Simon Mannering - Warrior E-Book

Angus Gillies

• Herausgeber: Upstart
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Simon Mannering is one of elite sport's great enigmas. Since 2005 he has been a regular fixture in the Warriors and Kiwis rugby league teams and has captained both sides. He has the passion and drive of Brad Thorn and the consistency of Richie McCaw. He regularly leads tackle counts, always has the respect of both team mates and opponents and confounds team doctors by playing through pain and illness. He is, in short, the ultimate warrior, who will always put the good of the team before his own wishes and ambitions. He has played close to 300 games in the NRL, one of the most taxing and physically demanding competitions in world sport, but very few people know anything about him. He shuns the celebrity lifestyle, is never implicated in controversy and hardly ever does interviews. But his career is a blueprint for how young people with only average natural abilities (his words) can force their way to the top. Mannering was not a sporting prodigy. He often, perhaps too modestly, describes his early athletic talents as mediocre. But he had an unflagging work ethic towards training and when he came across good mentors he clung to them for dear life. In his autobiography, he talks about his transition from skinny white rugby-playing AC/DC fan from Nelson College to life at the Warriors rugby league club in the hip hop heart of Auckland. He shares personal stories about the people he met along the way who helped and inspired him and the lessons he took from them. Always a realist, he recounts his early efforts in a sport he didn't know or understand with unflinching, hilarious and sometimes awkward honesty. Those who know him best also give their insight into a New Zealand sportsperson who, when he eventually hangs up his boots, will be remembered as one of the greats.

Leseprobe

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand.

ISBN e: 978-1-988516-48-6

m: 978-1-988516-49-3

A Mower Book

Published in 2018 by Upstart Press Ltd

Level 4, 15 Huron St, Takapuna 0622

Auckland, New Zealand

Text © Simon Mannering 2018

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

Design and format © Upstart Press Ltd 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Designed by www.CVDgraphics.nz

Printed by Printlink, New Zealand

This publication is printed on FSC® certified paper from responsible sources.

Never once did I think I would write a book and, for that matter, nor did I have any aspirations to do so. But, after a bit of persistence and a lot of arm-twisting, here it is. Thanks to my teammates, football staff and coaches for the memories and also my friends and family for all your unconditional support. To Anna and the kids, thanks for always being there through the good times and bad. Love you always.

Contents 

Foreword

Prologue

1. Sports-mad Kid

2. Young Warrior

3. Ivan the Incredible

Photo Section 1

4. Earning My Stripes

5. Loss and Leadership

6. Grand Final

7. A Period of Upheaval

Photo Section 2

8. Regaining Respect

9. Everything Is Breaking

10. 2018 Season Diary

11. Final Thoughts

Acknowledgements

Foreword

The first time I met Simon was when I was assistant coach for Tony Kemp in 2004. It was at a pre-season session at Waitakere and there was a big set of stairs that we had the boys running up and down. It was pretty intense, but Simon was handling it. He had just signed his first Warriors contract and while he was still playing for Wellington in the Bartercard Cup, he’d come up for a week or two to get a taste of what it was like training at the club. Sometimes you meet guys and see them train and they make an immediate impression. I watched him and I thought, ‘This guy’s got something special about him.’ He stood out. Number one, he was white-skinned. In all seriousness, that was unusual at the Warriors, especially as a young Kiwi forward. He seemed confident, but there was nothing brash about him and he spoke well. I think as Simon’s got older he’s become more self-conscious. Back then he was reserved, but you could tell he certainly wasn’t overawed. And that was the first time I’d ever seen him train and that day it was a hard session, but he did really well, and I thought to myself, ‘We’re going to see a lot more of this kid.’

I’ll mention a few incidents that stand out for me and I’m sure they won’t act as spoilers because Simon will tell the stories in much more detail in this book.

I’ll never forget his debut game against the Broncos at Mt Smart Stadium in Auckland. It was in the second half of the 2005 season. He came on and this 18-year-old, one of the first things he did on the field in his NRL career was he absolutely beat Justin Hodges hands down at a time when Justin was the Kangaroos centre and the best in the world. It was a true centre’s one-on-one contest, and he did Justin like a dinner. He offloaded to Manu Vatuvei, and Manu scored a crucial try. I was gobsmacked. I sat there, thinking, ‘Okay, this kid has got something.’

When I took over as Warriors coach in 2006, Steve Price and Ruben Wiki were the rocks we built the team around, but Simon, even in those early days, wasn’t far behind. He was incredible, right from the start. He and Micheal Luck were the first to get in and do the dirty jobs, and they didn’t complain. They’d get into good covering positions, cover up for other people’s missed tackles, take a hard run when everyone else was exhausted, train when they were injured. They just wouldn’t say they were injured.

He was unbelievably consistent. His defence was phenomenal, even when he was young. He dominated every tackle he made. And he wouldn’t just make them, he controlled the ruck and he was just so solid and so diligent.

