Major teams: Poverty Bay, Canterbury
Country: New Zealand
Test span: 1967-77
New Zealand caps: 39 (38 starts)
Test points: 57 (16T)
When he emerged in the mid-1960s, flankers usually played left and right, rather than openside and blindside, but Kirkpatrick helped shape the role of the blindside flanker as we know it today.
A farmer, he learned his rugby at Auckland’s Kings College, joined the Poverty Bay club at 20 in 1966, then moved to Canterbury a year later.New Zealand coachFred Allen capped him on tour in France that year and Kirkpatrick responded with a try on debut.
A year later he became the first All Black to be used as a substitute, coming on whenBrian Lochore broke his thumb againstAustralia in Sydney. Having warmed up by running down the stairs from the reserve seats, Kirkpatrick shredded the Wallaby defence to score a hat-trick in a 27-11 win and for the next nine years he was one of the first names on the All Blacks team-sheet.
Tall and athletic, his uninhibited, dynamic style brought him 115 tries in 289 first-class games, including 16 in Tests – an All Blacks record untilStuart Wilson bettered it in 1983.
His most spectacular score was the 55m burst out of a maul against the 1971 Lions in the Christchurch second Test, Kirkpatrick reflecting: “Pinetree (Colin Meads) always said he had a part to play in that because he gave me the ball. It’s funny, you break out and set off. They came at me and I was able to push them off until I hit the corner. That doesn’t happen very often.”
Kirkpatrick needed an injection to play in the next Test having injured a rib whilst handling a farm horse.