Mathew Ridge Reunites With Marc Ellis & John Kirwan Steps In... Best Stories From TV, Rugby & League
October 15, 2024 • 50 mins
It’s the highly anticipated reunion of Matthew Ridge and Marc Ellis! We needed some help mediating, so we also brought in Sir John Kirwan. We cover the origins of Macca and Ridgey’s friendship, how they stood out in a conservative era of rugby, how JK helped usher them in, the difference between union and league, the time Marc had a panic attack, and much more!
About The Show:
Ric Salizzo, Marc Ellis and Leigh Hart catch up to (uniquely) discuss sporting issues of the day, create havoc, welcome in special guests; and find time to look back with insight, and lay blame for moments from the popular Sports Cafe TV show.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
This is an iHeartRadio New Zealand podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Where you living?
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Fuck, that's a good question, Sis France. No, you've got
to come back here for text.
Speaker 4 (00:18):
Yeah, it's amazing that the first time we see is
on the show.
Speaker 5 (00:20):
Then it's only come on the show so they can
turn the text department.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
Come on the shower the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
No, I came on the show because fucking regards me
to come on the show's text reasons.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Well, welcome to the TB Sports Cafe podcast. Nana's not here.
So the only other blonde was jklond Stretch.
Speaker 5 (00:51):
Okay, I just asked you straight off why you're wearing
all black kit from like twenty five years. Do you
do you know anyone else that's kipt kit?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
No, and Reggie's joining us as well.
Speaker 6 (01:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Thanks.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Here there is this one, two three all black, and
we all used to sort of head.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, well that's what I thought. I thought we've broken down.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
To all blacks trying to make us feel good, trying
to make.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
You feel good, and three three legendary Warriors plans as well.
Speaker 7 (01:17):
I don't know about kind of feeling a bit left out.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
And one of the boys highs sort of college christ
College fifteen fifteen players. Yeah, yes, I was moving on.
I was can get to that. Yeah, So what are
you up to Reggie?
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Well, not much. We were just having a debrief about
our relationship status.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Would you say that Reggie's sort of your role model?
Speaker 3 (01:43):
He's been He's been following me around for ages, like
it's been unbelievable. I go to France, he goes Italy.
I just can't get rid of them.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
You know, in Italy are different places.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, but it's pretty close, like it's a stay in throw.
Speaker 6 (01:54):
Right.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
So one of the hardest jobs that I ever got
given was from Graham Henry and he said to me,
can you please look after Reggie and Mecca when they
make the All Blacks?
Speaker 4 (02:08):
He put me into that. He said, that's nice.
Speaker 5 (02:11):
A new breed of player there, a new breed of person,
and a lot of them in your team. We're just
not hit them. What do you want me to do?
Sort of translate and yeah, that'd be good.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
I love it. I love love. I always had a
strong bond with props.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (02:29):
They were always you needed them, and you know, and
they were relatively basic animals, you know, so as long
as you made them laugh, they thought you were all right,
yeah I do.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yeah, yeah, hated me and and all hated my guts
as well. Mate, Like, was he still doing around then?
And was he still playing made? He was broken made,
he was like, but he was polarizing that. Oh yeah,
but he was super scary, right, He's like just a
scary you.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Member, and he terrified me as well.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
I remember I got on the bus one day and
you used to have to wear a certain you know,
like we had to wear a certain kit.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
You know.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
It wasn't number ones, but it was our casual kit.
And I can't I'll just were a jumper, right, I
just put this jumper on, a wooden jumper that I
bought a couple of days ago. And I sat down
next to Andy, and I thought I could feel him
just like like staring at me, like burning a hole
in my head. And I looked at him. He goes, well,
have you got if you go jumper?
Speaker 9 (03:25):
It's not you know.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
I was like, I'm cold. He goes, take your fucking off. Okay,
you took it off immediately? Yeah, I did, mate, like
fucking straight off. Put in the bag the wrong jeans.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Or something, take them off.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Oh yeah, that was more like but that's the only
fucking thing that they sit to me the whole trump
I remember.
Speaker 5 (03:50):
I remember sitting down with Reggie and say, look mate,
you from Auckland, like, we love you, you know, you
know you've got a quick tongue. And just in the
all black buss tone it down a little bit. We're
having this conversation. We're all talking shit on in the
middle of the back seat. Lowie's sitting there and Ridges
and front of him, right, and we haven't.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Just just gone down the back as.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
It's quite a way was cool on that pretty much
close to the back having this conversation.
Speaker 6 (04:17):
At one stage, Riggie turns around and say, what would
you know, your fat bustard? It just goes like this.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Straight out almost cold.
Speaker 5 (04:30):
Yeah, And he woke up and sort of looked at
me and yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I like, so you two had a I don't know,
on camera friendship.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Yeah, what happened to it?
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Out started because we've already identified that you're a polarizing person.
So you found someone that was a friend at the Warriors.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Like, how did it start? I like, because you just
came to the Warriors. Remember you signed for the Warriors.
I come back. We hadn't done any television then.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
But we got on.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
I got on well.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
Just from like from me being coming from traditional and
sometimes not being able to expred myself sort of be myself.
These guys got on straight away, same sense of humor,
same lip, really really sharp, like if you weren't awake,
they would cut you to ribbons and you wouldn't even
know it.
Speaker 6 (05:20):
So they got on.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
Really well, really quickly because they just had exactly the
same sense of humor, which a lot of people.
Speaker 6 (05:28):
Didn't really get or enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (05:30):
Yeah, I always loved it. I thought it was always fun.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
You had to pitch it in that team environment, the
right spot.
Speaker 6 (05:36):
Which you were better at.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yeah, you'd better than me.
Speaker 5 (05:39):
It was Riggie would just not think and say something,
whereas you'd plan a little bit of you.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Know, yeah, And I think that's what made our TV
shows good because I wouldn't think and say something and
then you just take the piss out of it, right,
So you know, like it was. It was pretty good.
I know.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
So I went through all the old Sports Cafe tapes.
The only time you were on as a guest was
when Macca wasn't there.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Yeah, Like I was trying to think because everybody goes, oh,
may bring back. Yeah, you guys were so good on
Sports Care. Yeah, we're fucking awesome, fucking bring it back,
you guys like and every time, every time Key we
recognized me.
Speaker 8 (06:18):
There, Mecca, how are your mate still get us?
Speaker 4 (06:23):
How's your mate? And then you got but means this
guy I found.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I did find this clip which was we had no
we had remember filling filling presented Nikki and you decided
and you were going out with Nikki at this time,
and so you decided that if she was going to
present the show, you'd present it from in a spar pool,
drinking champagne and eating crayfish.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Mecca.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, so have a look at this.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
So Nikki, how.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Well do you know Mark?
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Because a little too well? Actually right, thank.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
You, thank you?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I mean you're a big ruggy.
Speaker 6 (07:07):
Oh that's good.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
What's going on?
Speaker 3 (07:11):
What's going on? Actually?
Speaker 6 (07:12):
Is Mark?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
I think once a spark.
Speaker 6 (07:23):
Oh that's nice, you're here.
Speaker 10 (07:31):
He was worried. He came along there jumping and enjoy me.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
That Literally the only time you two are on sports.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
You're always very protective. Were you?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
I made a head to keep my eye on you. Nice.
It's unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Were you at the Warriors with these two?
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Yep, not with I think you can you know we
were there.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
You came played for me begin you you came in ninety.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
Five A and I was twenty five ninety six. You
were supposed to come there. You came to the year
after I came in ninety came the second year? No,
we played the first year.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
No, I didn't play ninety five, but I play.
Speaker 6 (08:20):
Played ninety six. Or did you come ninety seven?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
No, I came ninety seven, but I trained in the
off season in ninety five. So we were all training
to get out of stuff. And then I had to
go back and they wouldn't let me play, and I
had to set out the first sort of ten games. Yeah,
and we had to go back.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
JK. And I did the documentary when you went to
rugby league. Yeah, I remember that first game when you
were you were a nervous wreck before that first.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Game, man, Like, how how how long before the before
the game did we go over?
Speaker 6 (08:51):
There was?
Speaker 3 (08:51):
It was a week or two. It was a week
a week a week to get ready.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
From what I think change you're slow on.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
It was just about finished, just about finishing.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
There boiling. Yeah, don't give me that laugh. You know
I'm not going to keep my eyes on you with
your laugh like that.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Yeah, I was going to say sorry, had a week
in a week to prepare, remember, and then I had
you two guys, right, So I went from being really
like an obscure all black right, you know, just on
the fringes, and then you guys followed me over the
camera crew, remember, and followed me around for flipping like
(09:33):
everywhere everywhere, like everywhere. You're pretty much pretty much stayed
with me.
Speaker 6 (09:38):
Right.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
Do you play? Do you play for on the sad day?
I played with Remember on the Sunday?
Speaker 3 (09:45):
My last game of rugby was when we played the
New Zealand Maori Aukland.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
You know, I don't break it to you, but this
is a fucking awful shame mate.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
People shut up, mate, And we played for Aukland eeden pa. Remember,
I got up and I had to say I was going.
I got real emotional. No one gave it fuck out,
like hey, coming right back.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
You put a touched on it.
Speaker 7 (10:07):
Was what was your main motivation for going? Obviously it's
different times than course now, was it? But also because
you said all money but it also was because of
all blacks that you found you were slightly more less,
you know, like you said you're.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
On the friends. I don't think you were.
Speaker 6 (10:21):
But you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Were you thinking ahead?
Speaker 3 (10:24):
You know when I say I was on the fringe,
like like I wasn't well known, right, I wasn't well
known in New Zealand. Right, But but that catapulted me
by switching codes and I went for money. Mark that
that was your first question. But then but then was
it a fuck? It was nothing?
Speaker 6 (10:41):
Right?
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Like you remember Lowe coming over and sitting there with
Graham and sitting down in front of me at the
poet Armo and he goes, right, what do you think
you're were? And I went, oh, fuck, I mad even
thought about it.
Speaker 6 (10:51):
Getting fifteen dollars a day.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
I was getting, we're getting I was getting eighty bucks
a month for a b bursery at university, right, So
I was poor as fuck? And he goes, I said, oh,
I shipped myself. I said, I don't know. And I
had Grant mccarrer as my who was an accountant because
we didn't have there were no man in because there
was no professional sport, so nobody knew shit about shit,
and so I didn't know what the market was over there,
so I had no clue and he just he just
(11:14):
wrote on a on a on a on a what
do you call it? Yeah, pretty much like that and
handed it over to me. It was thirty five grand
for my first year, which was half a year, and
then the next year was like sixty and it was
like fifteen hundred to one at a thousand loss. I went,
can you make it two grand a win all loose?
(11:35):
And he went, yeah, fuck, I can do that, right.
I was like, fucking year too good?
Speaker 8 (11:40):
And surely you went away going fuck oh no, they
say yes immediately you.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Just oh no made it was so bad, right, And
they were signing Zenny at the same time, and so
I knew Zinny was going right, And in those days
you weren't allowed to talk about what you got. It
was just a fucking name. Really, it was in your contract.
You're not allowed to talk about what you get, right.
So then he picked me up to go to Auckland training.
It was the last game against the Malori, and I
knew he'd signed and he was dropping me back home
(12:06):
and I said, what do you get? He goes, I
can't tell you. I can't tell you, I said, come on,
and he because I idolized any right, he was just
for me. He was the cause it was you, Zenny Joe,
you know, like so I was living the dream, right,
and he picked me up bringing the training anyway, go
on home, and I kept pissuring him. He he goes, mate,
you won't like it, said, mate, I know you're getting
(12:27):
more than me, mate, like, just fucking just tell me.
He goes, oh, I think it was about one hundred
for his first year and then one fifty or two
hundred for a second year or something like that. And
he goes, what are you on?
Speaker 6 (12:37):
Mate?
Speaker 3 (12:37):
And I went, mate, I can't tell you no, and
he goes no. He goes, he goes, no, no, no,
fuck mate, fuck they tell me what are you on?
I went, I can't tell you. Know it's mate, you're
on more than me, but I can't tell you wink.