There was one game in 2007 that I’ve got to talk about. Again, I’m sure Simon will go into much more detail. We were playing Manly. It was late in the season. We had to win to cement our place in the top eight. Manly were first or second at that point. And Simon was sick. He’d been crook all week. He had these ulcers in his mouth. They were horrendous. And he’d lost about six or seven kilos at the time. And he said, ‘Nah, I’ll play. I’m gonna play.’ He wouldn’t take no for an answer. And we wouldn’t take no for an answer either because we didn’t care how he looked or how he felt, as long as he could play because we needed him out there. So, he played and the first tackle he made, he broke his hand. Well, I didn’t know about the broken hand until the next day. He played the whole game with the injury. And he ended up scoring the try that sealed the match and he won the man of the match award. That went down in folklore pretty much. You use that story to instruct young guys in what it’s all about. He was only about 20 years of age at that time, still so young.

Then in 2009, he got a knee injury. We were having a bad season and that was one of the first times I remember him being injured, or I should say unable to play because of injury because he was carrying injuries all the time. He missed a couple of games. He was supposed to be out for four to six weeks and he had a Kiwis Four Nations campaign coming up after the NRL season, so he would have wanted his knee to be right for that. But the last game of the season was going to be the great halfback Stacey Jones’s last game ever. It was at Mt Smart against Melbourne. Think about it: it’s the last game of the year, we’re coming something like 14th, he’d had two weeks out of a six-week rehab and he says, ‘No, I want to play,’ and went out there and played. There’s something wrong with this guy! He just wanted to be there for Stacey’s last game. When you’re trying to build a culture in a team, acts like that — and that was typical of what Simon did — they just make all the difference. An act like that wasn’t just a huge example for the guys there at the time but also for the guys coming into the club in the future. Of course, Simon didn’t even think twice about it.

Those two games — when he was crook against Manly and Stacey’s last game — showed me he was far from normal. They definitely helped me decide to make him captain in 2010. He was happy to sacrifice his own self for the team. With Stacey, I realised he understood the relevance of occasions. He respected the players who had gone before him. You can’t buy that sort of stuff. I knew how much respect he had from the players. I knew he would be a great role model, not just for the players but for the club itself. Looking back now, it’s one of the best decisions we came up with. He would never let you down. That’s the best I could say about him.

So where does he sit in Warriors history among all the great players who have passed through the club? Well, for a start, he’s played 300 NRL games for the Warriors, and he’s the first person to do that.

It’s hard to compare different eras. Stacey was so good and I was fortunate enough to play with him at his peak, that Grand Final year of 2002. Manu Vatuvei was just brilliant for so long. Steve Price and Ruben Wiki were both absolute rocks when they played. But when you look at Simon you take into account longevity and the fact that he started when he did, when the club was basically just completely rebuilt, and he came through all that and he led the team to the Grand Final in 2011 and numerous finals series in that period. And when the club was having its worst seasons results-wise, he was still winning Player of the Year awards and finishing high up in the most tackles for the NRL. If he’s not the best ever Warrior, he’s certainly in the conversation. Personally, I would put him at the top, just for all those reasons: consistency, longevity, great captaincy.

In Australia, he’s held in as high regard as you can get. Any player who’s ever played against him or alongside him, anyone who’s ever worked with him, be it playing or coaching, just gives him the highest respect. He’s a man you like to depend on.

In the early years, he used to drive this old Holden Kingswood around. I think there was a time when he was probably sleeping in it as well. I’m not too sure about that. But I don’t think his diet was very good. That didn’t stop him training hard and playing well. I do remember when Craig Walker, our trainer, was trying to get him to eat better and Simon thought that tinned fruit was pretty much the same as fresh fruit. Once he worked out that the fresh stuff was much better for him, he started making some strides and putting a bit of weight on. He was pretty rough and ready when he turned up. But that was one of the beauties of him: he was no fuss, he was so low maintenance, he just turned up, trained hard, played well. Over the years, he learned a little more about professionalism and looking after himself and he became one of the greats.

  Ivan Cleary

Sydney, 2018

Prologue

My eyes water as I spew up what’s left in my stomach. Hardly slept a wink last night and barely ate a thing all day, and what I had eaten is now staring back at me from a toilet bowl. Nerves are getting the better of me today, and so they should be.

I am in over my head.

No more training runs, no more tips from the coaches. Time to test your mettle and see what you’re made of. I’ve bluffed my way to this point and now the bluffing isn’t going to work. You’re going to be on show where there’s no hiding, so you’re about to be found out for the fraud that you are.

There’s one thing working in my favour today — that I’m coming off the bench and hopefully that’s where I stay.

My teammates have picked up on my apprehension and they do their best to put my mind at ease, and I appreciate the thought, but it doesn’t matter what they say as I’m in a state of shock with what I’ve got myself into.

How I would do anything for the comforts of home right now doing what most kids my age do. Midday on a Sunday afternoon? Most likely nursing a thumping headache discussing the exploits of the night before, with not a care in the world. Those were the days . . .

I look at the clock, it seems to be speeding up the closer we get to kick-off and with the warm-up only a few minutes away I sneak off to the toilet for one last spew.

