Remembering 'Pinetree' Meads

Vale Sir Colin Meads. Touted as "New Zealand's Donald Bradman", their greatest ever All Black passed away on Sunday at the age of 81.

A lock-forward, with extraordinary size, speed and strength, not to mention hands like huge shovels, that turned into fists of steel, "Pinetree"

Meads played 55 Tests for the ABs from 1957 to 1971 and no fewer than 133 games.

I came to know him well over the years and was privileged to once, I kid you not, share a dressing room with him and his great teammate

Sir Brian Lochore, before we competed in a shear-off at the NZ Shearing Championships. (They won.) Over the years, I have also heard

most of the stories, but none better than the one printed on Wednesday, in the Hawkes Bay segment of the New Zealand Heraldwhich told

the story of a 1969 rugby game between Mead's King Country side and the local Hawkes Bay Magpies for the beloved Ranfurly Shield.

In the middle of a fierce and tightly contested game, a Hawkes Bay prop, Brian Thimbleby, observing some blood around Mead's chops,

turns to the referee and says "I reckon you had better count the players, I think Meads might have scoffed one of them."