Pioneers of Rugby in Wellington 125: Bill Fleming

Bill Fleming was a slashing home-grown midfield back who was a fixture in Wellington club rugby and in Wellington representative squads over several seasons in the second half of the 1950s to the early 1960s. He was later heavily involved with the Upper Hutt club in coaching and administration and is a past Life Member of the Upper Hutt Rams.

Fleming played for unheralded Wellington College Old Boys club team throughout his career, but he almost got his moment of club rugby glory in 1962 when the team had their best season in a long time and finished third in the Jubilee Cup.

William Samuel Fleming attended Wellington College and was in the First XV in his final year of school in 1955 when they won the Quadrangular Tournament outright for the first time since 1937. Wellington College had wins over Christs College (14-5) and Whanganui Collegiate (25-3). That same season, Wellington College beat St Pat’s Town 48-6, but they lost to Silverstream 3-8 who had a powerful side at that time.

Fleming joined WCOB straight out of school and was straight into the Senior A backline in a battling team. He made his competition debut in a round one 3-9 loss to Taita, while a 0-53 loss to Petone several weeks later was the third losing margin by any team in the competition since WW1. Fleming was mentioned in this game for trying to “stem the tries.”

He returned for his second season in 1957 and was made vice-captain of his club team, with prop R.I Murray the captain. After an early season 6-31 defeat to Pōneke, the Rugby Weekly published this:

WCOB centre W.S. Fleming was a cut above the rest in the Old Boys’ line. He would look pretty good in any club company; he moves beautifully and has the ability to beat a player with a deceptive swerve and sidestep.

He was recognised as a promising representative player too, because that year he was first selected as a Wellington A representative squad member, playing 14 matches for Wellington in his first season in 1957.

Wellington started 1957 as Ranfurly Shield holders and Fleming scored two tries in their opening defence of the year, a 22-9 win over Bush. Successful defences followed against Poverty Bay and Whanganui before Otago came to town and won 19-11. Fleming was also a try-scorer in that loss. A few weeks later he scored two tries in Wellington’s 22-16 win over Auckland at Eden Park.

He would go on and play another 10 games for Wellington in 1958, 3 in 1959, 10 in 1960 and another two in 1962, for a total of 39 games. He scored 20 tries.

Previewing the 1958 club season, the Rugby Weekly wrote: “Old Boys should turn on fireworks if the backs can get the ball in good positions. They could become a glamour side, but the forwards are only terriers.”

It was a unique occasion at Athletic Park on 26 April 1958, with a New Zealand-Pakistan hockey test being the curtain-raiser for the 3.15pm club rugby feature match between WCOB and Pōneke. Fleming lined up at second-five, with future All Black Ralph Caulton centre for Pōneke, who won 11-6.

Six weeks later Fleming and Athletic’s Russell Watt, were singled out in reports for playing well and both also scoring tries in Wellington’s annual Queen’s Birthday match for the Coronation Cup against Manawatu.

Fleming also scored doubles for Wellington in 1958 in their matches against Wairarapa (won 41-3), Bush (won 28-9) and Canterbury (lost 19-22).

“There was a lot of class about the work of W.S. Fleming at centre for WCOB,” wrote the Rugby Weekly, following champion team Petone’s 14-8 win over them in the first round in 1959.

Others were noticing too, for in 1959 Fleming was selected as a Junior All Black (New Zealand U23s) and he played in their match against the touring British and Irish Lions in a 9-29 loss in their match at Athletic Park on 2 September 1959. However he was injured part-way through the season and was sidelined for part of that winter and didn’t play the match a month earlier for Wellington against the Lions.

When available, he was playing centre for WCOB, outside inside backs J.W. Lees and B.F Hastings as the team found themselves in the Hardham Cup.

Injury was the likely reason he only played three representative matches for Wellington in 1959.

In 1960, Fleming was back to his best and WCOB made the Jubilee Cup for the first time in 12 years and prospects were looking up. Fleming was captain of the team this season.

The club was struck by injuries in 1961 and were ninth overall with a 4/10 record.

Dai Haward, in his history of the club, wrote that “in 1962 the Seniors staged a revival coming third in the Jubilee Cup…they provided ‘real thrills and fine rugby’.

“Success was achieved despite the lack of a coach. Gerry [McLean] and vice-captain Bruce Hamilton, becoming player-coaches. We had five Senior reps. Bill Fleming, Gerry McLean, Dan Matheson, Peter Young and Bruce Hamilton while teammate Tom Tamati was in the Māori team and Wellington B.

The team was in the hunt in the Jubilee Cup in 1962, which was one of the closest in years and all teams were mathematically still in the race until the very end. Onslow and Marist were joint winners on 26 points, followed by University on 21 and WCOB and Petone on 16.

Marist won 22-8 that day, but WCOB had a first round 9-8 win over Petone a 17-12 win over Pōneke, a 15-3 win over Oriental and two draws including a 6-6 draw with University as they flirted with the top sides in the competition.

The Rugby Weekly also noted this of Fleming in an early season representative game: “It was great to see Fleming move to zestfully, timing his passes perfectly to Caulton and Sutton.” It was also noted that he linked up to good effect in some rep games (including Wellington B fixtures) with Brian Frederikson.

He played 10 more games for Wellington in 1960, a personal highlight being scoring a another two tries in the home game against Auckland, helping them to a 27-18 win. Auckland won the return match 22-9, which was also a Ranfurly Shield challenge for Wellington.

1962 was his last year playing for WCOB and Wellington. He played for Eastbourne in 1963 and played one match that season for a Wellington XV representing that club.

He then went over to the Wairarapa and he played for Wairarapa-Bush in 1965.

In total, Fleming played 62 first-class matches, scoring 32 tries and 102 points.

Involved with Upper Hutt, he was that club’s Premier coach with Butch Harawira in 1986, and the club President in 1992.

The Team included 2000 Wellington Lions and later Wallabies coach Dave Rennie, along with Wellington and New Zealand Maori representative Issac Adams and Sam McLean who played 37 first-class matches and was still at school when he made his representative debut for East Coast in 1983 and who went on to coach the Upper Hutt Premier side in 1992.

 Fleming passed away on 3 October 2014.

REFERENCES

• Akers, Clive. New Zealand Rugby Register 1870-2015. New Zealand Rugby Museum, 2016.
• Hayward, Dai. Follow Up. 100 Years of Wellington College Old Boys’ Rugby Football Club. WCOB, Wellington 1998.
• Minogue, Peter B. Champagne Rugby. The Story of Secondary School Rugby in New Zealand
• Rugby Weeklys – Various editions 1950s and 1960s.
• Veysey, Alex and Fox, Bob. Wellington’s Rugby History 1951-1979, Part 2. Tolan Printing Co, 1979.