Rugby legend Don Clarke also enjoyed a significant cricket career

All Black legend Don Clarke was the subject of much eulogising for his many rugby feats, and most notably his goal-kicking, after his death on December 29, aged 69, but Clarke also enjoyed a significant cricket career.

The man whose prolific goal-kicking with the old-fashioned front-on style dominated the world rugby scene from his international debut in 1956 until his retirement in 1965, played for Auckland, before the formation of the Northern Districts side in the New Zealand first-class competition for the Plunket Shield.

He was 17 years old when he made his debut for Auckland as a fast-medium bowler in 1950/51 - the sixth youngest player for Auckland at the time. He went on to play 27 first-class matches, 14 of them for Auckland and 11 for Northern Districts, which was promoted to first-class status in 1956/57.

He took 117 wickets at 21.14 during his career, 66 of them for Auckland. As well as playing for ND, he also appeared in the North Island team for a trial match in 1954/55.

That period coincided with Clarke's greater involvement in rugby and minimised the occasions for which he could play for his home region. And his last season 1962/63 occurred after a five-year break from the game.

It was a season notable for ND as they won the Plunket Shield for the first time, and for Clarke achieving the best figures of his career, eight for 37 in the second innings against Central Districts at Cook's Gardens in Wanganui. He took 10 wickets in the match.

But from the heady heights of that performance, Clarke and ND next went to the Basin Reserve where New Zealand captain John Reid took to the bowling for the highest score of his career, 296, although Clarke had good reason to feel he had been largely unscathed, taking three for 82 from his 27 overs.

Wellington cricket enthusiast Don Neely recalled his memory of Reid's innings and the frustration that led Clarke to bowl a beamer to Reid which he hooked for six runs, but not before the ball hit a very old light standard beyond the boundary of the Basin Reserve and which made a noise like a tuning fork when hit by Reid's shot.

New Zealand Cricket's president Dave Hoskin had his own memories of playing with Clarke.

"Don was a fine, very strong, opening bowler. I remember one occasion before we played in the Plunket Shield when we were playing Canterbury at what was then Seddon Park in Hamilton. Tom Burtt, the fine New Zealand left-arm slow bowler was playing and one ball that Don hit from him was hit over the trees outside the boundary, and over the road outside the ground. It was a huge hit," he said.

"When he took his eight wickets in an innings at Wanganui, several of them were taken by Bruce Pairaudeau fielding close in at silly mid-on. The ball was popping a bit and I remember Bryan Yuile was batting and him taking quite a few blows to the body. But he had the ability to drop his hands when the ball was lifting and to take the ball on the body."

Then in Wellington, where Hoskin didn't play because of a back injury he had suffered, he recalled wicket-keeper Eric Petrie saying that he could never remember another batsman who had never missed a ball on or outside leg stump but that was how much in command of his game Reid was that match.

Former New Zealand, Auckland and Northern Districts wicket-keeper Petrie played with Clarke both for Auckland and ND.

Petrie recalled that Clarke played for Auckland at the same time as another Waikato All Black, hooker Ron Hemi, who used to open the batting with international opener Verdun Scott.

"I remember they played together for Auckland, and then straight afterwards the Auckland Association paid for them to fly down to Masterton where Waikato was playing a Hawke Cup match against Wairarapa," he said.

Waikato won the challenge match.

In the days before the creation of ND, the players from that region, which was basically that outside of Auckland north of a line across the country from Lake Taupo to Gisborne, used to have to make their mark in a Town v Country match.

But Petrie doesn't recall Clarke ever having played in one of those games and he thought he must have caught the selectors' attentions elsewhere.

"We travelled together a lot and were always sharing rooms. He was a darned good cricketer and I think he was very unlucky not to be in the 1958 side that went to England. He and Ken Hough could both have been in that side.

"Don got a lot of late movement and was able to get a bit of lift from a normal wicket. He got the ball up quite substantially at times. And he could bowl long spells if required.

"He was a very keen cricketer and he enjoyed his first-class play. On most occasions he bowled well, and tightly, and he always seemed able to get his share of wickets. And he was a darned big hitter of the ball," Petrie said.