* * * * *

I’m 18 years old and about to make my NRL debut for the Warriors. Early in the week I was quite relaxed, but as we get closer to game day it starts to hit me. You’re about to debut for the Warriors, not long out of school, and if that’s not hard enough you’ve got to do it against the Brisbane Broncos who are going into the match leading the NRL table. And to cap it all off it’s the 10th anniversary of the Warriors’ very first NRL game back in 1995, when they lost to the Broncos at Mt Smart Stadium. It’s a big occasion for the club . . . and the fans.

This Brisbane team is stacked with the likes of Karmichael Hunt, Justin Hodges, Darren Lockyer, Shane Webcke, Petero Civoniceva, Brad Thorn and they’ve even got Corey Parker and Sam Thaiday coming off the bench.

Last night, my partner Anna took me to the movies at Event Cinemas in downtown Auckland to take my mind off my debut. Don’t ask me what the movie was. The only thing I remember is turning up and a bunch of the Broncos players are there, all the big names. I know all of them. I’ve watched them on TV many a time. They have no idea who I am, and so they shouldn’t. Anna doesn’t notice them, and I don’t point them out. I just sit there, eating my ice cream, trying to pretend I don’t see them.

It was only two years ago that I was playing rugby union in the Nelson College 1st XV, and I had never stepped onto a rugby league pitch. Now I’m about to play in the NRL.

I must have done something right for the coaches to show faith in me. I probably have less belief in myself than I should. I am never a person to build myself up. Truth is, I always knock myself down. I’ve heard of players in different sports using fear as their main inspiration. My main motivation is that I never want to let my teammates down. That’s fear, I guess.

* * * * *

I come out of the toilet and I’m sitting in that dressing room, while the trainer straps up my ankles, and I’m taking it all in. Then it’s time to put on the strip. They’re special replicas of what the 1995 team wore in that very first game against the Broncos. I will tell you one thing: man, it feels good to put on that jersey. Growing up, I saw some of the greats play in it, and now for some reason I am the one wearing it.

It’s my first game for the club, but there’s also this sense of history.

The call gets made and we all file out to the second field to warm up. Once you’ve done that you run straight out onto the field, so there is no going back to the sheds. A process from which there is no turning back has begun. Warm-up seems to be done on autopilot. Surprisingly, my legs are feeling pretty good. I have literally got no food left in my stomach and my energy levels should be on empty, but with a mix of nerves and adrenaline I’m bouncing around, light on my feet. There is no one around, no crowd, it is just us and this empty field. There are a few fans walking past on their way to the game, and the occasional one will yell out some encouragement. They don’t stay to watch. We get through the warm-up and all of a sudden I’m lining up in the tunnel.

This is such a historic event that many aspects of the Warriors’ original match against the Broncos have been revived. We’re set to emerge from the tunnel at the north-eastern corner of the stadium, walking through two rows of flames and a Maori welcoming party, and the Polynesian drummers are back.

We’re waiting there, and the manager is on the mike. We’re looking at him, waiting for a signal. We all know when the Broncos run out because we can hear the crowd roar. ‘Okay,’ says the manager, ‘you guys go now.’ We start filing through. It’s a long tunnel with a cool mural painted all the way through. We hear the Polynesian drummers start bashing their wooden sticks on their hollowed-out wooden drums.

The Polynesian boys in the team start cha-hooing and hollering, and then the rest of the boys start whooping and yelling. They’re all pumped as, and all the noise they’re making is echoing along the tunnel and I’m just dead silent. I’m crapping myself.

I can literally see the light at the end of the tunnel and I run towards it and into a wall of light and colour and sound, as thousands of yelling and cheering voices crash over me. There’s a crowd of 15,652 who have all turned up to be part of history, the best home crowd of the season so far, and they’re all yelling at the top of their lungs. And I just stay silent. Don’t look to the left or the right. The sound is like a distant murmur. I run past the walls of flame and the Maori welcoming party and the guard of honour that includes eight of the team from 1995: Aussie Phil Blake, the club’s first try-scorer, and Kiwis Duane Mann, Tea Ropati, Tony Tuimavave, Tony Tatupu, Gene Ngamu, Whetu Taewa and Gavin Hill.

But I feel insulated from it all. I’m 18 years old and my body and brain are working overtime on autopilot, doing what they have to do to help me cope and get me through this. My initial thought is, ‘Don’t trip. There’s a kerb there. Don’t trip on that kerb!’ Once I get over that, I run past where the Broncos boys are lining up and I’m thinking, ‘The fuckin’ size of these blokes!’

Chapter 1

Sports-mad Kid

As a young kid, I had a passion for sport. I wasn’t blessed with any great physical attributes or talents but would give everything a go. I enjoyed training and getting fit, but even then a lot of my mates would have the better of me on the training field. I’d get to the gym as often as I could, but it never made much difference. A fast metabolism, that’s what I put it down to. It’s a blessing and a curse. I’ve always been a big eater, though I don’t put on much weight, so through my footy career it’s been a struggle, because maintaining some size is important in a contact sport.

