Cliff Porter captain of the 1924 Invincibles 100 years on

Clifford Glen Porter was nicknamed “Offside Porter” be-cause his anticipation was so accurate and his speed around the scrum so great that opponents insisted he must have been off side. Good referees could see he was not. Well, not always. Cliff Porter played forty-one games for the All Blacks. He captained what was arguably the best side ever to leave New Zealand, the 1924–1925 “Invincibles,” so called be-cause they won all thirty-two games in Britain, France and Canada. Many of the 28 men in that “Second All Blacks” team are regarded as rugby legends now, a hundred years later: Cliff Porter was their leader. George Nepia said he was “the best captain I ever knew” and he knew a few. The phrase that crops up time and again in reports of Porter’s play, is his “uncanny anticipation” – referring to his ability to predict how moves were going to develop, and to place himself in exactly the right place to take ad-vantage.