The passing of All Blacks great Grant Batty is being felt equally in New Zealand and Australia because of all he gave to the game.
Batty was 74.
Playing 15 Tests and earning cult hero status for the All Blacks in the 1970s, under a prominent moustache, was only his most obvious contribution across more than four decades.
After he moved to live in Australia in the late 1980s, he re-emerged as a coach.
He coached the Maroochydore Swans, guided Easts to their first premiership in 1997 as head coach and turned the Gold Coast Breakers into Queensland’s top club side as well.
He served as an assistant coach for the Queensland Reds in 1999-2000, missed out on the top job for 2001, coached the Australia Under-19s in 2001 and went on to coach in Japan’s Top League.
In his 60s, he bobbed up to coach the Quirindi Lions Rugby Club. Rugby royalty coached that proud bush club in 2014 when he and wife Jill were locals.
They’d moved to the tiny one-pub village of Wallabadar, in northern NSW, an even smaller dot on the map than his NZ hometown of Greytown.
When he was tracked down for his last major interview in 2021 for NZ Rugby magazine, the trademark Batty wit and rumbling chuckle was there.
Walla-where?
“It’s between Currabubula and Murrurundi,” Batty laughed when he told me.
He was a diminutive 1.66m, 5 foot 5 ½ inches in the old tongue. Just as he got giant results as a winger, he built big results at Easts around a fine team spirit and simple mottos like “talk, tackle and keep the ball.”
He had a special bond with the 1997 team and made a rare return to Bottomley Park for a 25-year premiership reunion in 2022 when the club turned 75.
“It’s more than the game itself, it’s the players and people you meet along the way that make rugby for me,” Batty said.
“What did I love about Easts? They were just a bunch of good quality people and we had a really well-balanced team in '97.
“Rugby is a rare sport. You get all these different capabilities and body shapes on the same field. You can have a big, strong lock like Peter Murdoch, a skinny, fast winger like Ricky Nalatu and others like Andrew Scotney, who was an exceptional distributor and clear thinker when it came to seeing opportunities.
“I think coaches who have a bit of a success are primarily good selectors getting the right people in the right positions and having them believe in what you say.
“And then you had a coaching partner like (fellow Kiwi) Mike Thomas. Part of his mantra was always ‘let’s have a %$*& go’. And we did.”
Little known is that Batty briefly played for Wests in Brisbane. He joined the 1974 Bulldogs for a pre-season Charity Carnival along with fellow All Black Alex Wyllie.
Batty was thrilled that Damian McKenzie was making such a fist of exciting fans with big performances for the Chiefs and All Blacks.
“Fans want to watch guys like Damian McKenzie. They want to see speed, elusiveness, space and something special,” Batty said.
“The little people come into the game when the big boys tire but even fatigue has been removed from rugby with the number of replacements you can now run on.
“I never have or will think that rugby prowess equates to body size.”
Batty scored four tries in his 15 Tests. A greater measure of his hunger to score was in his 56 games for the All Blacks when tour games were counted. He crossed 45 times.
Batty had a brief, memorable tilt against the 1977 British and Irish Lions.
“I couldn’t train properly and was in a lot of pain (from a lingering knee injury) but I wanted to play the Lions as we all did as All Blacks,” Batty recounted.
He clinched the First Test when he ran in an intercept from halfway much to the roaring delight of his home crowd at Wellington’s Athletic Park.
“I’d actually said I was not available for the First Test but a couple of teammates and the coach (Jack Gleeson) got on the phone,” Batty said.
“Driving back from Wellington to home, I worked out the knee wasn’t up to it.
“I didn’t want to be caught out for a lack of pace or let down the All Blacks.
“As All Blacks, we were on the princely sum of $1.50 a day back then, Jill and I had our first-born Jane and that was it...I retired from international rugby.
“Forty-five tries for the All Blacks...not bad for a short-arse from Greytown. I’d had a great run and enjoyed it immensely.”