And I sort of like taking the person like I
was getting more again funk. I was too embarrassed to
tell him, mate, like I'm on shit compared to you, right,
(12:58):
And then I never heard from Zinny ever again, like
he just like you.
Speaker 6 (13:02):
Just didn't turn up.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
No, no, he can't know. He just he'stopped talking into Regil.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
I'm talking to me like twenty years mate. And then
I ran into him at the pub.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah, I was there because he said he said that
I couldn't trust him.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Yeah, he wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
He wouldn't tell me. He wouldn't tell me what was
in the contract, So I can't trust him. So he
just won't talk to me.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
And this was the guy that I would have literally
like thrown myself in front of a bus full like
then he was my idol. Right, I'm getting picked up
taking the training with my I'm like, how good is this?
And then I was going to be going over and
playing rugby league with him? Right, So when I got there,
I still thought he was coming. So I got to
I got to Manly and we had that remember we
had that apartment was on this is in his broom
(13:44):
and blah blah blah. And then Lowe low I went
to training, goes oh by the way, mates, and he's
not coming now. He just he just got cold feed
and backed down.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
And I was like, oh, ship, that would have been
a prop of your conversation.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Was That's what it was?
Speaker 3 (13:57):
What it was like he did not go because he
thought he was getting more, even though he knew he
was getting more because you know how and he's O
real money dude, right, But I was too embarrassed to
tell him because I was just like.
Speaker 6 (14:13):
I thought it was way more, but I thought it was.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Did you get any league offers?
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Like I thought it was? It was nothing?
Speaker 6 (14:19):
Mate?
Speaker 5 (14:20):
So like LOWI then was targeting a few of us. Yeah,
And I spoke to him about it because I went
to learn how to hit and spin from him. So
I was sort of trying to learn that league hidden
and he said, if you want to, if you want
to come to I never took it till the next
step though, so got until the Warriors.
Speaker 8 (14:39):
Yeah, but yeah, he gave me a call at university
in my second year. Yeah, like my student mates are saying,
I make there's Graham loads one.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
And then you played for a Tiger at that stage.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
Yeah, I played one season for a tag, right.
Speaker 6 (14:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
I picked it up and he.
Speaker 8 (14:52):
Said get a mark, So I thought I thought it
was nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
There you go, right, Yeah, so funny.
Speaker 6 (15:01):
You made the All Blacks and ninety two. Didn't you
turn ninety two with us or that?
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Yeah? Yeah, but that's what I didn't do it.
Speaker 6 (15:07):
I always remember.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
This is a very sad story, so I don't want
to You lost your mate, Yeah, the room together about
to play your first games.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
I got Sam Williams.
Speaker 8 (15:20):
He was a good mate when we grew up and
we've been on a holiday and he was great mates
with my girlfriend at the time and we liked each
other a lot.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
And he went skiing in Queenstown and had a bit
of tussock and breaker.
Speaker 8 (15:34):
And for your first game, yeah, before the first game,
and we used to get the all black snippets and
on the piece of paper you know, yeah, the facts
they passed around the bus and just I must have
read it ten times.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
Snowboard in Queenstown, Sam Williams, that was his name. That
was his name. So that was my first game or
fly back for the funeral. You've got a good memory, mate.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
Who was I always remember because we're roomed in Australia.
It was yeah, because people gave us gas ship all
week and then the following and.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
He was smashing people, punching people blindly.
Speaker 6 (16:06):
And the reason.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
The reason I remember it because you you didn't know
whether you should go home or not. Yeah, you know,
it was one of those like those because back in
those days, like you know, Joe wasn't even there for
the birth of his kids.
Speaker 6 (16:20):
Like back in those days, usually would yeah, you went home,
you did No.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I didn't go I didn't go home.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
They all Blacks seen a big which was really cool.
Speaker 6 (16:31):
Neil Gray was the who's still my he was still
the neighbor next to.
Speaker 8 (16:35):
A neighbor, and but they've seen a massive bouquet flowers
from the whole All Black team and that really touched them.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
That was it was nicely done.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Actually talking about if this game. There's another clip this
is from The Good, The Bed and the Raby Before
your first game for the All Blacks.
Speaker 6 (16:53):
I played it twice. Don't worried about the hecky mate,
because it's really easy.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Can you get real dangerous?
Speaker 6 (17:07):
Do you think you get here?
Speaker 11 (17:09):
What's on TV?
Speaker 3 (17:10):
I thought, I didn't think I was playing. We were great.
Speaker 5 (17:21):
The thing I loved about like both of these guys
when they were under pressure, their energy just amped. So
for some of the older guys who were used to
just like staying really conservative, these like look at Riggie there,
he's like a by a cat on a hot and roof,
he's like. And the way they expressed it I love
(17:41):
because you could feel all this energy. But they just
all over the place, like bouncing off the walls, not
sitting in a room, you know, trying to control your anxiety.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
These guys are which was unusual, totally yeah, just not.
Speaker 6 (17:52):
Heard of all. This guy's walking around and kicking the
ball and you know it's not used to train.
Speaker 7 (17:56):
It almost packing the day were most we.
Speaker 8 (17:58):
Were allowed to show emotion when and the other people
who could talk to the media was the captain yeah,
and the coach yeah, and this is what this guy.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Fuck. Your job was easy then.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
But I remember I remember where the World Cup and
nine five and I put you up for a press
conference before the Welsh game and it was after Jinah
had hit the scene and against Ireland, and everyone was like,
what are you going to do? Mark you and now
marking the Welsh version of Jonah Long with this big
winger I can't remember it was. And you said he's
(18:30):
too big. I'm just going to switch wings and then
everyone laughed and stuff. And then we went to training
and Larry called everyone and he said, look, there's a
lot of fuss about Jinah I've got a plan. We're
going to switch wings, and.
Speaker 6 (18:47):
So remains.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Lurry goes and Mecca goes to Larry. I might have
stuck up with but Larry, he said, what do you mean?
He said, I think I said we're going to switch
wings in the press conference, Laury just turned around and
looked at me and said, I'll see you after training.
And he said, from now on every interview will be
Don and writing and and Colin Meads and Brian or going. Yeah,
that's fucking good idea.
Speaker 8 (19:10):
Yet the old old school didn't, like only only five
before the quarter final, and Andrew Martins and I have
got that because we had the the the South African
body guys were a policemen. They had, you know, if
you went to the nightclub, you borrow their bed so
you can go to a nice lady.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
Look, sorry, yeah you're out. Can I see somebo d?
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (19:31):
And then you get there and that'd be the conversation startup.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
But it's a bit creepy and so it worked.
Speaker 5 (19:36):
You know, I think I don't know what you found,
Riggie Wather. You just blended straight into rugby league. But
like when I was an All Black, like and this
with these two guys were so different. You breed by Wednesday.
Everyone had to be pretty serious. You weren't laughing, you know,
like I was really really serious, Yeah, mentally preparing. But
(19:56):
when I first got to rugby league, mate loose as
like two minutes before the game, taking the person music
no and gave a ship and then two minutes before
the game.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
Yeah, yeah, it was amazing.
Speaker 6 (20:09):
That suited you guys like no, no, threw me out.
Speaker 8 (20:14):
Yeah, because we'd sit on the bus on a targer
game and take half an hour driving into Cares and
it's in your same seat. You've been in your suit
and you look at the when they wouldn't talk to around,
you got the same spot in the change around that.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
Yeah, that rude gularity. Yeah, yeah you had to apply
that to league. Did you did you?
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Were?
Speaker 8 (20:30):
You guys get on the bus two minutes late and
I'm going, yeah, yeah, it's got a DVD player and
it stick some bloody question mate under the bloody.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
No, it wasn't, it wasn't even It wasn't even that, mate,
horrible beaut It wasn't even that. Macha was like, do
you remember, because you guys took the cameras and my
first game mate member, and it was like Daryl Williams,
you know, Cliffee Lines and Cliffee Lines were smoking cigarettes.
Would be the tunnel, a dirry in the tunnel, right
for twenty minutes before the keg off and you go
(21:01):
into the change When I walked in the change room,
people are just taking the purse like it was. It
was like real party Atmosphe like just yaking about what
they've done the day before and all that shit.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
And Grahamlow made you do an interview five minutes before
kick off. That's right, first game.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
That's right. Remember, like he pulled me out to do
an interview with some guy from ABC TV. Came in.
It's ten minutes before my first game. Right, I never
played rugby league in my life. I'm shitting my pants.
I'm playing with a bunch of dudes that haven't taught.
You know, all they've done is just take the place
for the last forty five minutes, Right, I'm going to
go out and play with them. And he goes, can
you just wwip outside and do an interview with the
(21:37):
guy from ABC? And I was like what what? And
he fucking pulls me out and there's all these people
on the stands and they see me come out and
all these kids gay came out fucking oh like it
really threw me.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
Right, jesus, I remember Dizzy Hessler, So like we go
over with Reggie and there's all this everyone's training. You know,
we didn't even train back in those days. Did a
bit of gym.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
But wait, wait waits yeah, but.
Speaker 5 (21:59):
Anyway, I tried to interview Dizzy Hessler and I said,
I'm busy.
Speaker 6 (22:03):
Do you do all the stuff?
Speaker 5 (22:04):
No, mate, I do a thousand push ups? Yeah, thousand, yeah,
every day. And I mean yeah, yeah, living dropped down,
did like five. It's just like yeah, yeah, that's what
I mean.
Speaker 8 (22:16):
Remember it was it was Phil Blake, Yeah, chips right,
and he do you know, like I don't know why
he bothered.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Like that, like a twenty kilo on his back.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
And yeah, he was my training partner. He always said
at the end of training, JK, are you trying to
do as many as you can? You know I could
do likeeen or twelve and he'd triple it.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Because he was at the Warriors. He the Warriors.
Speaker 6 (22:38):
He was my training partner for. So what training was
tough for overall?
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Legal?
Speaker 6 (22:42):
You know, well, we didn't train.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
When I first got to rugby, I couldn't like I
couldn't walk or do anything for like six weeks. They
just I went from eighty kilos on the bench to
like one sixty five and yeah, just got punished. Yeah,
I was sick, couldn't drive my car, like unbelievable.
Speaker 8 (23:01):
We train and you do, you do like a fitness training,
and then you can't and do weights and afternoon it's
between fitless training in the morning and wait, you go home,
eat and sleep.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Yeah, and then you get things like season was actually hard.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
This season was hard. And those big boys you know,
came in over weight, they.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
Got maximum on the bench and then you dropped down
and forty push up.
Speaker 8 (23:25):
Yeah, you had to do three bench presses of your
maximum amount and you could do ninety five. I came
and I could do ninety and I was so fucking
embarrassed that every day I'd come back to the gym.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
But we got You got up there because I think
my one, my one was like one.
Speaker 8 (23:42):
Thirty or three on one thirty, and Gene that was
one twenty five. And I'm kidding these guys something.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
To be there. Yeah, yeah, that's right. It was amazing.
It was crazy, you guys a question because I get
asked this question all the time, right, and we're you
put you're an outside back as well a making you
didn't play center, only played wing for the genders.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
They were going to put me into hooker until oh God,
thank God out in God. You don't worry else sign
the should.
Speaker 6 (24:08):
Have played should have played them a standoff, but you played.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Maybe you've always played on the wing.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
Yeah, I played a wee bit at center, ran off,
remember that?
Speaker 6 (24:16):
And yeah, yeah, where do I go?
Speaker 12 (24:19):
Help me?
Speaker 3 (24:20):
I don't know. I can't see me.
Speaker 6 (24:21):
He's too quick.
Speaker 13 (24:24):
He was.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Just do your best, power you do your best?
Speaker 4 (24:28):
What was then when you read around me?
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Use this cut? What are you doing? Mecca?
Speaker 10 (24:34):
Leading him for me?
Speaker 5 (24:35):
Mate?
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Making me look bad?
Speaker 10 (24:37):
You got around yours? Well, don't worry.
Speaker 7 (24:40):
Through from over from say rugby to league for what was?
Speaker 5 (24:44):
So were all the we were anaerobic, so we used
to go for ten k runs. And when you go
to rugby league, it's basically a shuttle run all day.
So all of a sudden you just shuttle running it
like you're just totally naked. So there are two different systems.
