Vincent Bevan

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

Early life Vincent David Bevan was born on 24 December 1921, in the Horowhenua at Ōtaki, about halfway between Wellington and Palmerston North, and was the son of Winifred Bevan and Lewis Homes.

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

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". 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".

Test matches and playing style

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 Australia scored after nineteen minutes when Bevan threw a wild pass to Jack McLean on the blindside near his own line. 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. He then sensed a half-chance out to his left and the ball was spun through the backs which led to the winning try by the injured All Black captain, Elvidge. The All Blacks won the test 6–3.

The fourth and final test was played at Eden Park in Auckland on 29 July 1950. Early on, Bevan shot through a gap and Graham Mexted carried on almost to the Lion's goal-line. The All Blacks played just four tests between 1939 and the 1949 tour to South Africa. The captain, Fred Allen (rugby union), later mourned the loss of Smith and in particular Bevan from the tour. He drew attention to the plight of Bevan, who was not eligible for the Māori team which visited Fiji in 1949 because he had too little Māori blood, but was now prevented from going to South Africa because he had too much Māori blood. He never once appeared for a New Zealand Māori selection or in any Māori match such as a Prince of Wales Cup trial. This was because the New Zealand Rugby Football Union had decided, as it had done in the past, that it would be in the best interests of Māori players that they should not be selected for the tour.

Together with George Nēpia and Manahi Nitama Paewai, calling for the cancellation of the tour. This protest, which took place on 26 February 1960, had been led by the Association's chairman, Dr Rolland O'Regan, but it did not succeed; the 1960 tour went ahead as planned.