My dad used to love his running and I used to always get up early in the morning to go with him. I’ve always enjoyed running and training in general. You hear a lot about guys who hate training. They just live for game day. That’s definitely been me in the twilight of my career, but when I was young I loved training. I couldn’t get enough of it. Part of that was because I could see a lot of improvement as a result of all the training. You see some improvement and think, ‘Oh, I’ll keep going.’

I went to Nelson College, a traditional boys-only rugby union school and the oldest state school in the country. Heading into my teenage years I played rugby union, but I wasn’t taking sport or anything for that matter too seriously and just enjoyed hanging around with a good bunch of mates. Then at 16 I discovered rugby league, and everything changed. There’s not much league played in Nelson so, looking back, I’ve been very fortunate to be able to build a career in a sport I love, and for the team that every young league player in the country wants to play for, the Warriors. By the time I had turned 18, I had a career as a professional sportsperson and would be running on the field for the first time for the Warriors. I’m still trying to figure out how it all happened.

When I reflect on that and where rugby league has taken me, four things come to mind. A lot of hard work. A bit of luck (every professional sportsperson needs some). A supportive family (I am forever indebted to my mum and dad and without them I would never have had the opportunities I’ve had). And the last is the influence of a rugby league coach and now friend, Paul Bergman.

Looking back, it is clear to me that I owe my sports career to Paul. He saw a career in rugby league for me long before I ever did. But I’ll get to that story soon. First, a bit of background.

My mum and dad’s families are from Hawke’s Bay, and I was born in Napier. I still have a lot of family in that area, but when I was one year old, we moved to the South Island and the sunny coastal settlement of Marahau, about 19 kilometres north of Motueka, near Nelson.

A lot of hippies live in Golden Bay, a little bit further round the coast. My mum and dad, Wendy and Guy, definitely weren’t hippies, but I guess they were Greenies of a sort and were very conscious of what we ate. My siblings and I never had the usual vices kids had in those days. I’d go around to friends and they would have orange juice in the fridge and white bread in the pantry and I thought it was Christmas come early. We’d only ever buy brown bread at home and water was the only refreshment we were allowed to drink.

Nowadays I’m a bit of a Greenie, but by default really. Anna, my partner, is the green advocate. She is always into me about recycling everything and not taking a plastic bag when being offered one after purchasing something. She does her best and has taught me a lot about the environment and recycling, although I still have two gas-guzzling V8s for cars, so I’m letting her down big time there. I even take much more care these days about the type of food I eat compared to years before. I wouldn’t say I’m a health nut, but I try to eat more natural and I like to know where my food comes from.

Mum and Dad sent me to a Rudolf Steiner kindy in Motueka and I made a lot of friends there who were German. I remember everything was wooden and there were wooden toys and it was a very artistic approach, although I don’t think it did much for my creative side. We’d bake our own bread, and there was a lantern festival in winter when all the kids would make their lanterns and we’d set them up along a path. Everyone would gather together at night and walk through them. It was a bit different to your everyday kindy, but it didn’t do me any harm. I actually enjoyed it and met some great people.

Dad works at Talley’s Fisheries in Motueka, has done for years. He works in the office there, and during the school holidays he used to wrangle a job for me and my brother Marcus in the fish shed, which was good for some pocket money. It was a bit of a grind at times, especially through the hoki season. We’d get to work about 6 a.m. and if it was a busy one we might not get out of there till close to 8 p.m. We’d only be working there for a couple of weeks during the holidays, so the extra hours didn’t bother us, as racking up time and a half was always a bonus. I remember you could work through the weekends if you wanted to, and I decided to do 10 days straight and then chill out for the rest of my time off. When I say chill out, I mean blow the money I’d just earnt. I remember not being too sure of how much I’d be getting for those 10 days, but when I got my pay cheque and saw the figure of about $400 I was over the moon. Times have changed but when I was young there were endless possibilities for a 14-year-old with $400 to his name. I think in a few days my bank balance had dwindled fast, leaving me with some new clothes and a skateboard to show for it.

Neither my mum nor my dad’s families were leaguies. My dad’s family were yachties. Dad and his brothers were good sailors, but Dad’s cousin Kip Stanley-Harris was probably the pick of the bunch and ended up sailing professionally. All of my cousins can sail and did so growing up. Marcus, our sister Kristen and I are letting the family down a bit there as we wouldn’t know the first thing about getting a yacht on the water. I remember Dad trying to take me and Marcus out sailing in little Optimist boats, but we never really took to it.

Mum’s family were keen golfers, living close to the Maraenui Golf Club in Napier. Mum’s brother Phil was a very good golfer and won the Senior Men’s Club Championship while he was still a student at Napier Boys’ High.

My golfing game is very similar to my sailing skills, and although I’ve invested a lot more time in to my golf, I have very little to show for it.

Like many kids, my first foray into sport was soccer. But one year we missed registration, so I ended up playing rugby, moving around the backline, but playing most often at centre.

I’d do rugby in winter and athletics and cricket in summer.

I was all right at rugby, but nothing flash, and pretty average at athletics and cricket. While I wasn’t talented at sport, I loved having a crack. As you do when you’re a kid and an aspiring cricketer, I got the mower out one day and put the cutting level right down and mowed myself a cricket pitch. I was an all-rounder so the pitch was a good place to practise my bowling on.