So you go out training and all of a sudden,
you're just doing these shuttle runs all day. Yeah, and
(25:05):
like I mean, it was easy for us out wide
because sometimes I go halfway out, but those foods.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
That was my question was like, okay, so it's different
for us. But when people asked me what was what
was hard a rugby or league, it was it was
definitely league. Like I played in the front line once.
I played five eight once and after ten minutes I
was fucking exhausted just because of the up and back. Yeah, yeah,
you mean to make a tackle then and if you
(25:35):
drop back a week it they pick on you. They
pick on you, and you're right and then and then
you know, like you obviously have to chase the kick
and then you've got to go back. And so after
like after like literally fifteen twenty minutes, all messiness came
on from Boz that it goes good ef it make
the fullback because he could see I was just I
was absolutely rooted, right.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
It's just not stopping like she doesn't especially now.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
So what I say to people, and that's why I
wanted to ask you guys, is I say to people
is rugby league is definitely definitely more taxing physically and
anaerobically than than than rugby. For me as an outside back.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
Well, I think the best bit of advice I got
from my dad. He said, mate, when they kick it,
you just get back and take it up. Yeah, you
don't have to do anything else. If you take it up,
and if you take it up twice in the first
set of six, all love you. Yeah, that's all you
need to do, right, Because I was worried about this
and that, but like even getting back yeah, because the
(26:31):
other interesting thing I found was that you just got
a bagging yeah, like the verbals on the field, but
also from your teammates.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, fucking like the boys would.
Speaker 6 (26:40):
Be into you the time. And so even on the wing,
you had to go at least half. So you're doing
these shuttles, then they cack and you got to get back.
Then you've got to take one. And if you play
the forwards in front of you and they just want
to and.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
If you're playing with me, like, after a while, I
realized that there's no way I'm taking it back because
I just get fucking belted and I wasn't. I wasn't
quick enough to go around anybody, right, So unless they
came down and they fell over like I was going
to get tackled by the first poke, right, So I
just the wings and I'd be playing with either him,
Sean Hoppy or Richie Barnett, and I'd catch the ball
(27:12):
and I just wait for him to come back and
I'd run across them go and what I did, Thanks Sean.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
He was the best guy to pack out of those
he was.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
Can I just just to finish that conversation. I think
I think rugby is now, yeah, but.
Speaker 7 (27:32):
A lot of stopping now saying that there's a lot
of excuse me, supposed a couple of years ago stops
that now.
Speaker 6 (27:38):
Well, yeah, I just think it's really similar. But nowadays
it was completely.
Speaker 8 (27:42):
But also in rugby back in the day there was rucking, right,
and yeah that was he got caught at the bottom
of a ruck.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
Playing against you, Prax.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
And playing against anyway, you're going to get tailed up.
Speaker 6 (27:54):
I was lucky.
Speaker 8 (27:54):
I had a guy, Steve Hotton, and he every time
I hit the ground, he was he was and flop
on top of me and I could feel the boots
going through him into my body. Yeah, and when when
I tell you game, he just got up and gave
me a kiss on the cheek and gave me.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
As a game. He was just such a beautiful man.
Without that, you'd have been. And when we played Auckland, yeah,
because we said, how are we going to beat these
guys with in or backs? Kick this ship out? Yeah,
and Laurie Mains's catch crow before he came all back
coaches go for the bony parts.
Speaker 8 (28:28):
So if they're on the ground, and he said, you
can't get sent off of the two of you if
you're bound and racking.
Speaker 6 (28:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (28:33):
Back in those days when it rained, you guys used
to put sand on it. Yeah, like it was just
a ship fight. You get down there and you couldn't
play your game because sand on it.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
It was a bog.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Just to get some show maintenance in there. Some good
news this week on the T A. B. Bedding front. Yeah.
So I put some money on the women's cricket team
to beat Sri Lanka and they did.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
Right, wonderful. I know you say you put the money
on when there's a win.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Yeah. Yeah, And I also put some on. I put
a little bit effort into Estonia versus whatever it football soccer. Yeah,
I thought it would be a drawer. You know which
everyone will probably would expect between those two teams, Estonia
and the other thing. But Estonia won that three one,
so I lost that And why would you even think
(29:26):
of betting on that?
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Yeah, because you know nothing about soccer R.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Yeah, but I know nothing about pretty much everything Estonia either.
But one of the clips from game or two halves
that's gone pretty viral, is you laughing at his teeth?
Speaker 3 (29:43):
Mate?
Speaker 4 (29:43):
He was, He's made.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
He was such a preck to me, mate, Like, yeah,
it wasn't the only reason when I took the puss
out him the other day about you know, being a
roadback for France and ship because like he just every
time he gets a chance, he's just a pot shot
me like my piano teath and ship rights to make
me laugh. But he just the whole non stop, the
(30:06):
whole thing that was before did you get your New
Zealand have done? And I've handed a couple of times now,
But anyway, the thing is, bro, there's a photo that
I saw of you and you're smiling and like he
had fucking loads wrinkles. And then I saw him on
the TV about two weeks later and I was like,
he's looking really fucking good, you know. And I walked
(30:29):
in here today and I was like, mate, that's still
a legend, still as handsome, as like.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
The it was.
Speaker 8 (30:40):
It was just taking the past, that was that's all
we did. Yeah, And it's like two mates from anywhere
in New Zealand anywhere around the world make out of
one another.
Speaker 6 (30:51):
The courage to do it on TV.
Speaker 8 (30:52):
Though it's not for everyone, no, but we we didn't
start like that. It just ended up there because we did,
and the film crew just followed it. And luckily we
had some guys who filmed after we'd done the segment,
and it was the little ship happened afterwards that was
the gold. And then yeah, the story began totally.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
And so we went to my favorite. We went to
Bloody Brazil.
Speaker 8 (31:15):
We competed in one or two things and you know,
the loser had to do a punishment. And so I'm
sort of lying a bed one night about eight o'clock,
ready to go to sleep, and this huge Brazilian woman
came in and Reggie came behind her and said, you've
heard about it, Brazilian.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
Haven't you your message or something? We're waxing your front porch.
She came in and this nasty quick. Yeah, but not
what wax. It was cold. It was like pulling clumps down.
Speaker 8 (31:46):
I said, fuck mate, you've taken to the next level, right,
I'm going to get you back for this new bard. Yeah,
And so I kept all the pews and the.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
Clumps of blood.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
This is so gross.
Speaker 8 (31:55):
And so I, when I was so motivated, I got
a win, and so made him walk down the beach
at Cape Gavana Beach and a pair of speedos, which
he had no problem with.
Speaker 4 (32:07):
But he had a pube mo cheese and I plucked
a couple out of the old ring to make sure
I had a bit of a scene on it.
Speaker 7 (32:19):
You should have man come out the speeders like, oh
it was.
Speaker 6 (32:26):
That didn't make obviously.
Speaker 10 (32:29):
TV. It was a consequence was to wear a walking down.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
So yeah, yeah, different land.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
It was so good. But isn't it funny that ship
he used to get away with on TV back then?
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Like you couldn't do that.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
You couldn't do it now, man, Like you know the
can we show that?
Speaker 4 (32:48):
Would you want to show that?
Speaker 2 (32:49):
I'm not I'm a little bit concerned that you want
to do that again. Something that obviously proud Kiwi as
well as a proud all black. You know play how
many kiss? Oh?
Speaker 6 (32:59):
Sorry five?
Speaker 3 (33:03):
That is the only Jewel International like proper Jewel intern.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
John John Temmy.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
But you played, but you played, You played a teas
for your waist and you played teas for the kiwis
yea J.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
T Lee You caught up with the Kiwi's and tirag
you take me back now, Yeah, you know started off
by getting washed off the rocks.
Speaker 9 (33:22):
Here are go Jack Norberg, Sydney, Because of course there's
where the key.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Think would be better that we can't be too war
ago whatever.
Speaker 9 (33:36):
It says what a lot of people don't understand about
the Koala bears. That Koala bears are lesbians, not all
of them, a lot.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Of them.
Speaker 10 (33:47):
Scaring animals away from.
Speaker 9 (33:48):
It's always good to see the other boys in there,
the keys doing one in the competition and just to catch.
Speaker 6 (33:52):
Up with them, see what's going on.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
So it's always good to see them.
Speaker 6 (33:54):
Yeah, it's good to have the joy about to get
the photos done.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Must be must be a proud mon oh, definitely.
Speaker 12 (33:59):
Yeah, we're all the boys giving each other but a
flak or whatever.
Speaker 6 (34:03):
I was trying not to show my tooth.
Speaker 12 (34:04):
But the boys keep riving me up, and I ended
up pulling out a smile.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Eastern brown snake has a second most toxic venom ye
know what.
Speaker 9 (34:11):
Ye So if that was to bite me now, it
wouldn't be any good trying to suck the venomount, no way.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Because then you'll have it in your mouth as well.
You might have cut in your mouth. Two sites that's
gone in.
Speaker 9 (34:23):
This is a golden python or a genget python. There's
enough venom in one bite to kill all the passengers
of a Hyundai Center fee. If you get bitten by
one of these, the only thing to do is suck
the venomount and try and spit it back in its mouth.
Speaker 6 (34:43):
Looking around, you nearly call them the junior key.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
He was in.
Speaker 12 (34:46):
We got a few teenagers in the group, so a
couple of sort of older statesmen, I mean jury just
ten thirty, just just today, and Reuben, who's you know
about forty five?
Speaker 6 (34:57):
In myself?
Speaker 12 (34:58):
So yeah, I guess it's all you responsibility. You say
to the guy, the young the young fellows through.
Speaker 9 (35:06):
Look at this cute little fella. This is a very
rare giant kangaroo rat. Amazing can see he's not looking
too well at the moment. I'm cute though, isn't he
So we're probably gonna have to do straight off his
interview is put him down.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
I'm out of the way. Kids already call that point.
Speaker 14 (35:25):
That's the haven, beautiful, terrible haven, absolutely magic spot. Launch
a lot of boats out of there. Safe shelter in stormy.
Speaker 9 (35:31):
Weather, may well be. But I got wiped off those rocks.
Wave came and wipe me right off. Where the hell
are you guys?
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Then?
Speaker 14 (35:36):
Well, coming from New Zealand, you go down on priority list.
I mean we save the Aussies first and then the
New Zealand is after that.
Speaker 6 (35:43):
Pretty big huh. This is a crocodile.
Speaker 9 (35:47):
It can kill you with its jaws or by putting
you into a fierce death roll. It's one of the
dealiest creatures on Earth. Well, a lot of people don't
know about this crocodile though it's been dead for four days.
Speaker 6 (35:58):
This is the spotted viper. There's enough vent, it's got legs.
Speaker 7 (36:05):
This is a it.
Speaker 6 (36:07):
So how poisonous?
Speaker 9 (36:08):
Would would say the inland Taipan be I mean enough
to kill a whole Maxi taxi full of people.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
The amount of vom that could come out of one
bite would be enough to sell twenty people easily.
Speaker 9 (36:18):
It's about three Maxi taxis in those coalit mans shed like,
don't they.
Speaker 6 (36:23):
Oh yeah, thanks mate.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
That's classic. There's there's a good laugh.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
We have to learn some stuff about animals. And it
wasn't just about sports.
Speaker 5 (36:33):
Yeah, I thought you were dying. I am You guys
wanted as well, you replacement. You said you want to
get back to.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
So it spots by DoorDash.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Well they've offered to sort of because they know how
hard and you're not.
Speaker 6 (36:46):
You're not getting healthier many you've been talking to him
about as well.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
I'm going to try and get one. I haven't feed them,
I'm about to eat anything.
Speaker 6 (36:53):
This is weird.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
You just put the steel like teasers. No, this is
like what you could do without it.
Speaker 6 (36:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
I don't need to tease him because he's there. Watch
him go.
Speaker 6 (37:03):
And he came to boxing with me the other day
to get fed and you go.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I can see that it would be.
Speaker 6 (37:12):
Lovemaker.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
He was angry. It's fair to say that an hour
long show is a long time to get through without
having a little bit of a snack. Yeah, And so
thanks to door Dash, they bring food straight to my couch.
