Vincent Bevan

Vincent David Bevan (24 December 1921 – 26 May 1996) was a New Zealand rugby union player.

Bevan was born in the Horowhenua at Ōtaki, about halfway between Wellington and Palmerston North, and was the son of Winifred Bevan and Lewis Homes.

A tense game was played between the 22nd Battalion team and the 2nd New Zealand Division Ammunition Company.

The match was vigorous, the ground conditions atrocious and the day bitingly cold.

It was a tough contest with little opportunity for the backs to shine.

Bevan displayed good form and threw a pass to his captain, Lin Thomas, who kicked the dropped goal from the only dry spot on the ground and won the game for the 22nd Battalion, 4–0.

Bevan played for Wellington College Old Boys before being selected by the former All Black Alex McDonald to represent the Wellington Rugby Football Union at a provincial level.

During his first-class career, Bevan played for Wellington College Old Boys (1943), Athletic (1946–49), Tawa (1950–51), Athletic (1953–54), North Island (1947–49, 53), NZ Trials (1947, 50, 53) and the New Zealand XV (1949).

He built a good club partnership with Bill Freeman who would later become a highly successful coach for Wellington.

Freeman, at first five-eighths, was the grateful recipient of Bevan's renowned dive-pass.

In 75 matches for Wellington, Bevan scored seven tries, two conversions and two dropped goals.

His first try for Wellington came in the 1943 season against Canterbury.

Bevan served in the North African and Italian campaigns during World War II and played for the 22nd New Zealand Battalion team (winners of the Freyberg Cup in 1944), the 9th Brigade and 8th Army XVs and the 7th Brigade Group (1942).

The final of the 1944 Freyberg Cup was contested in early December in the ruins of the Fascist Stadium in Forlì in Italy.

But for injury, (Bevan had either fallen from a truck or had been hit by a truck near the front line at the end of the War ), he may well have played for the famous New Zealand team which in 1945–46 toured Britain and France.

The trials for the team were held in Austria and Bevan had shown such good form that his selection had been a certainty.

He wasn't always the first choice halfback for Wellington, being bumped from the top spot in 1946 by Dr Manahi Nitama Paewai.

In 1947, Bevan made the first of his four appearances for the North Island in the annual interisland match.

He was a member of the New Zealand national side, the All Blacks, from 1947 to 1954.

Alex McDonald had originally been impressed by Bevan's strength, quickness, length of pass and hard-nosed application and was part of the selection panel that sent him to Australia as an All Black in 1947.

Although Bevan played well, he failed to make the test lineup in the two-match series, with Auckland's Percy Tetzlaff preferred.

Bevan's official All Blacks profile says that "he is best remembered for games he didn't play and the tour he was not allowed to go on. Bevan's career, indeed, is one of the starkest examples of some of the gross stupidities, even injustices, New Zealand rugby created for itself by trying for too long to fit in with the colour bar, later formalised as apartheid, being enforced in South Africa. Bevan should have been the All Blacks' number one halfback on the tour of South Africa in 1949, but an inadvertent reference to his trace of Māori ancestry a year or two beforehand meant he was ruled ineligible to be selected".

His first two test caps came instead in the 1949 series against Australia that was played in New Zealand.

This tour coincided with the stronger though Māori-free All Blacks team touring South Africa.

Bevan played all four tests the following year against the touring British Lions.

Against Australia, in the second test in the 1949 series that was played at Eden Park in Auckland on 24 September 1949, Bevan gave away several penalties but played a rugged game and his passing was generally good, although Australia scored after nineteen minutes when Bevan threw a wild pass to Jack McLean on the blindside near his own line.

The All Blacks lost the test 16–9.

The first test against the Lions in the 1950 series was played at Carisbrook in Dunedin on 27 May 1950.

As the All Black forwards started to show improvement, Bevan received a ball quickly from a scrum, which he gathered and started a run wide across the field on the open side.

In an attempt to beat the Lions defence, he gave the ball a tap with his foot but it bounced head high and Jack Kyle had it for the Lions.

Injuries prevented him from touring with the 1951 All Blacks to Australia.

Bevan rounded out his long career with several appearances in festival-type matches for the Centurions (1952, 55–56), bringing his first class match tally to 121 with a total of 11 tries, two conversions and two dropped goals.

Bevan was a member of the 1953–54 New Zealand rugby union tour of the United Kingdom, Ireland, France and North America and played capably enough during his 16 appearances.

But with age he was losing a little of his speed and his cousin, Keith Davis, his junior by nearly 10 years, was preferred for all five internationals.

In total, Bevan played 25 matches for the All Blacks including six tests.

Two of Bevan's tries came in Ranfurly Shield matches for Wellington during the 1953 season against Otago and Taranaki respectively.

Against Taranaki at Athletic Park, Wellington on 29 August 1953, the Wellington forwards "asserted their mastery...[and] the speedy backline had a feast of ball and treated the crowd to spectacular rugby".

During the game, Bevan was "a livewire link between the forwards and backs".

Up 18–0 at halftime, Wellington won the match 26–3.

His only points for the All Blacks came in a match at Manchester on 17 February 1954 when he scored a try in a 17–3 win against North-Western Counties.