Pioneers of Rugby in Wellington 082: Vince Bevan

For over a decade in the 1940s up to his retirement in 1956, Vince Bevan was one of Wellington’s leading players and the first-choice halfback for many of these seasons.

For one reason or another, Bevan didn’t play as much top-level rugby as he should have, and certainly not for the All Blacks.

One reason was World War Two. Like many players of his generation, his early career was curtailed by the war years and a lack of topflight rugby and no All Blacks matches between 1939-46. Another was injury. He was sometimes sidelined with injury and often at the wrong time, such as in 1951 when he was the clear number one halfback but missed the nine-match, three-test series in Australia.

A third insidious reason was racism. Specifically South Africa’s apartheid policies of the time. Again, he was New Zealand’s number one halfback and would have gone to South Africa if not for some Māori blood inside him. Bevan, Ben Couch and Johnny Smith were ineligible for the trip. The All Blacks lost the test series 4-0. Bevan’s Māori lineage was such that it wasn’t enough to be picked in Māori All Black teams that were chosen in the early 1950s.

All these reasons aside, Bevan still turned out on 25 occasions for the All Blacks, including in six tests.

He also played 70 matches for Wellington between 1943 and 1951 and many more for other teams such as the Centurions, in All Blacks trials in North-South matches and for a New Zealand XV in 1949, for a total of 121 first-class caps.

Bevan was educated in Otaki and served in North Africa and Italy in WW2. He represented the 7^th Brigade Group in 1942 and was considered a certainty for the 2^nd NZEF ‘Kiwis’ tour to Britain and France in 1945/46 but broke a leg in a motor accident on the eve of the final trials (see injury setbacks above).

After first debuting for Wellington in 1943 whilst playing club rugby for Wellington College Old Boys, Bevan recovered and returned to Wellington to play four straight seasons for the Athletic club and represent Wellington as its first-choice halfback in these years. Athletic had been Jubilee Cup champions in 1945 but Bevan failed to win any cub silverware whilst he was playing for his second club.

He played six matches for Wellington in 1946 and shared the halfback role with ‘Doc’ Paewai. He played another six games for Wellington the following season, but 20 over the following two seasons as he established himself.

He first made the All Blacks in 1947 as an All Black tourist to Australia, then made his Test debut against Australia in 1949. He would also be an All Black tourist also to Europe and Canada in 1953-54, alongside the other halfback Keith Davis who was his cousin.

Some notable matches in 1948 included a 39-20 win over Canterbury in Christchurch, with Bevan a try-scorer, 37-14 over Hawke’s Bay at home, 9-5 over Taranaki at home and 16-9 over Southland away. There was also a 0-11 Ranfurly Shield challenge loss to the holders Otago on the southern tour, the first in a decade.

In 1949, when he should have been on the tour to South Africa, he was Wellington’s vice-captain, in what was described as an ‘inconsistent’ season for Wellington in which there were nine wins, seven losses and three draws (across all sides).  But a couple of highlights were another away win over Canterbury, 18-13, a 9-9 draw at home with the strong Otago team and a 14-9 win over Auckland at home.

His first test was against the Wallabies at Athletic Park on 3 September 1949 and the visitors won 11-6. But this was a second New Zealand side with the South African tourists also playing the third test against South Africa in Durban on the same date. The three ‘Māori’ players excluded from that trip, Bevan, Couch and Smith, all played in this test.

Bevan joined the new Tawa club in 1950, the year that both himself and Graham Mexted made the All Blacks representing that club who held Senior B status.

The occasion was the 1950 in-bound British and Irish Lions series. Bevan was the All Black halfback in all four tests that New Zealand won 3-1.

Bevan and Mexted also played for Wellington in their tour match at Athletic Park, which the visitors won 12-6.

In 1953, Bevan was Wellington’s vice-captain when they beat Waikato to win the Ranfurly Shield and then defended over five challenges and several heady weeks that followed before losing the last challenge of the season to Canterbury.

Vince’s younger half brother was Moray Bevan, who played many seasons for Poneke in club rugby as well as 27 first-class matches for Wellington and 31 for the Maori All Blacks.

Vince is also the late grandfather of the Ellison brothers, Tamati, Jacob and Leon.

He passed away on 26 May 1996, aged 74.

References:

• Akers, Clive. New Zealand Rugby Register 1870-2015. New Zealand Rugby Museum, 2016.
• All Blacks A-Z profile Vince Bevan, by Lindsay Knight
• Chester, Rod, Palenski, Ron, McMillan, Neville. Men in Black Commemorative 20th Century Addition, Moa Beckett, 2000, Auckland.
• Swan, A.C. History of New Zealand Rugby Football. Vol. 2 1946-1957. Whitcombe & Tombs, Wellington 1958.
• Wellington’s Rugby History 1951-79. By Bob Fox, with assistance by Paul Elenio and Joseph Romanos (Evening Post) and Alex Veysey and Ian Gault (Dominion), with statistics compiled by Gordon Jackson (1951-68) and Alby Butterworth (1969-78). Tolan Printing Company, Wellington, 1979.