Speaker 5 (37:25):
Well, can I say the door dash connext time? Ignore
your order and see something half.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
Conger or some sort of it's really not what thing
for you break?
Speaker 6 (37:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (37:36):
I mean, look you've got have you had your heart cheek?
Speaker 6 (37:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Still there?
Speaker 6 (37:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (37:41):
If you how many stints have you got?
Speaker 2 (37:43):
None? One of the things thinking about the show before,
you know, trying to work out how it was going
to go.
Speaker 4 (37:50):
Why don't you think about what you eat before you
eat it? How about that? Supply that logic? Because you've
got curly fries, you've got a chocolate milkshake.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (37:58):
I saw a good creak from Shane Caming other day.
He said, you can't out train.
Speaker 6 (38:01):
A bad dime you.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
Well, he does no training.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Yeah, it's a challenge. Anyway, I was thinking about you
guys were really sort of some of the first individuals
and that all black environment, as you were saying before
you know that, I'm willing to sort of do things
a little bit differently. Do you think the game, you know,
sport in New Zealand celebrates people who are different.
Speaker 5 (38:28):
Well, I thought you guys were a new breed. You
were confident in yourself like that rubbed against some people, not.
Speaker 6 (38:34):
The right way, but just a new breed. Yeah right,
So I.
Speaker 5 (38:38):
Think we loved your personalities, you know, we loved the change.
But what what I'm saying nowadays is that I think
there's a lot more pressure from a corporate level, like they're.
Speaker 6 (38:51):
Trying to.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Sanitize it. Everyone's going to be where we say, I think,
so to sanitize, like.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
What would you survive? Would these guys survive in the
modern game?
Speaker 3 (39:03):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (39:04):
The way the modern way they.
Speaker 6 (39:05):
Forget is that made them better footballers. Yeah, I knew
that that.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
I'm not talking about the game on the field.
Speaker 8 (39:11):
The modern game is the erganization of sport. And so
to be an individual means your value and worth in
any commercial sense goes up.
Speaker 4 (39:20):
Right, You've got a point of difference. You're more valuable.
Speaker 8 (39:23):
So it's not with globalization and and and the internet
and everyone seeing what other people are doing in the cad.
If you can create a space that you own in
a territory that people buy into, you're valuable.
Speaker 6 (39:36):
Right, So there's.
Speaker 8 (39:41):
But it hurts our feelings as kiwis right, because in
our day it was if somebody said to you any
good or anything, you say, oh ship, they're not men.
Nothing to see here because there was a humility and
using them so proud of and now we see the
youth coming through and going look at me.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
This is I wish I was.
Speaker 15 (39:54):
This is what.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Globalization and the Americanization of everything.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
But I don't think it's an americanized I just think
that's the way things have gone. You know, like we
go comes out of the States, YouTube, TikTok, all that shit, right,
so we see all that shit. So everybody's trying to
be themselves, right, which is cool, which is authentic.
Speaker 8 (40:14):
And from a commercial perspective, as a sports person, this
is following professional soccer, right. So you've got a Dan
Carter should be paid like a messy, right, And nowadays
Dan Carter couldn't say anything, so he would be confined
to being, you know, one dollar, whereas if you let
him talk and you let him do a jockey's ad
(40:36):
and you let him a bit of personality, it could
be ten bucks.
Speaker 4 (40:39):
So that's what's happening. I think it's a wonderful thing.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
Yeah, I'm going to show you a guy this week
who I thought was one of the bravest players I've
seen for a long long time.
Speaker 16 (40:50):
Tom Robinson Minissana. I am just announcing that I am
retiring from rugby. I had this really strong anxiety around
the concussions and the effect of concussions, and it got
(41:13):
to the point where at the end of last season
here in Japan, I couldn't play.
Speaker 13 (41:19):
I didn't play for about six weeks because of that anxiety.
And then on the off season I went away and
I did a yoga teacher's training course and.
Speaker 11 (41:35):
Read a couple of books that really sort of yeah,
they were life changing for me and my approach towards life,
and I was able to return to Japan.
Speaker 16 (41:50):
But I've just realized that my heart's just noed into it.
Speaker 6 (41:56):
In rugby and appreciate you all much love.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
So he played for the Blues, was knocking on the
door of the All Blacks, got a contract to go
to Japan's been in Japan for the last year or so,
and he's just yeah, young and an outstanding player and
a real individual, a real tons of personality and.
Speaker 6 (42:18):
No respect for his body on the field.
Speaker 5 (42:20):
Like really, hearing about his anxiety shocked me because it
would be the last like anxiety off the field. I
get when you said anxiety around contact, because when you
see him on the field, may just go hard. He'd
run into a ruck regard for his body.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
What I found brave was that he's made the decision
that is something else in his life other than rugby,
and he's willing to sort of finish a rugby career
and pursue it.
Speaker 8 (42:44):
But I remember having a panic attack when we were
playing on the Warriors and I was getting all this
negative press as we did as we did, were doing
less TV, they should be doing more training.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
And getting too much money, and I was always injured.
Speaker 4 (42:59):
Never had a attack. It was and it was like, whoa,
I've lost control of my mind.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
Yeah, I can't during the game.
Speaker 3 (43:06):
No, no, No.
Speaker 8 (43:07):
This was at home one night. I've been down, had
a few beers with mates at Otago. Mates come home,
My wife wasn't there. It's a quiet house.
Speaker 4 (43:13):
Bom just wolf came in and I mean, okay, I
need to understand what the hell's happened there. I phoned
the dock. He said I will give you a fallien
or something, which I didn't take. So I thought, no,
I don't want to do that. And I tried to.
Speaker 8 (43:26):
Understand it, and so I went to somebody who said, well,
you've got to do some cognitive learning, you know, which
was just offive, deep breathing.
Speaker 4 (43:36):
And we were going you and I to do that
thing up in.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
Road to Russia and as sure as Russia Japan, No, no,
it was Russia.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
And it was like or rocky road to Europe.
Speaker 8 (43:48):
Yeah, and there was This is why I believe in
fate because one of the thousand examples. But God put
this guy on the couch on sports Cafe on the
Wednesday night and we were flying out on Thursday, and
I was wanted I'd get on the plane and I
can want to jump out of the fucking plane.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 8 (44:06):
And I see to JK ship mate, can we grab
a beer afterwards? And having you say to me, hey mate,
this is what it is. And the analogy you used
was you might when you pull a hamstring, your rest
for six weeks if your heads under stress or pressure,
and it's a final flight men, you know, rest it
(44:26):
for six weeks. And to have it come from somebody
who had been there was just absolutely brilliant. So to
see these guys doing it now and getting the support
of people around them and being comfortable enough to tell
what a beautiful thing. Panic attacks, from what I understand,
you know, happened to high aspirational young men primarily because
(44:49):
they're all going, right, I've got to do this, I've
got to do that. The world is there, and I've
got to get from here to there. And so maybe
we can reassess what happened as a.
Speaker 4 (44:58):
Wee bit, you know, or what the aspiration is, what
the goal is.
Speaker 10 (45:01):
But did he add some concussions as well?
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Going on that there was more the anxiety. Did he
was going to get concussions?
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Oh he didn't have concussions, but he was worried about it.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
He was just worried about Jesus.
Speaker 6 (45:12):
Thank god.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
I didn't worry about that she because I had plenty
o My tackle technique was amazing, right if you've if
you ran to my left, I just chucked my head over,
you know, because I didn't want to miss the tackles.
I just thrown my body in front of.
Speaker 6 (45:27):
Them, right.
Speaker 4 (45:27):
Yeah, you had a knack for putting your head in
front of.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
Made And do you remember that time?
Speaker 1 (45:30):
It was?
Speaker 3 (45:31):
I think it was a qualifying final in ninety six.
Before ninety six. This is how this is how like
little we knew about concussions in those days, right, So
I tackled somebody off the scrum. It was We're playing
Cranulla to make the Grand file on ninety six and
I just put my head on the wrong side. I
wake up in the change room. That's where I wake up,
and I remember lying on the table going fuck where
(45:53):
am I? And like then I realized I was like,
oh shit, I'm supposed to be out playing, right, So
there would have been about three or four minutes before
I came to and then a week later I was
playing in the Grand Final, like what the fuck? Like, yeah,
imagine a got head in the head again, you know,
like I wouldn't be here. But that's not sure that
well probably, But but the thing is is I reckon
(46:13):
you either susceptible to that stuff, to getting that PTSD
or that what is?
Speaker 4 (46:20):
I think so too.
Speaker 8 (46:21):
I think a longing a long string ye to say,
you know, you keep getting as a net result of
getting those I think I think.
Speaker 6 (46:32):
It anyway ye around anxiety.
Speaker 5 (46:35):
Anxiety is not prejudice, but the way I look at
it is a bit like I said with the hamstring.
You know, if you've got so much going on in
your head, like it that's a warning sign an anxiety attack.
And I didn't listen to those warning signs. What time's done.
And what you did very quickly was you went, okay,
I'm overdoing it here.
Speaker 6 (46:56):
What can I do?
Speaker 4 (46:57):
But I wouldn't have done that unless I've been but
I needed somebody with that.
Speaker 5 (47:01):
Yeah, but you need to turn it into English, and
you need to take the fear out of it, because
so scary. Right. But the interesting thing is that for
me it was just my brain's overloaded. And the trouble
is the reason why anxiety is on the rise now
is that we never stopped. You've always got your phone,
You've always got you know the other day that Laurie
(47:22):
Main train, it would have been on the landline.
Speaker 6 (47:24):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 5 (47:26):
It was all this information that we're getting. And I
love technology, don't get me wrong. Just means that and
all the expectations now are youngsters, you know, they've all
got to be your run's got to be beautiful.
Speaker 6 (47:35):
Everyone's got successful.
Speaker 5 (47:37):
Like success when we grew up was you know, way
different to now now success you've got to be a billionaire.
And yeah, So for me, I didn't listen to the
warning signs, and so I kept having these anxiety attacks
and hiding them, and then it fell into the depression.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
But I think when was that, JK, were you getting
depressed when you were playing?
Speaker 6 (47:55):
You know, I had a clinical depression during my career.
Speaker 3 (47:57):
Oh shit, and you had it to no one? You
ate because you know how I.
Speaker 6 (48:02):
Used to dress.
Speaker 5 (48:03):
That for me was hiding. Would talk about my clothes
and go look at that orkland. Yeah, so I would
play the stereotype because no one would ask me.
Speaker 6 (48:13):
How you would know me and.
Speaker 4 (48:15):
Yeah, fell in love with the style.
Speaker 6 (48:17):
Yeah, yeah, it's stop becoming.
Speaker 4 (48:19):
Yeah, just forgot.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
You caliblind as well? Are you caliblyd as well?
Speaker 6 (48:28):
This is this is.
Speaker 5 (48:31):
This is actually I'm a safe mental health space. If
I'm wearing these two shoes. That means you can talk
to me about you.
Speaker 17 (48:39):
My my, He's Italian, you meet j He's a dandy,
nandy dandyddy yeah, which I take as a compliment.
Speaker 4 (48:50):
It's a comment, Yeah, yeah you're not dandy mate from Randy.
Speaker 3 (48:57):
Yeah, you are actually.
Speaker 6 (48:58):
Eating on the show like you've got the whole.
Speaker 15 (49:02):
I just like and you go to this clip that
Meca centers much grace, it's quiet, it's culture listen.
Speaker 4 (49:34):
Heavy woman, what.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
Langus institute there is?
Speaker 3 (49:45):
You just repeat what you said?
Speaker 4 (49:47):
No?
Speaker 6 (49:47):
No, can I say it? That was gold?
Speaker 3 (49:52):
He said that you there was Can we just say that.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
That was the Moscow tongue singing choir that Maca sent
me as his contribution to the show this week.
Speaker 4 (50:05):
We have to see in a clip each week. You
know that we find amusing or that we find stimulating.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
Irrelevant, irrelevant to relevant, talk about very relevant, but they're neither.
Speaker 4 (50:17):
Who else sit your clip? The reason you played it?
I mean you haven't played any of my other clips.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
I've played it to humiliate you.
