Former All Black Tony Kreft mourned as top prop and 'one of rugby's great team spirit men'

Ranfurly-based Kreft had four games for the All Blacks on the 1968 tour, including one test, playing alongside some of the greatest All Blacks of the amateur era including Colin Meads, Ian Kirkpatrick and Chris Laidlaw.

Mains, who played alongside Kreft for Otago, said he “probably would have’’ won more caps but “the New Zealand front row at that stage was very strong, and it would have been very difficult to break in’’.

“He played a lot of rugby for Otago, and he was the cornerstone of the scrum in the years I played with him,” Mains said on Monday.

“But even better than that, he would have been one of the best team spirit men to have in a rugby team.

“He never had a bad word to say about anyone, and I never heard a bad word about him.

“He was always very jovial, the life of the party. We used to do a lot of trips in those days, and he sat in the middle of the back set and pretty much controlled everything that went on.”

Born in Milton in 1945 and raised in Ranfurly in the Maniototo, Kreft at 1.86m tall and 98kg was “strongly built and surprisingly mobile in the open’’, according to Kreft’s profile on the NZ Rugby Museum website.

He made his first-class debut for Otago in 1966 as a 21-year-old and the following year played 15 provincial matches, represented the South Island and the Junior All Blacks and took part in the South Island All Blacks trial.

Cracking the All Blacks in the late 1960s was no easy feat with coach Fred Allen’s team the best in the world – and amongst the greatest New Zealand squads of all-time. The great Ken Gray and Brian ‘Jazz’ Muller and the experienced Alister Hopkinson (Canterbury) and Jack Hazlett (Southland) got the nod for the 1967-68 European tour.

By 1968, however, Kreft commanded a place ahead of Hazlett and 1966 All Blacks reserve prop Paul Scott for the final trial to pick the All Blacks squad to tour Australia and Fiji.

Allen and his selectors chose only three props – Gray, Muller and Hopkinson – but injuries soon struck.

According to a 1968 New Zealand Press Association report, Kreft – then a 23-year-old transport operator - was watching a seven-a-side tournament on a Saturday morning when he got a phone call from Otago-based New Zealand Rugby Union councillor Charlie Saxton.

“You’re off to Australia,’’ Saxton said.

The Ranfurly transport operator arrived in Canberra on the Tuesday and made his All Blacks debut the following day in a 44-0 win over Australian Capital Territory.

The match report noted: “The loose nature of the game did not suit the replacement prop, Kreft, but he could be pleased with his first game for New Zealand”, including some “powerhouse drives”.

With Gray and Muller nursing injuries, Kreft partnered Hopkinson and hooker Bruce McLeod in the front row for a 30-5 win over New South Wales at the Sydney Sports Ground.

He got two tries – his only All Black scores – in a 34-3 win over Queensland at Ballymore.

After it was revealed that Gray had suffered a broken thump, Kreft got to wear an All Blacks test jersey for the first and only time against the Wallabies in Brisbane.

The All Blacks – who had won the first test in Sydney – won 19-18, trailing before being awarded a late penalty try, converted by Fergie McCormick.

Kreft had the last say in the test, with the NZPA match report noting. “The bell to signal the end of the game sounded as the Australians kicked off and the All Blacks prop forward A J Kreft made a defiant finale to his first test for New Zealand by booting the ball over the top of the temporary seating on the eastern side of the ground.”

The Otago man, the report noted, had “a satisfactory first test’’.

The old firm of Muller, Gray and Hopkinson were preferred for the 1968 home series against France, although Kreft played against the tourists in a 12-6 loss at Carisbrook.

He also “toiled manfully against the odds’’ in the Otago pack in a 27-9 defeat to Wales in 1969.

Kreft, who played 60 times for Otago and captained his province at times, including to a memorable 20-17 win over Canterbury in 1969, Otago’s first victory over their rivals for 20 years, a week before the red-and-blacks wrested the Ranfurly Shield off Hawke’s Bay.

A regular South Island representative, Kreft was rated a chance to tour South Africa with the All Blacks in 1970, but was only named in the early trial. All Blacks coach Ivan Vodanovich and his selectors named another Otago prop, Keith Murdoch for the Springboks series.

Kreft captained Otago in a Ranfurly Shield challenge against Canterbury, in 1970. The visitors made a bright start, leading 9-0 after 11 minutes, but Canterbury – bolstered by the return of five All Blacks – rallied to win 16-12. However, Kreft, “again demonstrated his effectiveness as a prop’’, The Press’ rugby writer John (J K) Brooks wrote.

The Otago skipper, who often played alongside brother-in-law and hooker Dave Pescini, was 25 in 1970, but that proved his final first-class season.

He played for Otago Country in 1971, but, according to his NZ Rugby Museum profile, work commitments restricted him to club and sub-union play thereafter.

Kreft later coached at club and sub-union level.

He will be farewelled at the Maniototo Stadium on Friday.