Nepias not out to kick up a fuss

JONATHAN CAMERON/ Manawatu Standard

RUGBY ROYALTY: Oma Nepia with his famous father's 1924 Invincibles cap which he says is more of a treasure than any latter day cap could be.

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Oma Nepia knew his famous father well enough to be certain he wouldn't have clamoured to right the ills of 81 years ago.

There have been calls for the New Zealand Rugby Union to apologise for excluding All Blacks, like the famous George Nepia in 1928, from tours to apartheid South Africa.

"It's far too late for that," his son said. "The [New Zealand] rugby union are having enough problems now."

But Oma, full name Te Omanga Mohi Turei Nepia, the oldest surviving son at 75 and who lives in Palmerston North, remembers his father as a humble man who did get to South Africa, in 1976.

George and Hawke's Bay halfback Jimmy Mill were Maori players overlooked because of their race for the tour to South Africa in 1928.

Although George did walk in a protest march before the 1960 tour, Oma said his father seldom spoke about it.

"Not unless somebody else brought it up," he said.

"But he would have made a bit of difference if he'd gone with that team."

He doubts his father would have wanted a retrospective cap.

"His 1924 Invincible cap [in the New Zealand Rugby Museum] would surmount all of that."

Three pages are devoted to the subject in the 1963 biography, I George Nepia, written by Nepia and journalist Terry McLean.

"Mill and I, you may be sure, did not cry ourselves to sleep over this decision," they wrote.

But they did call it "a deliberate and conciliatory act by the NZRU".

"Most of all, we were saddened, disappointed and humiliated by the NZRU ... which sidestepped its obligations to us."

Not long after his wife Huinga died in 1976, George Nepia was invited by a wealthy gent to follow the All Blacks to South Africa.

"They talked him into it," Oma said.

"He was always one where rugby to him was foremost and he believed you couldn't build bridges by staying away from anything."

The South Africans offered him a Mercedes to drive when he was there. He declined. "Just give me a VW," he said.

Later rugby supremo Danie Craven offered to buy a Mercedes for him and send it to New Zealand.

"He said, 'I didn't come here for that' and turned them down. He was that type of fellow, a hard worker who used to slog his guts out."

That was on the family farm at Rangitukia, north of Ruatoria, which Oma still supervises, "50km from nowhere" and where his sister, Te Kiwi Rauponga, still lives.

He said it's little known that in 1930 their father, who died in 1986, won the Ahuwhenua Trophy for the best Maori farmer in the country.

Oma spent 34 years in the army and played for Counties and NZ Services, retiring as a regimental sergeant-major. A younger brother, Winstone, lives in Ruatoria.

The oldest brother George was an infantry sergeant killed in the Malayan Insurgency in 1954 when attached to a Fijian battalion. He was a fullback in five games for Manawatu in 1953.

He is buried in Singapore and Oma is working to bring him back to Rangitukia and bury him between his parents.

Oma's son is named George Quentin Donald Turei Nepia after his grandfather and one of his Invincibles team-mates from Wairarapa.

- © Fairfax NZ News