Dad was always quite busy at work and didn’t really have too much spare time, but I remember one night he was throwing some balls to me on my home-made pitch. I was hitting them and I hadn’t been scoring many runs in my last few games, and he was like, ‘Okay, if you get a fifty tomorrow,’ which is a big score for about nine or ten years old, ‘if you get a fifty, I’ll buy you a new bat.’ I think he thought he was pretty safe because I was terrible. I don’t know what happened, but I got that 50.

Dad turned up towards the end of my half-century and when I got it I was raising the bat in the air and was over the top with my celebrations. Our coach was one of the umpires and the game was still in the balance and he was like, ‘Settle down, mate, you haven’t won the game yet.’ Obviously at 10 years old the new cricket bat took priority over winning the game. I think I might have hit 10 more runs and then got out. We lost the game, but I’d just won a bet with Dad and couldn’t wait to cash in.

Motueka had around 5000 people back then. I think it’s about 10,000 now. I played rugby for the Riwaka club, about 15 minutes out of Motueka. There were only about four clubs in the whole area and we’d just play each other over and over. I guess I was one of the better players in Motueka. But whenever we went to Nelson, the nearest city, I would suddenly be pretty average.

I started watching all the All Blacks tests and when they were on tour in the UK I’d get up in the middle of the night with Dad to watch. During the 1995 World Cup in South Africa, he’d always fall asleep halfway through a game while I’d keep watching. Like everyone, I was blown away by Jonah Lomu, but my favourite player was Christian Cullen. I used to have one of the Hong Kong Sevens tournaments on VCR. Some of the stuff he was doing was unbelievable, and it was awesome to watch.

Anyway, I played for the Motueka-Golden Bay rep teams through to about the under-13s in triangular tournaments against Nelson and Marlborough. When it got to those older grades we became Nelson Bays.

During my high school days at Nelson College I was a day-boy travelling over from Motueka every day, which was about an hour bus trip each way. I played in the under-14s, the under-15s and didn’t make it into the 1st XV till I was in sixth form. We didn’t go very well that year, but nevertheless it was an enjoyable time. I guess, by this stage, there was no suggestion I had what it took to become a professional athlete. I didn’t secretly believe that I had what it took either, and I didn’t dream of becoming one. Well, most young rugby players dream of becoming an All Black, and I was no different, but it wasn’t a dream I took seriously. I was just your average teenager, enjoyed playing rugby with my mates and then socialising the rest of the weekend.

Generally, if you were a good rugby player in the Nelson region you’d go to Nelson College because it took part in a Crusaders championship. Nelson Bays is in the Canterbury Crusaders rugby area, so we’d travel to Christchurch every second week to play a school there, while the other half of the games were at home.

We’d get a half-day at school on Friday then we’d make a six-hour bus trip to Christchurch, stay the night in a motel and play on Saturday. Those trips away with the team were great fun. It was a cool experience.

I was a pretty good student in my early years at college. I got my NCEA exams in fifth form quite easily. But when I got to sixth form, I just lost interest in my schooling. It means that outside of that first year of NCEA I haven’t got any formal qualifications and I really regret that nowadays. I just spent my time playing sport and socialising with my mates. Schoolwork was put on the back burner. If I had my time again I would do things differently, apply myself to my studies or maybe look at doing a trade.

* * * * *

I first met my partner Anna when I was about 15 or 16. I went to Nelson College and she went to Nelson College for Girls, which is up the road. We were in the same social groups, we used to go to the same house parties and had the same wider group of friends, so we were all hanging out together. I’d say I’m the quieter of the two of us and am a bit of a thinker before I talk while Anna just says the first thing that comes into her mind and doesn’t care if it sounds a bit funny. That’s what I love about her. In those early days when we were first hanging around each other we just seemed to hit it off because we were very similar yet different in a lot of ways. She was a really cool girl and was easy on the eye. She still is.

Whenever we were in the same group of people we’d gravitate towards each other, and she was just fun to be around. We weren’t super-close friends, but we were fond of each other. And, in the end, I grew a pair of nuts and asked her out. This was back in the days when you still had to sit there by the landline and make that call on the phone. It’s not like these days and kids just have to send a text saying, ‘What are you up to? Wanna hang out?’ It was more formal. You had to build up the courage to make that call. And when you did their mum or dad would answer and they’d be like, ‘Who’s speaking?’

We started to spend more time together, after school and on the weekends. My friends were her friends and we’d spend a lot of time at the beach or up the river in summer, chilling out and enjoying the sunshine.

Anna Bensemann: When I first met Simon he was actually working at Talley’s during the school holidays. He was saving up to go to the Big Day Out. This was interesting to me, as I didn’t even think going to the Big Day Out was an option for a 15-year-old living in Nelson. So I thought, here’s a guy with ambition.

I was the same year as Simon and was at school with his sister Kristen at Nelson College for Girls, but I didn’t know Kristen back then. I’d heard who Simon was, but we had never properly met.