Speaker 4 (50:24):
It's a great clip, great clip. Who didn't like it?
Speaker 2 (50:27):
I think? I think now is a good time to guys.
Now's a good time to bring this Now's a good
time to bring this show to an end. No, a
lot of the show never made it to the final
edit but has been passed on to the police. I
don't think we should ever get this group of individuals
(50:48):
back together ever again.
This is an iHeartRadio New Zealand podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Where you living?
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Fuck, that's a good question, Sis France. No, you've got
to come back here for text.
Speaker 4 (00:18):
Yeah, it's amazing that the first time we see is
on the show.
Speaker 5 (00:20):
Then it's only come on the show so they can
turn the text department.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
Come on the shower the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
No, I came on the show because fucking regards me
to come on the show's text reasons.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Well, welcome to the TB Sports Cafe podcast. Nana's not here.
So the only other blonde was jklond Stretch.
Speaker 5 (00:51):
Okay, I just asked you straight off why you're wearing
all black kit from like twenty five years. Do you
do you know anyone else that's kipt kit?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
No, and Reggie's joining us as well.
Speaker 6 (01:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Thanks.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Here there is this one, two three all black, and
we all used to sort of head.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, well that's what I thought. I thought we've broken down.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
To all blacks trying to make us feel good, trying
to make.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
You feel good, and three three legendary Warriors plans as well.
Speaker 7 (01:17):
I don't know about kind of feeling a bit left out.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
And one of the boys highs sort of college christ
College fifteen fifteen players. Yeah, yes, I was moving on.
I was can get to that. Yeah, So what are
you up to Reggie?
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Well, not much. We were just having a debrief about
our relationship status.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Would you say that Reggie's sort of your role model?
Speaker 3 (01:43):
He's been He's been following me around for ages, like
it's been unbelievable. I go to France, he goes Italy.
I just can't get rid of them.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
You know, in Italy are different places.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, but it's pretty close, like it's a stay in throw.
Speaker 6 (01:54):
Right.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
So one of the hardest jobs that I ever got
given was from Graham Henry and he said to me,
can you please look after Reggie and Mecca when they
make the All Blacks?
Speaker 4 (02:08):
He put me into that. He said, that's nice.
Speaker 5 (02:11):
A new breed of player there, a new breed of person,
and a lot of them in your team. We're just
not hit them. What do you want me to do?
Sort of translate and yeah, that'd be good.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
I love it. I love love. I always had a
strong bond with props.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (02:29):
They were always you needed them, and you know, and
they were relatively basic animals, you know, so as long
as you made them laugh, they thought you were all right,
yeah I do.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yeah, yeah, hated me and and all hated my guts
as well. Mate, Like, was he still doing around then?
And was he still playing made? He was broken made,
he was like, but he was polarizing that. Oh yeah,
but he was super scary, right, He's like just a
scary you.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Member, and he terrified me as well.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
I remember I got on the bus one day and
you used to have to wear a certain you know,
like we had to wear a certain kit.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
You know.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
It wasn't number ones, but it was our casual kit.
And I can't I'll just were a jumper, right, I
just put this jumper on, a wooden jumper that I
bought a couple of days ago. And I sat down
next to Andy, and I thought I could feel him
just like like staring at me, like burning a hole
in my head. And I looked at him. He goes, well,
have you got if you go jumper?
Speaker 9 (03:25):
It's not you know.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
I was like, I'm cold. He goes, take your fucking off. Okay,
you took it off immediately? Yeah, I did, mate, like
fucking straight off. Put in the bag the wrong jeans.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Or something, take them off.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Oh yeah, that was more like but that's the only
fucking thing that they sit to me the whole trump
I remember.
Speaker 5 (03:50):
I remember sitting down with Reggie and say, look mate,
you from Auckland, like, we love you, you know, you
know you've got a quick tongue. And just in the
all black buss tone it down a little bit. We're
having this conversation. We're all talking shit on in the
middle of the back seat. Lowie's sitting there and Ridges
and front of him, right, and we haven't.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Just just gone down the back as.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
It's quite a way was cool on that pretty much
close to the back having this conversation.
Speaker 6 (04:17):
At one stage, Riggie turns around and say, what would
you know, your fat bustard? It just goes like this.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Straight out almost cold.
Speaker 5 (04:30):
Yeah, And he woke up and sort of looked at
me and yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I like, so you two had a I don't know,
on camera friendship.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Yeah, what happened to it?
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Out started because we've already identified that you're a polarizing person.
So you found someone that was a friend at the Warriors.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Like, how did it start? I like, because you just
came to the Warriors. Remember you signed for the Warriors.
I come back. We hadn't done any television then.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
But we got on.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
I got on well.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
Just from like from me being coming from traditional and
sometimes not being able to expred myself sort of be myself.
These guys got on straight away, same sense of humor,
same lip, really really sharp, like if you weren't awake,
they would cut you to ribbons and you wouldn't even
know it.
Speaker 6 (05:20):
So they got on.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
Really well, really quickly because they just had exactly the
same sense of humor, which a lot of people.
Speaker 6 (05:28):
Didn't really get or enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (05:30):
Yeah, I always loved it. I thought it was always fun.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
You had to pitch it in that team environment, the
right spot.
Speaker 6 (05:36):
Which you were better at.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yeah, you'd better than me.
Speaker 5 (05:39):
It was Riggie would just not think and say something,
whereas you'd plan a little bit of you.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Know, yeah, And I think that's what made our TV
shows good because I wouldn't think and say something and
then you just take the piss out of it, right,
So you know, like it was. It was pretty good.
I know.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
So I went through all the old Sports Cafe tapes.
The only time you were on as a guest was
when Macca wasn't there.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Yeah, Like I was trying to think because everybody goes, oh,
may bring back. Yeah, you guys were so good on
Sports Care. Yeah, we're fucking awesome, fucking bring it back,
you guys like and every time, every time Key we
recognized me.
Speaker 8 (06:18):
There, Mecca, how are your mate still get us?
Speaker 4 (06:23):
How's your mate? And then you got but means this
guy I found.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I did find this clip which was we had no
we had remember filling filling presented Nikki and you decided
and you were going out with Nikki at this time,
and so you decided that if she was going to
present the show, you'd present it from in a spar pool,
drinking champagne and eating crayfish.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Mecca.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, so have a look at this.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
So Nikki, how.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Well do you know Mark?
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Because a little too well? Actually right, thank.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
You, thank you?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I mean you're a big ruggy.
Speaker 6 (07:07):
Oh that's good.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
What's going on?
Speaker 3 (07:11):
What's going on? Actually?
Speaker 6 (07:12):
Is Mark?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
I think once a spark.
Speaker 6 (07:23):
Oh that's nice, you're here.
Speaker 10 (07:31):
He was worried. He came along there jumping and enjoy me.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
That Literally the only time you two are on sports.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
You're always very protective. Were you?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
I made a head to keep my eye on you. Nice.
It's unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Were you at the Warriors with these two?
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Yep, not with I think you can you know we
were there.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
You came played for me begin you you came in ninety.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
Five A and I was twenty five ninety six. You
were supposed to come there. You came to the year
after I came in ninety came the second year? No,
we played the first year.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
No, I didn't play ninety five, but I play.
Speaker 6 (08:20):
Played ninety six. Or did you come ninety seven?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
No, I came ninety seven, but I trained in the
off season in ninety five. So we were all training
to get out of stuff. And then I had to
go back and they wouldn't let me play, and I
had to set out the first sort of ten games. Yeah,
and we had to go back.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
JK. And I did the documentary when you went to
rugby league. Yeah, I remember that first game when you
were you were a nervous wreck before that first.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Game, man, Like, how how how long before the before
the game did we go over?
Speaker 6 (08:51):
There was?
Speaker 3 (08:51):
It was a week or two. It was a week
a week a week to get ready.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
From what I think change you're slow on.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
It was just about finished, just about finishing.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
There boiling. Yeah, don't give me that laugh. You know
I'm not going to keep my eyes on you with
your laugh like that.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Yeah, I was going to say sorry, had a week
in a week to prepare, remember, and then I had
you two guys, right, So I went from being really
like an obscure all black right, you know, just on
the fringes, and then you guys followed me over the
camera crew, remember, and followed me around for flipping like
(09:33):
everywhere everywhere, like everywhere. You're pretty much pretty much stayed
with me.
Speaker 6 (09:38):
Right.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
Do you play? Do you play for on the sad day?
I played with Remember on the Sunday?
Speaker 3 (09:45):
My last game of rugby was when we played the
New Zealand Maori Aukland.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
You know, I don't break it to you, but this
is a fucking awful shame mate.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
People shut up, mate, And we played for Aukland eeden pa. Remember,
I got up and I had to say I was going.
I got real emotional. No one gave it fuck out,
like hey, coming right back.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
You put a touched on it.
Speaker 7 (10:07):
Was what was your main motivation for going? Obviously it's
different times than course now, was it? But also because
you said all money but it also was because of
all blacks that you found you were slightly more less,
you know, like you said you're.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
On the friends. I don't think you were.
Speaker 6 (10:21):
But you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Were you thinking ahead?
Speaker 3 (10:24):
You know when I say I was on the fringe,
like like I wasn't well known, right, I wasn't well
known in New Zealand. Right, But but that catapulted me
by switching codes and I went for money. Mark that
that was your first question. But then but then was
it a fuck? It was nothing?
Speaker 6 (10:41):
Right?
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Like you remember Lowe coming over and sitting there with
Graham and sitting down in front of me at the
poet Armo and he goes, right, what do you think
you're were? And I went, oh, fuck, I mad even
thought about it.
Speaker 6 (10:51):
Getting fifteen dollars a day.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
I was getting, we're getting I was getting eighty bucks
a month for a b bursery at university, right, So
I was poor as fuck? And he goes, I said, oh,
I shipped myself. I said, I don't know. And I
had Grant mccarrer as my who was an accountant because
we didn't have there were no man in because there
was no professional sport, so nobody knew shit about shit,
and so I didn't know what the market was over there,
so I had no clue and he just he just
(11:14):
wrote on a on a on a on a what
do you call it? Yeah, pretty much like that and
handed it over to me. It was thirty five grand
for my first year, which was half a year, and
then the next year was like sixty and it was
like fifteen hundred to one at a thousand loss. I went,
can you make it two grand a win all loose?
(11:35):
And he went, yeah, fuck, I can do that, right.
I was like, fucking year too good?
Speaker 8 (11:40):
And surely you went away going fuck oh no, they
say yes immediately you.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Just oh no made it was so bad, right, And
they were signing Zenny at the same time, and so
I knew Zinny was going right, And in those days
you weren't allowed to talk about what you got. It
was just a fucking name. Really, it was in your contract.
You're not allowed to talk about what you get, right.
So then he picked me up to go to Auckland training.
It was the last game against the Malori, and I
knew he'd signed and he was dropping me back home
(12:06):
and I said, what do you get? He goes, I
can't tell you. I can't tell you, I said, come on,
and he because I idolized any right, he was just
for me. He was the cause it was you, Zenny Joe,
you know, like so I was living the dream, right,
and he picked me up bringing the training anyway, go
on home, and I kept pissuring him. He he goes, mate,
you won't like it, said, mate, I know you're getting
(12:27):
more than me, mate, like, just fucking just tell me.
He goes, oh, I think it was about one hundred
for his first year and then one fifty or two
hundred for a second year or something like that. And
he goes, what are you on?
Speaker 6 (12:37):
Mate?
Speaker 3 (12:37):
And I went, mate, I can't tell you no, and
he goes no. He goes, he goes, no, no, no,
fuck mate, fuck they tell me what are you on?
I went, I can't tell you. Know it's mate, you're
on more than me, but I can't tell you wink.
And I sort of like taking the person like I
was getting more again funk. I was too embarrassed to
tell him, mate, like I'm on shit compared to you, right,
(12:58):
And then I never heard from Zinny ever again, like
he just like you.
