Auckland, NZ: Nineteen founders, pioneers and legends of Rugby World Cup have been inducted into the IRB Hall of Fame, including four men who made a major contribution to the creation of the tournament, the winning coach and captain of every edition from 1987 to 2007 and four players who have left an indelible mark for their moments of magic, inspiration or feats.
Former Canadian international Gareth Rees was among those recognized at the 2011 IRB awards presentation. The list of inductees also included Dr Roger Vanderfield, Richard Littlejohn, Sir Nicholas Shehadie, John Kendall-Carpenter, David Kirk, Sir Brian Lochore, Nick Farr-Jones, Bob Dwyer, Francois Pienaar, Kitch Christie, Rod Macqueen, Martin Johnson CBE, Sir Clive Woodward OBE, John Smit, Jake White, Agustín Pichot, Brian Lima and Jonah Lomu.
For Canada’s Rees, Hall of Fame rugby career all about teammatesNational Post article - by Matt Scianitti
Maybe some day in the near future, after kicking and tossing the oval ball, a young Canadian will learn to love rugby for the same reasons Gareth Rees did when he began playing as a boy in Victoria, B.C. The value of rugby, Rees says, is the strength it builds through the companionship it demands.
And maybe that aspiring player will do something Rees, 44, could not and search the Internet to learn about great Canadian rugby players. Undoubtedly Rees’s name will rise to the top, with the words International Rugby Board Hall of Fame close beside.
But Rees hopes, and takes time to emphasize, that young players understand he did not become the first Canadian inducted into the IRB’s pantheon on Sunday because he scored hundreds of points in his club and international career while winning trophies wherever he played.
No, Gareth Rees is a Hall of Famer because he played on four Canadian World Cup teams (1987, 1991, 1995 and 1999) where the individual dissolved underneath the red jersey. He was a member of a Canadian team that bound together and shocked the world.
“The achievement of that team is being recognized, I guess, through me,” Rees said from Auckland, New Zealand, Saturday before his induction was announced at the IRB’s post-World Cup awards ceremony. “Overwhelmingly, it makes me think of what that generation of guys did to put Canadian rugby on the map.”
Rees knows he was the fly-half, the quarterback on the field, responsible for directing plays and kicking points. As a stout yet nimble 19-year-old at the first World Cup in 1987, he established himself as a leader and reliable offensive force. But when he remembers Canada’s achievements on rugby’s biggest stage — reaching the quarter-finals in 1991 and battling South Africa and Australia in the group stage in 1995 — he lists names of players he stood alongside; the teammates who propelled him to a successful pro career in France, England and Wales.
“I don’t get this acknowledgement without my teammates,” Rees said. “I’m very proud I went overseas … but without [former Canadian captain] Hans de Goede and [fullback] Mark Wyatt there is no Gareth Rees.”
“Unless I’ve got [lock] Al Charron in a forward pack that decides to push, maybe I don’t get a pro contract. Maybe we don’t have that success in 1991. Maybe I’m just a kid who can kick the ball.”
When asked what moment crystallizes all of the accomplishments of his 13-year international career, Rees uses the pronoun “we” and talks about Canada’s 26-24 win over Wales in November 1993. In the country of his father, inside Cardiff Arms Park — a stadium in which Canada had never won — Rees kicked a two-point conversion with no time left to win the game. They were the most important of his 487 international points, but again what mattered most were the men in front of him. The hands that guided the ball over the try-line late to level the score: centre Steve Gray, flanker John Hutchinson, No. 8 Colin McKenzie, centre Ian Stuart, ultimately Charron who dove over the line.
“That wasn’t Canada’s best team ever, that was just a bunch of guys who got it done.”
Rees says he has a healthy ego, no different than other athletes, and he is proud to have his name beside rugby’s greatest. But since he retired from international play in 1999, he has wanted to remind every Canadian coach and player the special value of playing under the maple leaf. The powerful rugby countries may classify Canada as second-tier still, but Canadian rugby continues to surprise because players bind close and elevate each other.
“When I talk about the jersey it gets a little corny sometimes for this generation maybe,” Rees said. “But it really embodied a unified approach: players willing to put their body on the line and do whatever for the guy beside him. You bring your own skill set so the team or the unit will have success. You don’t have success in rugby with just a bunch of individuals.
“You have to bring it together.”
To see Rees' profile and induction video the BC Rugby Hall of Fame visit
http://www.bcrugbyhalloffame.com/rees.html-30-