We made acquaintances one night at a party. The next day I spotted Simon coming around the corner of the supermarket I worked at and I didn’t know whether to hide or say hello. He maintains he didn’t know I worked there. We briefly talked, he ordered some luncheon and went on his way. We hung out more and I got to know him better; he was caring and always was quite the gentleman, old school-type thing.

* * * * *

My first experience of rugby league was in the third form. The school had a lot of Papua New Guinean students over on scholarships. They were education scholarships rather than sports ones, but they were all league players and they started their own team at school.

They joined the national competition and travelled all around the country playing other teams. There was one Maori fella at lock in the team and the rest were from PNG. And I remember they made the semi-finals and played St Paul’s College at our school. St Paul’s was the big rugby league school from Auckland. The Warriors legend Stacey Jones had gone there, and in this game little did I know a young Jerome Ropati was on the bench. Years later, when I met Jerome at the Warriors, he said, ‘Hey, did you go to Nelson College? I went down there for a big school game.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, mate, I was on the sideline watching.’

The game was at lunchtime, so the whole school was out there. The St Paul’s boys were under 18, but our lot looked like they were in their mid-twenties and probably were to be honest, but they sure took it to St Paul’s!

Our team won, and I thought, ‘What a game. I’d love to play it one day.’ The only problem was there wasn’t a big local league scene. Back in Motueka there had been a team called the Mot Tigers, but they struggled to stay alive, and league wasn’t a big sport in Nelson either. So I carried on playing rugby until my sixth-form year.

Now that Nelson College league team that beat St Paul’s was coached by a guy called Paul Bergman, who was the development officer for rugby league in Nelson. The Bergmans are a league family, originally from Christchurch. Paul’s brother Phil was a decent player for Canterbury in his day and ending up being signed at a couple of NRL clubs, including the Warriors.

Paul Bergman returned to Nelson College a few years later and said, ‘Hey, look, they’ve got a national schools rugby league tournament at Hopuhopu.’ If you’re driving from Auckland to Hamilton, it’s just past Huntly, heading towards Ngaruawahia. He asked the school if he could put a team together from the rugby boys to go to the tournament and they said yes. I was stoked because I really wanted to have a crack at league.

But I had a little problem to deal with first.

After playing for the Nelson College 1st XV in the Crusaders comp, I was picked for the Nelson Bays under-18s rep team. Now I had to extricate myself from the rugby rep team, so that I could go and play league. That was pretty much unheard of in Nelson.

I told Dad and he was bit hesitant to start with. He was trying to get his head around it. ‘You want to go and play league?’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’

‘What do you want to play that for?’

I’d always had amazing family backing for whatever I wanted to do in sport, and I wouldn’t say Dad wasn’t supportive of me playing league, but he just didn’t understand why I’d be pulling out of a representative rugby team to muck around with league. I think he thought I was squandering a great opportunity when I wanted to walk away from the rugby reps to try out a sport I’d never played before.

Next, I had to call up the reps rugby coach and say, ‘I’m going to withdraw from the team.’ Well, actually, he didn’t answer the phone and as an immature teenager does I just left a voicemail message. ‘Hi, Simon here. Can you just pull me out of the team please? I’m going to play league.’ Or something along those lines.

Anna: I remember watching Simon’s first ever league game for the school team. They were all mucking around and taping up their heads and acting like morons. It seemed like they were having a real laugh. But I could tell Simon seemed to take a real liking to it.

And I also remember a lot of Simon’s calls to Paul Bergman, but what really sticks in my head was when he rang up the Nelson Bays rugby rep coach. He was telling them he wasn’t going to play reps and he wanted to give rugby league a crack. He was only leaving a message, but that left a big impression with me. I thought that was pretty ballsy. I thought it was quite incredible because we were so young and Simon was doing quite a bold thing, and I absolutely admired him for it. I think deep down I liked that he was going against the grain and not afraid to do his own thing.

League turned out to be just as exciting as I expected. And it was cool to try a new sport after playing rugby for so many years. I was in the centres in rugby and I found it hard to get involved in games sometimes. At rugby training as a back we generally just ran through some backline moves, and that was about it. But with Paul at league training it was a lot different: we’d be learning specific tackling techniques, a lot of ball skills, including what to do in two-on-one situations. I learned a lot of new and different stuff straight away with Paul. None of us knew the first thing about league, and he threw us in the deep end, entering us in the Nelson men’s competition, which consisted of about four teams. Playing against men was a baptism of fire but set us up to be ready for the national secondary schools tournament in Hopuhopu. We also had a couple of older players helping us out in the team: an ex-pupil who was one of the PNG guys and a teacher from school.

Being tall and lean, I played in the back row of the forwards, and we didn’t go too bad in the men’s comp. The competition ran for a few weeks and games were played on Sundays down at the local park. As this was all new to us and we weren’t taking it too seriously, a game on Sunday didn’t slow down our social commitments the night before, and while there’s nothing better for getting rid of a hangover than breaking a sweat, we’d be regretting it 20 minutes into a game when we were starting to struggle, but it was all in good fun.