Speaker 6 (13:02):
Just didn't turn up.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
No, no, he can't know. He just he'stopped talking into Regil.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
I'm talking to me like twenty years mate. And then
I ran into him at the pub.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah, I was there because he said he said that
I couldn't trust him.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Yeah, he wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
He wouldn't tell me. He wouldn't tell me what was
in the contract, So I can't trust him. So he
just won't talk to me.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
And this was the guy that I would have literally
like thrown myself in front of a bus full like
then he was my idol. Right, I'm getting picked up
taking the training with my I'm like, how good is this?
And then I was going to be going over and
playing rugby league with him? Right, So when I got there,
I still thought he was coming. So I got to
I got to Manly and we had that remember we
had that apartment was on this is in his broom
(13:44):
and blah blah blah. And then Lowe low I went
to training, goes oh by the way, mates, and he's
not coming now. He just he just got cold feed
and backed down.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
And I was like, oh, ship, that would have been
a prop of your conversation.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Was That's what it was?
Speaker 3 (13:57):
What it was like he did not go because he
thought he was getting more, even though he knew he
was getting more because you know how and he's O
real money dude, right, But I was too embarrassed to
tell him because I was just like.
Speaker 6 (14:13):
I thought it was way more, but I thought it was.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Did you get any league offers?
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Like I thought it was? It was nothing?
Speaker 6 (14:19):
Mate?
Speaker 5 (14:20):
So like LOWI then was targeting a few of us. Yeah,
And I spoke to him about it because I went
to learn how to hit and spin from him. So
I was sort of trying to learn that league hidden
and he said, if you want to, if you want
to come to I never took it till the next
step though, so got until the Warriors.
Speaker 8 (14:39):
Yeah, but yeah, he gave me a call at university
in my second year. Yeah, like my student mates are saying,
I make there's Graham loads one.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
And then you played for a Tiger at that stage.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
Yeah, I played one season for a tag, right.
Speaker 6 (14:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
I picked it up and he.
Speaker 8 (14:52):
Said get a mark, So I thought I thought it
was nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
There you go, right, Yeah, so funny.
Speaker 6 (15:01):
You made the All Blacks and ninety two. Didn't you
turn ninety two with us or that?
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Yeah? Yeah, but that's what I didn't do it.
Speaker 6 (15:07):
I always remember.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
This is a very sad story, so I don't want
to You lost your mate, Yeah, the room together about
to play your first games.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
I got Sam Williams.
Speaker 8 (15:20):
He was a good mate when we grew up and
we've been on a holiday and he was great mates
with my girlfriend at the time and we liked each
other a lot.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
And he went skiing in Queenstown and had a bit
of tussock and breaker.
Speaker 8 (15:34):
And for your first game, yeah, before the first game,
and we used to get the all black snippets and
on the piece of paper you know, yeah, the facts
they passed around the bus and just I must have
read it ten times.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
Snowboard in Queenstown, Sam Williams, that was his name. That
was his name. So that was my first game or
fly back for the funeral. You've got a good memory, mate.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
Who was I always remember because we're roomed in Australia.
It was yeah, because people gave us gas ship all
week and then the following and.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
He was smashing people, punching people blindly.
Speaker 6 (16:06):
And the reason.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
The reason I remember it because you you didn't know
whether you should go home or not. Yeah, you know,
it was one of those like those because back in
those days, like you know, Joe wasn't even there for
the birth of his kids.
Speaker 6 (16:20):
Like back in those days, usually would yeah, you went home,
you did No.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I didn't go I didn't go home.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
They all Blacks seen a big which was really cool.
Speaker 6 (16:31):
Neil Gray was the who's still my he was still
the neighbor next to.
Speaker 8 (16:35):
A neighbor, and but they've seen a massive bouquet flowers
from the whole All Black team and that really touched them.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
That was it was nicely done.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Actually talking about if this game. There's another clip this
is from The Good, The Bed and the Raby Before
your first game for the All Blacks.
Speaker 6 (16:53):
I played it twice. Don't worried about the hecky mate,
because it's really easy.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Can you get real dangerous?
Speaker 6 (17:07):
Do you think you get here?
Speaker 11 (17:09):
What's on TV?
Speaker 3 (17:10):
I thought, I didn't think I was playing. We were great.
Speaker 5 (17:21):
The thing I loved about like both of these guys
when they were under pressure, their energy just amped. So
for some of the older guys who were used to
just like staying really conservative, these like look at Riggie there,
he's like a by a cat on a hot and roof,
he's like. And the way they expressed it I love
(17:41):
because you could feel all this energy. But they just
all over the place, like bouncing off the walls, not
sitting in a room, you know, trying to control your anxiety.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
These guys are which was unusual, totally yeah, just not.
Speaker 6 (17:52):
Heard of all. This guy's walking around and kicking the
ball and you know it's not used to train.
Speaker 7 (17:56):
It almost packing the day were most we.
Speaker 8 (17:58):
Were allowed to show emotion when and the other people
who could talk to the media was the captain yeah,
and the coach yeah, and this is what this guy.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Fuck. Your job was easy then.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
But I remember I remember where the World Cup and
nine five and I put you up for a press
conference before the Welsh game and it was after Jinah
had hit the scene and against Ireland, and everyone was like,
what are you going to do? Mark you and now
marking the Welsh version of Jonah Long with this big
winger I can't remember it was. And you said he's
(18:30):
too big. I'm just going to switch wings and then
everyone laughed and stuff. And then we went to training
and Larry called everyone and he said, look, there's a
lot of fuss about Jinah I've got a plan. We're
going to switch wings, and.
Speaker 6 (18:47):
So remains.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Lurry goes and Mecca goes to Larry. I might have
stuck up with but Larry, he said, what do you mean?
He said, I think I said we're going to switch
wings in the press conference, Laury just turned around and
looked at me and said, I'll see you after training.
And he said, from now on every interview will be
Don and writing and and Colin Meads and Brian or going. Yeah,
that's fucking good idea.
Speaker 8 (19:10):
Yet the old old school didn't, like only only five
before the quarter final, and Andrew Martins and I have
got that because we had the the the South African
body guys were a policemen. They had, you know, if
you went to the nightclub, you borrow their bed so
you can go to a nice lady.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
Look, sorry, yeah you're out. Can I see somebo d?
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (19:31):
And then you get there and that'd be the conversation startup.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
But it's a bit creepy and so it worked.
Speaker 5 (19:36):
You know, I think I don't know what you found,
Riggie Wather. You just blended straight into rugby league. But
like when I was an All Black, like and this
with these two guys were so different. You breed by Wednesday.
Everyone had to be pretty serious. You weren't laughing, you know,
like I was really really serious, Yeah, mentally preparing. But
(19:56):
when I first got to rugby league, mate loose as
like two minutes before the game, taking the person music
no and gave a ship and then two minutes before
the game.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
Yeah, yeah, it was amazing.
Speaker 6 (20:09):
That suited you guys like no, no, threw me out.
Speaker 8 (20:14):
Yeah, because we'd sit on the bus on a targer
game and take half an hour driving into Cares and
it's in your same seat. You've been in your suit
and you look at the when they wouldn't talk to around,
you got the same spot in the change around that.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
Yeah, that rude gularity. Yeah, yeah you had to apply
that to league. Did you did you?
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Were?
Speaker 8 (20:30):
You guys get on the bus two minutes late and
I'm going, yeah, yeah, it's got a DVD player and
it stick some bloody question mate under the bloody.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
No, it wasn't, it wasn't even It wasn't even that, mate,
horrible beaut It wasn't even that. Macha was like, do
you remember, because you guys took the cameras and my
first game mate member, and it was like Daryl Williams,
you know, Cliffee Lines and Cliffee Lines were smoking cigarettes.
Would be the tunnel, a dirry in the tunnel, right
for twenty minutes before the keg off and you go
(21:01):
into the change When I walked in the change room,
people are just taking the purse like it was. It
was like real party Atmosphe like just yaking about what
they've done the day before and all that shit.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
And Grahamlow made you do an interview five minutes before
kick off. That's right, first game.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
That's right. Remember, like he pulled me out to do
an interview with some guy from ABC TV. Came in.
It's ten minutes before my first game. Right, I never
played rugby league in my life. I'm shitting my pants.
I'm playing with a bunch of dudes that haven't taught.
You know, all they've done is just take the place
for the last forty five minutes, Right, I'm going to
go out and play with them. And he goes, can
you just wwip outside and do an interview with the
(21:37):
guy from ABC? And I was like what what? And
he fucking pulls me out and there's all these people
on the stands and they see me come out and
all these kids gay came out fucking oh like it
really threw me.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
Right, jesus, I remember Dizzy Hessler, So like we go
over with Reggie and there's all this everyone's training. You know,
we didn't even train back in those days. Did a
bit of gym.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
But wait, wait waits yeah, but.
Speaker 5 (21:59):
Anyway, I tried to interview Dizzy Hessler and I said,
I'm busy.
Speaker 6 (22:03):
Do you do all the stuff?
Speaker 5 (22:04):
No, mate, I do a thousand push ups? Yeah, thousand, yeah,
every day. And I mean yeah, yeah, living dropped down,
did like five. It's just like yeah, yeah, that's what
I mean.
Speaker 8 (22:16):
Remember it was it was Phil Blake, Yeah, chips right,
and he do you know, like I don't know why
he bothered.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Like that, like a twenty kilo on his back.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
And yeah, he was my training partner. He always said
at the end of training, JK, are you trying to
do as many as you can? You know I could
do likeeen or twelve and he'd triple it.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Because he was at the Warriors. He the Warriors.
Speaker 6 (22:38):
He was my training partner for. So what training was
tough for overall?
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Legal?
Speaker 6 (22:42):
You know, well, we didn't train.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
When I first got to rugby, I couldn't like I
couldn't walk or do anything for like six weeks. They
just I went from eighty kilos on the bench to
like one sixty five and yeah, just got punished. Yeah,
I was sick, couldn't drive my car, like unbelievable.
Speaker 8 (23:01):
We train and you do, you do like a fitness training,
and then you can't and do weights and afternoon it's
between fitless training in the morning and wait, you go home,
eat and sleep.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Yeah, and then you get things like season was actually hard.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
This season was hard. And those big boys you know,
came in over weight, they.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
Got maximum on the bench and then you dropped down
and forty push up.
Speaker 8 (23:25):
Yeah, you had to do three bench presses of your
maximum amount and you could do ninety five. I came
and I could do ninety and I was so fucking
embarrassed that every day I'd come back to the gym.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
But we got You got up there because I think
my one, my one was like one.
Speaker 8 (23:42):
Thirty or three on one thirty, and Gene that was
one twenty five. And I'm kidding these guys something.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
To be there. Yeah, yeah, that's right. It was amazing.
It was crazy, you guys a question because I get
asked this question all the time, right, and we're you
put you're an outside back as well a making you
didn't play center, only played wing for the genders.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
They were going to put me into hooker until oh God,
thank God out in God. You don't worry else sign
the should.
Speaker 6 (24:08):
Have played should have played them a standoff, but you played.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Maybe you've always played on the wing.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
Yeah, I played a wee bit at center, ran off,
remember that?
Speaker 6 (24:16):
And yeah, yeah, where do I go?
Speaker 12 (24:19):
Help me?
Speaker 3 (24:20):
I don't know. I can't see me.
Speaker 6 (24:21):
He's too quick.
Speaker 13 (24:24):
He was.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Just do your best, power you do your best?
Speaker 4 (24:28):
What was then when you read around me?
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Use this cut? What are you doing? Mecca?
Speaker 10 (24:34):
Leading him for me?
Speaker 5 (24:35):
Mate?
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Making me look bad?
Speaker 10 (24:37):
You got around yours? Well, don't worry.
Speaker 7 (24:40):
Through from over from say rugby to league for what was?
Speaker 5 (24:44):
So were all the we were anaerobic, so we used
to go for ten k runs. And when you go
to rugby league, it's basically a shuttle run all day.
So all of a sudden you just shuttle running it
like you're just totally naked. So there are two different systems.
So you go out training and all of a sudden,
you're just doing these shuttle runs all day. Yeah, and
(25:05):
like I mean, it was easy for us out wide
because sometimes I go halfway out, but those foods.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
That was my question was like, okay, so it's different
for us. But when people asked me what was what
was hard a rugby or league, it was it was
definitely league. Like I played in the front line once.
