach of the whole university I suppose. Nowadays I would be called director of rugby."
He kept playing rugby until he was 36 then "closed the door and never went back....these big Afrikaaner guys were knocking the living hell out of me. Plus the injuries. You name it, I had it."
He bought a farm in the Natal midlands.
"I bought an existing stud," he told the paper "and would like to think I built it up."
He spent 30 years doing that before selling off most of it in 2012.
Sutherland said he contemplated returning to New Zealand at times.
"But, to be honest, [South Africa's] one of the few places in the world you don't have to be a millionaire to live like one. Compared to New Zealand, it's still relatively cheap. You could actually buy a mansion in South Africa for around $NZ400,000, a very, very impressive house."
Despite being a member of the controversial tours to the republic in 1970 and 1976, he was also a member of the 1972-73 tour of Britain when prop Keith Murdoch was sent home.
"In 1970 I was quite a good player, a test player, in 1976 I was ordinary, I got injured," he told the Marlborough Express.
He remembered the 1970 win over South Africa in the second test at Capetown "the most brutal game I ever played in."
"I've still got the scars. Five minutes in I got kicked in the face, where it really hurts, just below my lip. I can't say what happened but I got a bit angry. I've never seen so many people get stitched up after a game in my life.
"In fact, when I went in they had run out of local [anaesthetic]. It felt like a guy was putting an eight inch nail through my lip. But it needed to be done."
Infamous "Black Hats" at Porthcawl, 1972 - Alan Sutherland, Tane Norton, Alex Wyllie. Photo: Photosport
The tour of Britain he remembered as a "lot of fun" despite the departure of Murdoch who sent home for punching a security guard at the Angel Hotel in Cardiff.
"It was a bit of a disaster as far as public relations goes and no-one's ever told the truth about it. Our manager [Ernie Todd] was dying of cancer. He was a bit of a nightmare. Hell of a nice guy, but the man's dying of cancer. Unfortunately he drank too much and he said a few words he shouldn't have . . . well he died two months after we got back, so it was perhaps understandable," he told the paper.
"But we were never told, if we were we may have had a more sympathetic view [of Todd's management]. We weren't kids. You don't come in and abuse guys, some of us had families, we actually knew how to behave, we always were responsible.
"The coach [Bob Duff] was fantastic, he basically ran the whole tour, without him it would have been a disaster."
On Murdoch who never made it back home from Britain but got off the flight in Australia and lived a reclusive life in the Australian outback Sutherland said "Keith was also a bit of a problem child but it could have been handled differently. He wasn't the firecracker he was made out to be, but he was different.
"Most of the time he was 100 percent. But that night he got particularly hungry and couldn't find any food.
"The Welsh had just won the Lions series and they thought they were going to walk all over us, we didn't look too good going into the test and when we beat them they couldn't handle it.
"Their behaviour was disgraceful, even in the hotel they wouldn't give us food, wouldn't give us anything. So that's what happened. It created a very, very toxic situation and being a bit of a hot-headed guy [Murdoch] was caught in the crossfire.
"I think if I'd been there I'd also have punched that guy, he was an arrogant bugger, that security guard."