I remember someone from the school had come down to watch us play. I can’t recollect if it was the principal or someone else. Anyway, it wasn’t long into the game that I got a swinging arm flush across my face. Dazed and with blood pouring from a busted nose, I was escorted from the field.

After that Paul had to answer some questions from the school as to whether it was a good idea having these kids play against men. Paul obviously convinced them it was character building. He can talk his way out of most situations.

Paul Bergman: First I noticed his athleticism. Then his skill. Then his speed. And then his toughness. Other people put his toughness first, but I reckon they’re doing him a disservice. They’re underestimating him. The NFL in American Football go on athleticism first, too.

After watching him play a couple of times, I told him, ‘You’re in the wrong game, son. If you come over and give league a go, I’ll set you up in a career as a professional sportsman. I don’t think they can do that for you if you stay in rugby union.’

When we got down to the national schools competition we were put in the second division. All the big Auckland schools like St Paul’s and Kelston were in the first division and the provincial schools from outside of Auckland were all in the second division, and we actually won that, which surprised even us because we really were beginners.

They were naming the New Zealand Secondary Schools team at the end of the tournament and Paul was the coach. He kept telling me, ‘If you play well, you could be in the running.’ But I thought he was just having me on. When the team was named, naturally, it was filled with players from the first-division schools . . . but there were two guys from the second division . . . and one of them was me. I think he got a bit of stick for it because I definitely didn’t warrant selection. In all honesty, I was still learning how to play the game. He just picked me to give me some experience and to continue my development.

Paul Bergman: I remember I had to bang on tables and yell at people to get Simon into the New Zealand Secondary Schools squad and I can understand why. It was a very good squad that year. A lot of the kids went on to become elite players. People were saying to me, ‘We’ve already got all these experienced players who are as tough as Simon and much stronger than him. And they know how to play the game, too. What’s he going to offer us?’

I said, ‘I’ve seen a lot of these young fellas that you consider tough forwards. They start with a couple of big tackles and after two minutes they’re playing fullback. I don’t want the forwards playing fullback after two minutes. I guarantee Simon will keep tackling the whole game. He doesn’t know how to stop tackling.’

You know, he had only five games of rugby league at that level before he played for the New Zealand Secondary Schools side.

The Secondary Schools were to play games against the Junior Kangaroos and a New Zealand Residents XIII. Before that, though, I went back to Nelson for a month. While I was there I had a game of rugby union for a Nelson Invitational team. Afterwards Paul spoke to my dad about my possible future in league.

Paul Bergman: Simon’s father, Guy, is what I’d consider an academic. He’s a very intelligent guy, an accountant at Talley’s. I said, ‘Here’s the pathway for your boy.’ I spelled it out to him step by step. ‘It’s a very tough road to the top in rugby league. But you can see by the way he plays that he’s got the necessary attitude to make it. And he’ll have a much better chance in league than he would in union. There are just too many kids in New Zealand playing union. He’ll make his mark in league quickly. I’ll get him into some teams. Once a few coaches see him, they’ll all want to wrap him up.’

I was moving to Wellington to take their Bartercard Cup side, The Orcas, so I got his dad to agree to let Simon stay with me in Wellington, where I could get him more age-grade league games. But opportunities just kept coming along for Simon and he ended up staying for quite a while.

In the lead-up to that Secondary Schools game, Paul worked at getting me fitter and stronger, while teaching me more about the basics of rugby league.

There were three players in that Junior Kangaroos team who were born in New Zealand: Karmichael Hunt, who’d go on to play league and rugby for Australia, Benji Marshall and Sam Perrett, who’d both later play for the Kiwis. That gives an idea of the calibre of talent I was coming up against.

I was way out of my depth, but Paul tried to keep it really basic for me. I was playing on the left edge and he wanted to stop me from getting too lost on the field, and he said, ‘Just stay in your left-hand channel.’ Like any good student, I followed his advice to the letter. There could be a tackle getting made towards the middle of the field and I would be the closest to help, but I wouldn’t be offering any assistance because I was too scared to leave the channel Paul had told me to stay in.

I’d hate to see a replay of that game. I remember thinking, ‘Man, this is a different level.’ So did I hold my own? Not a chance. I think I probably stood out as someone who shouldn’t have been there.

But then Paul picked me for the next game, too, against a New Zealand Residents age-group team, and we only just won.

During this period, I felt like a bit of a fraud with the honours and accolades that just seemed to be falling undeservedly into my lap — I had good enough survival instincts to recognise an unformed opportunity in this — but I was also constantly doubting my ability. I could see these other guys looking at me, like, ‘What’s he doing here?’ I was physically a lot lighter and I was a lot less skilled and I was painfully aware of it.

Most of the other guys had significant backgrounds in league playing in tough age-grade competitions in places such as Auckland where one suburb would be bigger than the whole of Motueka. It was clear we grew up worlds apart. We didn’t have too much in common and I felt like an imposter in their world. Apart from Paul Bergman, I can’t think of anyone I connected with. I guess I was a pretty shy kid, so I just kept my head down and my mouth shut and tried to fly under the radar as much as possible.