I played five eight once and after ten minutes I
was fucking exhausted just because of the up and back. Yeah, yeah,
you mean to make a tackle then and if you
(25:35):
drop back a week it they pick on you. They
pick on you, and you're right and then and then
you know, like you obviously have to chase the kick
and then you've got to go back. And so after
like after like literally fifteen twenty minutes, all messiness came
on from Boz that it goes good ef it make
the fullback because he could see I was just I
was absolutely rooted, right.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
It's just not stopping like she doesn't especially now.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
So what I say to people, and that's why I
wanted to ask you guys, is I say to people
is rugby league is definitely definitely more taxing physically and
anaerobically than than than rugby. For me as an outside back.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
Well, I think the best bit of advice I got
from my dad. He said, mate, when they kick it,
you just get back and take it up. Yeah, you
don't have to do anything else. If you take it up,
and if you take it up twice in the first
set of six, all love you. Yeah, that's all you
need to do, right, Because I was worried about this
and that, but like even getting back yeah, because the
(26:31):
other interesting thing I found was that you just got
a bagging yeah, like the verbals on the field, but
also from your teammates.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, fucking like the boys would.
Speaker 6 (26:40):
Be into you the time. And so even on the wing,
you had to go at least half. So you're doing
these shuttles, then they cack and you got to get back.
Then you've got to take one. And if you play
the forwards in front of you and they just want
to and.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
If you're playing with me, like, after a while, I
realized that there's no way I'm taking it back because
I just get fucking belted and I wasn't. I wasn't
quick enough to go around anybody, right, So unless they
came down and they fell over like I was going
to get tackled by the first poke, right, So I
just the wings and I'd be playing with either him,
Sean Hoppy or Richie Barnett, and I'd catch the ball
(27:12):
and I just wait for him to come back and
I'd run across them go and what I did, Thanks Sean.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
He was the best guy to pack out of those
he was.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
Can I just just to finish that conversation. I think
I think rugby is now, yeah, but.
Speaker 7 (27:32):
A lot of stopping now saying that there's a lot
of excuse me, supposed a couple of years ago stops
that now.
Speaker 6 (27:38):
Well, yeah, I just think it's really similar. But nowadays
it was completely.
Speaker 8 (27:42):
But also in rugby back in the day there was rucking, right,
and yeah that was he got caught at the bottom
of a ruck.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
Playing against you, Prax.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
And playing against anyway, you're going to get tailed up.
Speaker 6 (27:54):
I was lucky.
Speaker 8 (27:54):
I had a guy, Steve Hotton, and he every time
I hit the ground, he was he was and flop
on top of me and I could feel the boots
going through him into my body. Yeah, and when when
I tell you game, he just got up and gave
me a kiss on the cheek and gave me.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
As a game. He was just such a beautiful man.
Without that, you'd have been. And when we played Auckland, yeah,
because we said, how are we going to beat these
guys with in or backs? Kick this ship out? Yeah,
and Laurie Mains's catch crow before he came all back
coaches go for the bony parts.
Speaker 8 (28:28):
So if they're on the ground, and he said, you
can't get sent off of the two of you if
you're bound and racking.
Speaker 6 (28:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (28:33):
Back in those days when it rained, you guys used
to put sand on it. Yeah, like it was just
a ship fight. You get down there and you couldn't
play your game because sand on it.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
It was a bog.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Just to get some show maintenance in there. Some good
news this week on the T A. B. Bedding front. Yeah.
So I put some money on the women's cricket team
to beat Sri Lanka and they did.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
Right, wonderful. I know you say you put the money
on when there's a win.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Yeah. Yeah, And I also put some on. I put
a little bit effort into Estonia versus whatever it football soccer. Yeah,
I thought it would be a drawer. You know which
everyone will probably would expect between those two teams, Estonia
and the other thing. But Estonia won that three one,
so I lost that And why would you even think
(29:26):
of betting on that?
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Yeah, because you know nothing about soccer R.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Yeah, but I know nothing about pretty much everything Estonia either.
But one of the clips from game or two halves
that's gone pretty viral, is you laughing at his teeth?
Speaker 3 (29:43):
Mate?
Speaker 4 (29:43):
He was, He's made.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
He was such a preck to me, mate, Like, yeah,
it wasn't the only reason when I took the puss
out him the other day about you know, being a
roadback for France and ship because like he just every
time he gets a chance, he's just a pot shot
me like my piano teath and ship rights to make
me laugh. But he just the whole non stop, the
(30:06):
whole thing that was before did you get your New
Zealand have done? And I've handed a couple of times now,
But anyway, the thing is, bro, there's a photo that
I saw of you and you're smiling and like he
had fucking loads wrinkles. And then I saw him on
the TV about two weeks later and I was like,
he's looking really fucking good, you know. And I walked
(30:29):
in here today and I was like, mate, that's still
a legend, still as handsome, as like.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
The it was.
Speaker 8 (30:40):
It was just taking the past, that was that's all
we did. Yeah, And it's like two mates from anywhere
in New Zealand anywhere around the world make out of
one another.
Speaker 6 (30:51):
The courage to do it on TV.
Speaker 8 (30:52):
Though it's not for everyone, no, but we we didn't
start like that. It just ended up there because we did,
and the film crew just followed it. And luckily we
had some guys who filmed after we'd done the segment,
and it was the little ship happened afterwards that was
the gold. And then yeah, the story began totally.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
And so we went to my favorite. We went to
Bloody Brazil.
Speaker 8 (31:15):
We competed in one or two things and you know,
the loser had to do a punishment. And so I'm
sort of lying a bed one night about eight o'clock,
ready to go to sleep, and this huge Brazilian woman
came in and Reggie came behind her and said, you've
heard about it, Brazilian.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
Haven't you your message or something? We're waxing your front porch.
She came in and this nasty quick. Yeah, but not
what wax. It was cold. It was like pulling clumps down.
Speaker 8 (31:46):
I said, fuck mate, you've taken to the next level, right,
I'm going to get you back for this new bard. Yeah,
And so I kept all the pews and the.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
Clumps of blood.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
This is so gross.
Speaker 8 (31:55):
And so I, when I was so motivated, I got
a win, and so made him walk down the beach
at Cape Gavana Beach and a pair of speedos, which
he had no problem with.
Speaker 4 (32:07):
But he had a pube mo cheese and I plucked
a couple out of the old ring to make sure
I had a bit of a scene on it.
Speaker 7 (32:19):
You should have man come out the speeders like, oh
it was.
Speaker 6 (32:26):
That didn't make obviously.
Speaker 10 (32:29):
TV. It was a consequence was to wear a walking down.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
So yeah, yeah, different land.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
It was so good. But isn't it funny that ship
he used to get away with on TV back then?
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Like you couldn't do that.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
You couldn't do it now, man, Like you know the
can we show that?
Speaker 4 (32:48):
Would you want to show that?
Speaker 2 (32:49):
I'm not I'm a little bit concerned that you want
to do that again. Something that obviously proud Kiwi as
well as a proud all black. You know play how
many kiss? Oh?
Speaker 6 (32:59):
Sorry five?
Speaker 3 (33:03):
That is the only Jewel International like proper Jewel intern.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
John John Temmy.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
But you played, but you played, You played a teas
for your waist and you played teas for the kiwis
yea J.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
T Lee You caught up with the Kiwi's and tirag
you take me back now, Yeah, you know started off
by getting washed off the rocks.
Speaker 9 (33:22):
Here are go Jack Norberg, Sydney, Because of course there's
where the key.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Think would be better that we can't be too war
ago whatever.
Speaker 9 (33:36):
It says what a lot of people don't understand about
the Koala bears. That Koala bears are lesbians, not all
of them, a lot.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Of them.
Speaker 10 (33:47):
Scaring animals away from.
Speaker 9 (33:48):
It's always good to see the other boys in there,
the keys doing one in the competition and just to catch.
Speaker 6 (33:52):
Up with them, see what's going on.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
So it's always good to see them.
Speaker 6 (33:54):
Yeah, it's good to have the joy about to get
the photos done.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Must be must be a proud mon oh, definitely.
Speaker 12 (33:59):
Yeah, we're all the boys giving each other but a
flak or whatever.
Speaker 6 (34:03):
I was trying not to show my tooth.
Speaker 12 (34:04):
But the boys keep riving me up, and I ended
up pulling out a smile.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Eastern brown snake has a second most toxic venom ye
know what.
Speaker 9 (34:11):
Ye So if that was to bite me now, it
wouldn't be any good trying to suck the venomount, no way.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Because then you'll have it in your mouth as well.
You might have cut in your mouth. Two sites that's
gone in.
Speaker 9 (34:23):
This is a golden python or a genget python. There's
enough venom in one bite to kill all the passengers
of a Hyundai Center fee. If you get bitten by
one of these, the only thing to do is suck
the venomount and try and spit it back in its mouth.
Speaker 6 (34:43):
Looking around, you nearly call them the junior key.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
He was in.
Speaker 12 (34:46):
We got a few teenagers in the group, so a
couple of sort of older statesmen, I mean jury just
ten thirty, just just today, and Reuben, who's you know
about forty five?
Speaker 6 (34:57):
In myself?
Speaker 12 (34:58):
So yeah, I guess it's all you responsibility. You say
to the guy, the young the young fellows through.
Speaker 9 (35:06):
Look at this cute little fella. This is a very
rare giant kangaroo rat. Amazing can see he's not looking
too well at the moment. I'm cute though, isn't he
So we're probably gonna have to do straight off his
interview is put him down.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
I'm out of the way. Kids already call that point.
Speaker 14 (35:25):
That's the haven, beautiful, terrible haven, absolutely magic spot. Launch
a lot of boats out of there. Safe shelter in stormy.
Speaker 9 (35:31):
Weather, may well be. But I got wiped off those rocks.
Wave came and wipe me right off. Where the hell
are you guys?
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Then?
Speaker 14 (35:36):
Well, coming from New Zealand, you go down on priority list.
I mean we save the Aussies first and then the
New Zealand is after that.
Speaker 6 (35:43):
Pretty big huh. This is a crocodile.
Speaker 9 (35:47):
It can kill you with its jaws or by putting
you into a fierce death roll. It's one of the
dealiest creatures on Earth. Well, a lot of people don't
know about this crocodile though it's been dead for four days.
Speaker 6 (35:58):
This is the spotted viper. There's enough vent, it's got legs.
Speaker 7 (36:05):
This is a it.
Speaker 6 (36:07):
So how poisonous?
Speaker 9 (36:08):
Would would say the inland Taipan be I mean enough
to kill a whole Maxi taxi full of people.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
The amount of vom that could come out of one
bite would be enough to sell twenty people easily.
Speaker 9 (36:18):
It's about three Maxi taxis in those coalit mans shed like,
don't they.
Speaker 6 (36:23):
Oh yeah, thanks mate.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
That's classic. There's there's a good laugh.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
We have to learn some stuff about animals. And it
wasn't just about sports.
Speaker 5 (36:33):
Yeah, I thought you were dying. I am You guys
wanted as well, you replacement. You said you want to
get back to.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
So it spots by DoorDash.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Well they've offered to sort of because they know how
hard and you're not.
Speaker 6 (36:46):
You're not getting healthier many you've been talking to him
about as well.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
I'm going to try and get one. I haven't feed them,
I'm about to eat anything.
Speaker 6 (36:53):
This is weird.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
You just put the steel like teasers. No, this is
like what you could do without it.
Speaker 6 (36:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
I don't need to tease him because he's there. Watch
him go.
Speaker 6 (37:03):
And he came to boxing with me the other day
to get fed and you go.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I can see that it would be.
Speaker 6 (37:12):
Lovemaker.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
He was angry. It's fair to say that an hour
long show is a long time to get through without
having a little bit of a snack. Yeah, And so
thanks to door Dash, they bring food straight to my couch.
Speaker 5 (37:25):
Well, can I say the door dash connext time? Ignore
your order and see something half.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
Conger or some sort of it's really not what thing
for you break?
Speaker 6 (37:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (37:36):
I mean, look you've got have you had your heart cheek?
Speaker 6 (37:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Still there?
Speaker 6 (37:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (37:41):
If you how many stints have you got?
