Archive: "Colin Meads dismissal tarnishes good game"

No-side at Murrayfield - where the All Blacks defeated Scotland by a goal, a try and two penalty goals to a dropped goal in a tousled, bruising but not unscientific battle - sounded, in the circumstances, like the Last Tramp.

Less than three minutes from time, Colin Meads, the personification of New Zealand forward play, had followed, across 42 years, his legendary compatriot, Cyril Brownlie - sent off by Mr A. E. Freethy against England at Twickenham in 1925 for allegedly kicking an opponent - into international rugby's otherwise empty Hall of Shame.

Meads had lurched clear of Carmichael and a disintegrating ruck to loose a flailing boot at the ball at a moment when, Chisholm having already clearly completed his typically deft pick-up, the All Black had no right to do so. He was not, I am sure, out to maim Chisholm, but he was certainly flagrantly careless of that tough little gentleman's immediate well-being.

It was undeniably dangerous play, but also I think - and Chisholm thought so too - one of those innumerable incidents in rugby, which look somewhat worse than they are and very much worse than they feel.

Chisholm was adamant that it was an accident, adding that "He never touched me" - certainly, Chisholm did not require attention. On the other hand, Mr Kevin Kelleher had already formally cautioned Meads - and, obviously, this further happening did not look like an accident to him. As undramatically as possible, he told Meads he was sending him off - and Meads went, turning, without hope, apparently to inquire: "You really mean it, ref?"

The distress of the moment - made no less by Meads' undisputable greatness as a player and his standing among those who know him best, his fellow All Blacks - deepened as some among our countrymen, deprived nowadays of public hangings, bayed in triumph, as Meads slowly made his way to the changing room where, I was told, his team-mates minutes later found him in tears.

Mr Kelleher, for his part, obviously felt that, having previously warned Meads for dangerous play at a ruck, he had no alternative but to send him off for what was, in effect a different manifestation of the same offence.

Again, a famous referee who must remain nameless, confessed at night that his immediate reaction, as Meads lashed out, was one of dismay and an involuntary: "He'll have to go."