* * * * *

After that, Paul had another grand idea. There was an under-18 National Junior Competition, which only lasted five weeks. There were two teams from Auckland (Akarana and Counties) and teams from Canterbury, Waikato and Wellington. Paul had just taken on a job with Wellington as their coach in the national senior comp, the Bartercard Cup. But he thought it would be great for my development to play for Wellington in that Juniors comp as there still wasn’t much of a league scene in Nelson.

At that stage, my heart was still set on staying at Nelson College to play rugby for the 1st XV. But Paul said, ‘That’s cool. You can do that. But this NJC [National Junior Competition] only lasts from mid-January to late February. You might miss a week or two of school, but you can play rugby after that.’

When he put it like that, I thought, ‘What have I got to lose? I may as well give it a crack.’ And it would be a cool experience to live away from home for the first time. After I agreed, I think Paul worked his magic and had a word to the U-18s coach, Leighton Karawana, to put me in his squad. Paul has got the gift of the gab and I’m not sure what he told Leighton about me and my playing ability, but obviously it wasn’t the complete truth because he agreed to add me to his team, which was a big call after they had already won the competition the year before with pretty much the same group of guys.

Even though I had agreed to go, I was getting cold feet and wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do. I remember talking to the principal of the school at the time and he said, ‘You shouldn’t go, you’ve got a good opportunity with the First Fifteen next season, and what about your schooling? You should stay here.’

As I said, Dad was initially a bit hesitant about me changing codes and playing league, but he was now the one pushing me to go to Wellington. Dad is a smart man and he could see that I was getting opportunities in league that I’d never have got in rugby. I’d never made any national teams in union before, not even close.

Not for a moment had I considered there might be a fulltime career for me in rugby league, but with Paul constantly planting that seed in my head, like, ‘You never know what could happen,’ I started to get quite excited about the possibility and just sense the opportunity. Paul knew his stuff. I trusted him. Everything he told me could happen did happen soon after. So I went to Wellington and stayed with Paul.

Anna and I were together by that time. It was a young, blossoming romance and I was moving to Wellington for a few months. But Anna eventually got her head around it and we did the long-distance romance thing.

Anna: I think I’d had a few drinks at a friend’s house when I found out that Simon was going to Wellington. One of my friends told me because her dad had something to do with rugby league, and I ran off down the street crying. I couldn’t comprehend it.

Simon was going for three months. That’s a long time when you’re that young.

* * * * *

Anna, my parents and some of my mates turned up at Nelson Airport to see me off and wish me all the best, and I flew over to Wellington with Paul.

When we first got there, Paul rented a place in Newtown. Three of us stayed there: Paul, me and another guy Paul had trained somewhere. Then after a few weeks he sussed a place on Quay Street, right in town. He’s like, ‘The catch is, there’re only two rooms.’ Remember, there were three of us. The other guy was older than me, in his twenties, and I ended up on the couch. I was way too long for it, so I used to lay the cushions on the floor and put a sheet over them to make it like a bed each night. I was doing that for a good few months. But I didn’t care. I was thinking, ‘How good is this!’ I was living away from home.

Paul and his wife Donna had just got married, but she was still living in Nelson and she would come up to visit Paul, and there would be us three in the little apartment: Paul, a stinky teenager in me and a guy in his twenties. I don’t know how he convinced her that he should be living with us in Wellington instead of with her in Nelson, but she’s an absolute saint, and I guess she was just supporting her husband trying to forge a career in something he loved doing — coaching footy.

I look back on it now and it’s something he didn’t have to do, go out on a limb for me and give me every chance to become a footy player. He was paid to go up to Wellington to coach their senior team, that was it, and he had no obligation to me. That’s why I say that without Paul my life would have panned out a lot differently, I can assure you of that.

Donna would come up and visit and we would all be sitting there and Paul would just say, ‘You guys make yourself scarce. Like go and do whatever.’ And off we’d go.

But, as often happens when people are living together, things started to get a little tense. Paul was really good and then, as flatmates do, we started to rub each other up the wrong way, and it almost ended with me and the other lad coming to blows.

Paul Bergman: While Simon was staying with me, I also had another guy staying. He was my hooker for the Bartercard Cup team. I remember he and Simon almost came to blows. They were stepping on each other’s toes in the small flat. It was something to do with the cooking in the kitchen. I took Simon aside and said, ‘You’ve got a lot to learn, mate. I never want to see you do that again. If you and him ever get into a situation like that again, I want you to climb into him. Get in there first and get in there hard. You’ll never make it in the NRL if you stand around waiting for someone else to make a move. You’ve got to be on the front foot.’

After that Paul was like, ‘I think we’d all better find our own places to live.’ His wife was moving up and he was getting a house, so we three guys living together was always going to be a temporary thing.

One day Paul said to me, ‘Oh, I’ve found you a place to live.’

‘Aw yeah, sweet.’

‘I’ll show you.’

He drives me out to Lower Hutt and there’s this hostel there. It looked pretty rough from where I was standing. Inside was a long hallway with rooms either side, there was also a communal kitchen, communal shower, communal toilets.