Speaker 2 (37:43):
None? One of the things thinking about the show before,
you know, trying to work out how it was going
to go.
Speaker 4 (37:50):
Why don't you think about what you eat before you
eat it? How about that? Supply that logic? Because you've
got curly fries, you've got a chocolate milkshake.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (37:58):
I saw a good creak from Shane Caming other day.
He said, you can't out train.
Speaker 6 (38:01):
A bad dime you.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
Well, he does no training.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Yeah, it's a challenge. Anyway, I was thinking about you
guys were really sort of some of the first individuals
and that all black environment, as you were saying before
you know that, I'm willing to sort of do things
a little bit differently. Do you think the game, you know,
sport in New Zealand celebrates people who are different.
Speaker 5 (38:28):
Well, I thought you guys were a new breed. You
were confident in yourself like that rubbed against some people, not.
Speaker 6 (38:34):
The right way, but just a new breed. Yeah right,
So I.
Speaker 5 (38:38):
Think we loved your personalities, you know, we loved the change.
But what what I'm saying nowadays is that I think
there's a lot more pressure from a corporate level, like they're.
Speaker 6 (38:51):
Trying to.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Sanitize it. Everyone's going to be where we say, I think,
so to sanitize, like.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
What would you survive? Would these guys survive in the
modern game?
Speaker 3 (39:03):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (39:04):
The way the modern way they.
Speaker 6 (39:05):
Forget is that made them better footballers. Yeah, I knew
that that.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
I'm not talking about the game on the field.
Speaker 8 (39:11):
The modern game is the erganization of sport. And so
to be an individual means your value and worth in
any commercial sense goes up.
Speaker 4 (39:20):
Right, You've got a point of difference. You're more valuable.
Speaker 8 (39:23):
So it's not with globalization and and and the internet
and everyone seeing what other people are doing in the cad.
If you can create a space that you own in
a territory that people buy into, you're valuable.
Speaker 6 (39:36):
Right, So there's.
Speaker 8 (39:41):
But it hurts our feelings as kiwis right, because in
our day it was if somebody said to you any
good or anything, you say, oh ship, they're not men.
Nothing to see here because there was a humility and
using them so proud of and now we see the
youth coming through and going look at me.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
This is I wish I was.
Speaker 15 (39:54):
This is what.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Globalization and the Americanization of everything.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
But I don't think it's an americanized I just think
that's the way things have gone. You know, like we
go comes out of the States, YouTube, TikTok, all that shit, right,
so we see all that shit. So everybody's trying to
be themselves, right, which is cool, which is authentic.
Speaker 8 (40:14):
And from a commercial perspective, as a sports person, this
is following professional soccer, right. So you've got a Dan
Carter should be paid like a messy, right, And nowadays
Dan Carter couldn't say anything, so he would be confined
to being, you know, one dollar, whereas if you let
him talk and you let him do a jockey's ad
(40:36):
and you let him a bit of personality, it could
be ten bucks.
Speaker 4 (40:39):
So that's what's happening. I think it's a wonderful thing.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
Yeah, I'm going to show you a guy this week
who I thought was one of the bravest players I've
seen for a long long time.
Speaker 16 (40:50):
Tom Robinson Minissana. I am just announcing that I am
retiring from rugby. I had this really strong anxiety around
the concussions and the effect of concussions, and it got
(41:13):
to the point where at the end of last season
here in Japan, I couldn't play.
Speaker 13 (41:19):
I didn't play for about six weeks because of that anxiety.
And then on the off season I went away and
I did a yoga teacher's training course and.
Speaker 11 (41:35):
Read a couple of books that really sort of yeah,
they were life changing for me and my approach towards life,
and I was able to return to Japan.
Speaker 16 (41:50):
But I've just realized that my heart's just noed into it.
Speaker 6 (41:56):
In rugby and appreciate you all much love.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
So he played for the Blues, was knocking on the
door of the All Blacks, got a contract to go
to Japan's been in Japan for the last year or so,
and he's just yeah, young and an outstanding player and
a real individual, a real tons of personality and.
Speaker 6 (42:18):
No respect for his body on the field.
Speaker 5 (42:20):
Like really, hearing about his anxiety shocked me because it
would be the last like anxiety off the field. I
get when you said anxiety around contact, because when you
see him on the field, may just go hard. He'd
run into a ruck regard for his body.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
What I found brave was that he's made the decision
that is something else in his life other than rugby,
and he's willing to sort of finish a rugby career
and pursue it.
Speaker 8 (42:44):
But I remember having a panic attack when we were
playing on the Warriors and I was getting all this
negative press as we did as we did, were doing
less TV, they should be doing more training.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
And getting too much money, and I was always injured.
Speaker 4 (42:59):
Never had a attack. It was and it was like, whoa,
I've lost control of my mind.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
Yeah, I can't during the game.
Speaker 3 (43:06):
No, no, No.
Speaker 8 (43:07):
This was at home one night. I've been down, had
a few beers with mates at Otago. Mates come home,
My wife wasn't there. It's a quiet house.
Speaker 4 (43:13):
Bom just wolf came in and I mean, okay, I
need to understand what the hell's happened there. I phoned
the dock. He said I will give you a fallien
or something, which I didn't take. So I thought, no,
I don't want to do that. And I tried to.
Speaker 8 (43:26):
Understand it, and so I went to somebody who said, well,
you've got to do some cognitive learning, you know, which
was just offive, deep breathing.
Speaker 4 (43:36):
And we were going you and I to do that
thing up in.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
Road to Russia and as sure as Russia Japan, No, no,
it was Russia.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
And it was like or rocky road to Europe.
Speaker 8 (43:48):
Yeah, and there was This is why I believe in
fate because one of the thousand examples. But God put
this guy on the couch on sports Cafe on the
Wednesday night and we were flying out on Thursday, and
I was wanted I'd get on the plane and I
can want to jump out of the fucking plane.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 8 (44:06):
And I see to JK ship mate, can we grab
a beer afterwards? And having you say to me, hey mate,
this is what it is. And the analogy you used
was you might when you pull a hamstring, your rest
for six weeks if your heads under stress or pressure,
and it's a final flight men, you know, rest it
(44:26):
for six weeks. And to have it come from somebody
who had been there was just absolutely brilliant. So to
see these guys doing it now and getting the support
of people around them and being comfortable enough to tell
what a beautiful thing. Panic attacks, from what I understand,
you know, happened to high aspirational young men primarily because
(44:49):
they're all going, right, I've got to do this, I've
got to do that. The world is there, and I've
got to get from here to there. And so maybe
we can reassess what happened as a.
Speaker 4 (44:58):
Wee bit, you know, or what the aspiration is, what
the goal is.
Speaker 10 (45:01):
But did he add some concussions as well?
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Going on that there was more the anxiety. Did he
was going to get concussions?
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Oh he didn't have concussions, but he was worried about it.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
He was just worried about Jesus.
Speaker 6 (45:12):
Thank god.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
I didn't worry about that she because I had plenty
o My tackle technique was amazing, right if you've if
you ran to my left, I just chucked my head over,
you know, because I didn't want to miss the tackles.
I just thrown my body in front of.
Speaker 6 (45:27):
Them, right.
Speaker 4 (45:27):
Yeah, you had a knack for putting your head in
front of.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
Made And do you remember that time?
Speaker 1 (45:30):
It was?
Speaker 3 (45:31):
I think it was a qualifying final in ninety six.
Before ninety six. This is how this is how like
little we knew about concussions in those days, right, So
I tackled somebody off the scrum. It was We're playing
Cranulla to make the Grand file on ninety six and
I just put my head on the wrong side. I
wake up in the change room. That's where I wake up,
and I remember lying on the table going fuck where
(45:53):
am I? And like then I realized I was like,
oh shit, I'm supposed to be out playing, right, So
there would have been about three or four minutes before
I came to and then a week later I was
playing in the Grand Final, like what the fuck? Like, yeah,
imagine a got head in the head again, you know,
like I wouldn't be here. But that's not sure that
well probably, But but the thing is is I reckon
(46:13):
you either susceptible to that stuff, to getting that PTSD
or that what is?
Speaker 4 (46:20):
I think so too.
Speaker 8 (46:21):
I think a longing a long string ye to say,
you know, you keep getting as a net result of
getting those I think I think.
Speaker 6 (46:32):
It anyway ye around anxiety.
Speaker 5 (46:35):
Anxiety is not prejudice, but the way I look at
it is a bit like I said with the hamstring.
You know, if you've got so much going on in
your head, like it that's a warning sign an anxiety attack.
And I didn't listen to those warning signs. What time's done.
And what you did very quickly was you went, okay,
I'm overdoing it here.
Speaker 6 (46:56):
What can I do?
Speaker 4 (46:57):
But I wouldn't have done that unless I've been but
I needed somebody with that.
Speaker 5 (47:01):
Yeah, but you need to turn it into English, and
you need to take the fear out of it, because
so scary. Right. But the interesting thing is that for
me it was just my brain's overloaded. And the trouble
is the reason why anxiety is on the rise now
is that we never stopped. You've always got your phone,
You've always got you know the other day that Laurie
(47:22):
Main train, it would have been on the landline.
Speaker 6 (47:24):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 5 (47:26):
It was all this information that we're getting. And I
love technology, don't get me wrong. Just means that and
all the expectations now are youngsters, you know, they've all
got to be your run's got to be beautiful.
Speaker 6 (47:35):
Everyone's got successful.
Speaker 5 (47:37):
Like success when we grew up was you know, way
different to now now success you've got to be a billionaire.
And yeah, So for me, I didn't listen to the
warning signs, and so I kept having these anxiety attacks
and hiding them, and then it fell into the depression.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
But I think when was that, JK, were you getting
depressed when you were playing?
Speaker 6 (47:55):
You know, I had a clinical depression during my career.
Speaker 3 (47:57):
Oh shit, and you had it to no one? You
ate because you know how I.
Speaker 6 (48:02):
Used to dress.
Speaker 5 (48:03):
That for me was hiding. Would talk about my clothes
and go look at that orkland. Yeah, so I would
play the stereotype because no one would ask me.
Speaker 6 (48:13):
How you would know me and.
Speaker 4 (48:15):
Yeah, fell in love with the style.
Speaker 6 (48:17):
Yeah, yeah, it's stop becoming.
Speaker 4 (48:19):
Yeah, just forgot.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
You caliblind as well? Are you caliblyd as well?
Speaker 6 (48:28):
This is this is.
Speaker 5 (48:31):
This is actually I'm a safe mental health space. If
I'm wearing these two shoes. That means you can talk
to me about you.
Speaker 17 (48:39):
My my, He's Italian, you meet j He's a dandy,
nandy dandyddy yeah, which I take as a compliment.
Speaker 4 (48:50):
It's a comment, Yeah, yeah you're not dandy mate from Randy.
Speaker 3 (48:57):
Yeah, you are actually.
Speaker 6 (48:58):
Eating on the show like you've got the whole.
Speaker 15 (49:02):
I just like and you go to this clip that
Meca centers much grace, it's quiet, it's culture listen.
Speaker 4 (49:34):
Heavy woman, what.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
Langus institute there is?
Speaker 3 (49:45):
You just repeat what you said?
Speaker 4 (49:47):
No?
Speaker 6 (49:47):
No, can I say it? That was gold?
Speaker 3 (49:52):
He said that you there was Can we just say that.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
That was the Moscow tongue singing choir that Maca sent
me as his contribution to the show this week.
Speaker 4 (50:05):
We have to see in a clip each week. You
know that we find amusing or that we find stimulating.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
Irrelevant, irrelevant to relevant, talk about very relevant, but they're neither.
Speaker 4 (50:17):
Who else sit your clip? The reason you played it?
I mean you haven't played any of my other clips.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
I've played it to humiliate you.
Speaker 4 (50:24):
It's a great clip, great clip. Who didn't like it?
Speaker 2 (50:27):
I think? I think now is a good time to guys.
Now's a good time to bring this Now's a good
time to bring this show to an end. No, a
lot of the show never made it to the final
edit but has been passed on to the police. I
don't think we should ever get this group of individuals
(50:48):
back together ever again.
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