The crowd gets behind the All-Blacks no matter where you are, so instead of facing a rugby team, opposition always faces a nation.
In the calm before the storm, for the briefest and most precious of moments, he retreated from his very public world. The clamour, adulation and physical confrontation all awaited him, like the bullfighter and his prey. But, within these four walls, it was different.His life is theirs, not his own. His interests are dissected with microscopic scrutiny. But here, hidden away from the inquiring eyes of his audience and the media’s prying lenses, he enacted his private ritual one last time.
Thus he stood deep in the bowels of England’s Twickenham Stadium, facing the wall; a man in his own space, his own time. The battle ahead was the 2015 Rugby World Cup Final against his nation’s foes, Australia, which the All Blacks would win 34–17, making them the first ever team to retain the Webb Ellis Cup. It would be physically and mentally enervating. But that came with the territory. The two nations were like some lovers; unable to live together, unable to be apart for long.
He turned back the years in his mind’s eye to that child’s eager participation in any activity associated with a rugby ball. There he was, just seven years of age. Knees muddied as with all little boys, wearing a jersey and shorts that were a tad too big, and socks flapping at his ankles. The child was intently watching from the touchline a game played by the club’s senior men. How that boy longed to be out there with them.
In those private moments, he saw, too, the boy become a man, the hopeful child protégé first to wear an All Blacks jersey and later earn the ultimate honour. Captaincy of New Zealand’s rugby team. “So I did that before every match just to make sure. It was a wee reminder to me about how privileged I was to wear that jersey and never take it for granted.”
His considered opinion was that he was the fortunate one, not the country’s rugby team that had embraced him so warmly for so long.
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