Pioneers of Rugby in Wellington 128: Mick Horan

Mick Horan was the talismanic hooker and captain of Marist Brothers Old Boys teams that enjoyed a purple patch in Wellington club rugby in the early 1960s.

Horan played for Marist between 1955-65 and was credited with playing over 170 consecutive Senior A matches. He was involved in four winning Jubilee Cup teams and captain in three of these.

He later turned to coaching and won Jubilee Cups as a coach, as well as successfully coaching Wellington representative teams.

Horan’s rise to being one of the leading figures in Wellington rugby wasn’t immediate. He served his apprenticeship in the team for at least five seasons, playing alongside All Blacks prop and later national coach Ivan Vondanivich who was Marist’s captain immediately prior to Horan.

The son of an Irish immigrant, Horan was born in Whanganui in 1935. He attended Marist brothers Newtown and St Pat’s Silverstream as a boarder. It doesn’t seem he played rugby whilst at Silverstream as his name doesn’t appear on any of the school’s team photos in yearboooks in the early 1950s.

Nevertheless, he left school and was soon playing for Marist, who had been Jubilee Cup champions in 1948 and 1950.

By 1958, in his third season in the team, he was part of a team that won the Hardham Cup with a season record of seven wins, eight losses and a draw.  He was hooker, with skipper Ivan Vodanovich and Michael Nansett the usual props. Midway through that season the Rugby Weekly wrote: “Some good hooking by M.J. Horan. He is one of a number of really good hooking specialists who are grand all-purpose forwards in their own right.”

A few of those hookers he was up against in 1959 included Taita captain John Sage, Wellington Axemen Colin Currie and Oriental’s Keith Mettrick.

Marist beat Onslow 19-14 at the end of June 1959 to make the Jubilee Cup ‘top six’ for the remainder of the season, where Horan was to spend the rest of his career.

The Rugby Weekly wrote after this win that “the Marist hooker, M. Horan, established such a tight-head superiority over the Onslow man that one wondered just where it was all going to end.”

In 1960 it all came together for Horan and Marist, with Vodanovich now player/coach and Horan a key player and starting every match at hooker.

Marist swept to the first of four Jubilee Cup wins in five years, scoring 323 points and conceding 96 and scoring 47 tries with outside backs Dennehy and Apanowicz bagging 12 apiece.

Marist beat Petone 10-5 in the 1960 Jubilee Cup decider, establishing the lead playing into the wind in the first half and then holding off in a torrid second spell.

In 1961 Vodanovich retired from playing – although he still trained with the team during the week – and Horan assumed the captain’s duties.

Now in his seventh season, Horan was a senior player in the competition, and he led the Marist side in many tight battles. Petone got one back on them that year and won the Jubilee Cup.

But the following year, 1962, Marist were back on top all season and could have won the Jubilee Cup outright if they had drawn or beaten Onslow on the last afternoon. Onslow won 14-0 and it was shared between the two clubs.

This was the year that Horan briefly represented Wellington – almost his entire career was playing club rugby for Marist.

1963 was just as tight, with Marist again leading the way. Heading into the final round, Marist (21 points), Onslow (21) and Athletic (20) were all in with a chance of winning or sharing the Jubilee Cup (two points for a win). Onslow met Wellington in the early game on Athletic Park and Marist and Athletic met. Wellington upset Onslow 9-3, leaving Marist and Athletic in contention. Marist raced to a 11-0 lead and won 28-13, thus winning the Cup outright.

Marist made a fast start to 1964, then beat University 16-11 in a key Queen’s Birthday weekend clash. Five weeks later they were almost beaten by Wellington in a big fixture but won 9-8.

University beat Marist again in early August in front of a crowd that the Dominion estimated at 12,000 strong. The students won 16-6 but in the following week’s last round University lost and Marist won and the title was shared outright.

Horan returned to play his final season in 1965 but were pipped by winners Athletic and runners-up University during the season. In his final ‘Battle of the Irish’ first round match against St Pat’s Old Boys in 1965, Marist won a thriller 19-18, despite SPOB’s Brian Frederickson having a blinder and scoring all his team’s points on the day.

Horan hung up his boots and soon turned to coaching, initially coaching the Marist Senior A team for a period in the late 1960s before the two clubs merged to formed Marist St Pat’s.

He was Wellington Colts coach between 1975 and 1977 and Wellington B coach from 1978 to 1980, this team winning the inaugural National B competition.

In 1977 he was co-coach with former Marist and Wellington halfback Brian Coulter of MSP when they won the Swindale Shield for the first time.

The following year he was co-coach as MSP won the Jubilee Cup for the first time in 1978, and again in 1979.

A feature of these teams was Horan’s younger brother Kevin being captain, as well as hooker.

He was made a Life Member of MSP when he died suddenly in 1982, aged 47.

In 2009 the Horan-Millar Trophy was first played for between MSP and Pōneke.

This honours Mick Horan and his Pōneke rival and lock Ken Millar. They played many times against each other and were great friends off the field. Millar also passed away in 1982.

This game above was the season opener in 1961 and was Mick Horan’s first match as captain. The final score was a 17-17 draw.

REFERENCES

• Akers, Clive. New Zealand Rugby Register 1870-2015. New Zealand Rugby Museum, 2016.
• Donaghue, Paul & Brian Dive. The First 50 Years. Marist Old Boys Rugby Football Club, 1969.
• Donoghue, Tim. C’mon Red! A Celebration of Marist St Pat’s Rugby. Tim Donoghue Publications, Raetihi, 2020.
• Rugby Weekly – news item and snippets from various editions, 1950s.
• Veysey, Alex and Fox, Bob. Wellington’s Rugby History 1951-1979, Part 2. Tolan Printing Co, 1979.