JULY 1982
AUSTRALIA ‘got out of jail’ to beat New Zealand 11-8 in the First Test of the 1982 Trans-Tasman series at Lang Park, with reserve forward, John Muggleton scoring the match winning try three minutes from fulltime.
The big talking point was the hard-line stance of English referee, Fred Lindop, who blew the pea out of the whistle, awarding 25 penalties to the Kiwis and 19 to Australia. He was particularly severe on Australian players for standing inside the five metres. He also sent Australian halfback, Steve Mortimer to the bin in the 74th minute, for repeated scrum infringements.
Lindop’s approach marred the match as a spectacle, but he countered by saying the players were to blame, in particular Australian skipper and hooker, Max Krilich.
“Krilich tried to take the mickey out of me,” Lindop said, in reference to Krilich’s habit of packing with a loose arm. “He’ll have to change his ways if he goes to England. At home there are four or five referees who would have shifted both hookers (in the Test).” (The Kiwi hooker was Howie Tamati).
“In all my years as a referee (It was Lindop’s 19th Test) I have never experienced anything like it. I found myself refereeing two sides who weren’t going to give me a thing. I got to a stage where I felt dead sick. I had talked and shouted to the players to try to get them to stay onside. They didn’t respond. They gave me absolutely nothing.”
The Courier-Mail’s Lawrie Kavanagh commented that the players appeared to be too thick to comprehend that Lindop would not stand for any nonsense.
“A cat or a dog has only to put its paw on a hot stove once, to learn it hurts,” Kavangah wrote.
I covered the match for Brisbane’s afternoon paper, the ‘Telegraph’, and I went down the same path as Kavanagh, commenting that the players did not even try to mend their ways. And I thought the Kiwis deserved to win
The Kiwis won the crowd over with their courageous defence, and brilliant attack, inspired by North Sydney lock, Mark Graham. The Kiwi pack included three Taranaki players – Bruce Gall, Howie Tamati and Graeme West – and they got over the top of their Australian rivals.
Kiwi prop, Kevin Tamati ironed out Australia’s Rohan Hancock from Warwick, with a brutal shoulder charge in the second minute. Hancock showed enormous courage to battle on for the rest of the half, and into the second half. Muggleton replaced Hancock in the 58th minute. Hancock, who along with Muggleton and Paul Vautin was making his Test debut, complained of headaches the following day and could not recall anything of the tackle.
With Mortimer in the bin, the Kiwis led 8-6 thanks to four penalty goals by Gordon Smith, with Mick Cronin having landed three goals for Australia. Cronin also converted Muggleton’s match winner, to become Australia’s highest ever points scorer, with 190 in his Test career.
Australian five eighth, Wally Lewis was named Man of the Match.
The Kiwis impressive showing came as no surprise to Australian coach, Frank Stanton, who had studied videos of their drawn series in Britain and France in 1980, and their home series win over France, in 1981. New Zealand were also able to call on Sydney based players, Mark Graham, Mark Broadhurst and Olsen Filipaina, a luxury denied previous touring sides.
There was no way Australia took things easy against the Kiwis, given places were up for grabs for the Kangaroo tour of Britain and France at the end of the year.
“That was a real Test match,” declared Krilich. “It was three times as hard as any of the State of Origin matches.
British coaching staff member, Colin Hutton attended the Lang Park Test. During his time in Queensland, Hutton stayed at the Moreon Bay Hotel, Redcliffe, where the licensee was former Australian skipper, Arthur Beetson, who played with Hull Kingston Rovers in 1968, when Hutton was club chairman. Hutton coached Great Britain in 1962, when they won the Test series in Australia. Britain had named a 33-man preliminary squad at the end of the 1981-82 domestic season, in May.
In the Test curtain raisers, Queensland Tertiary Colleges defeated NSW Universities and Colleges 14-12; while the Queensland Police Academy defeated Kelvin Grove College of Advance Education 16-3.
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