Grizz Wyllie broke the tough guy mould, ask the veterans of Transvaal and Eastern Province

OLD-TIMERS like to say they “don’t make ‘em like they used to”, but it is difficult to disagree when one relates tales about quite possibly the hardest rugby player of them all, Alex “Grizz” Wyllie, who died last week at the age of 73 on his legendary farm.

- MIKE GREENAWAY

The All Blacks have had many a toughie, including the legendary Colin “Pinetree” Meads and Wayne Shelford, who played with a ruptured scrotum in a game against France, with his team all hanging on.

Either man appears to be the only opponent Wyllie could not lick over a lifetime littered with anecdotes of uncompromising approach to life and rugby.

When I heard that Grizz had gone, my mind shot back to the stories that shocked me while coyly couched East-ern Province and Transvaal.

It is not stretching things too far to suggest that Wyllie remotely influenced the 1995 Springbok World Cup triumph because he coached most of the Springboks at the Transvaal.

In the early ‘90s, Wyllie had had enough of his Transvaal team under-performing. He called a meeting in the change room, put cases of liquor in the middle, and said: “I’m locking yourselves bastards in here. You’re not getting out ‘til the booze is finished and you have sorted your t.out.”

The players did just that and started winning.

Wyllie and whiskey... He had a taste for it, and doubles were for exercises. He would order three of them (doubles, not cases), pour them into a tall glass, and down them like beer. Later in his hell-raising, and off the field, could fill a book.

They have seven books on his life have been published in New Zealand, where he is a national hero.