There’s an old cigar in Caroline and Braeden Whitelock’s house, wrapped up somewhere safe in a drawer. Their son, Sam, can still remember the way it smelled to him when he was a kid. It was given to his grandad, Nelson Dalzell, as a reward for his man-of-the match performance when the All Blacks beat England 5-0 at Twickenham in 1954. Dalzell scored the only try, when he charged over England wing Ted Woodward. “We didn’t have a lot of stuff from grandad’s playing days,” says Whitelock – the jerseys were all thrown out after Sam’s uncle wore them thin – “but that cigar’s still at home. Mum and Dad always said they would smoke it if one of us became an All Black, but thankfully they never did.”
They had plenty of chances. Sam’s older brother, George, was capped in 2009, and so was his younger brother Luke, in 2013; the fourth, Adam has played for the national sevens side. Sam’s gone on to outstrip all of them, and almost everyone else. He has 142 caps now. Chances are that by this time next year he will be the most-capped All Black in history.
