Club game suffering in professional era

One of the major concerns for rugby people in New Zealand is how the club game has suffered in the professional era, with activism and membership suffering as resources are concentrated more on the top end of the game.

In Auckland this week the Irish squad have trained at a different ground each day, giving them a good insight into the club scene here.

On Tuesday they trained at the Teachers' Eastern RFC and our taxi driver, who happened to be a former number eight at Teachers before it amalgamated with Eastern, informed us that the wooden clubhouse and dressing-room was built entirely on a voluntary basis by club members.

Thursday's training was conducted at Waitemata, home of Michael Jones, where they field 32 amateur teams from ages eight to 18, and 12 senior teams. With 950 members, about 80 per cent of which are Samoan, they are one of the biggest clubs in New Zealand but in another familiar ring from home, Waitemata members complain that they've been feeling the pinch since changes in the drink driving laws.

The squad relocated to the Auckland Grammar School on Friday in search of the driest pitch in Auckland, which it was. The pitch is a bowl shape which was cut out of the Mount Eden Head rockface. The rocks on the site were cleared in 1960 by the inmates of the adjacent prison.

The school has 2,300 boy pupils and has produced 49 All Blacks, more than any other school. They also have claims on an incumbent Irish player, Geordan Murphy, who spent a year here as part of an exchange system Auckland GS has with Newbridge College. Accordingly he presented them with one of his Irish jerseys yesterday.

When asked whether he used his experience of touring here with the Irish squad 10 years ago, then as a fitness adviser, Eddie O'Sullivan spoke mainly of how he reinforced to the players just how intense New Zealand is about its rugby.

He might well have used an anecdote which relays this as well as anything else. O'Sullivan tells a story of the 1992 tour there when he and assistant coach Willie Anderson were lamenting one of the defeats while in a shopping store.

In particular, the Irish line-out suffered and the two pondered over whether they had thrown to the tail too much, for the opposition had seemingly read it.

They proceeded to one of the queues at a check-out when a lady, spotting the green attire, asked: "Hey, aren't you with the Irish boys." "Yeah." "What are you?" she inquired.

"We're part of the coaching staff," they revealed, prompting her to remark immediately: "Really? Can I ask you a question so - why did you throw to the tail so much?"

Declan Kidney was also here 10 years ago, as coach to the Irish schools team whose otherwise unblemished record was tarnished by Jeff Wilson's last-ditch penalty to give the New Zealand schools a one-point win.

Kidney recounts that the referee "blew the final whistle while the ball was still up in the air. He had 'New Zealand Emerging Referees' written on his jersey, I'll always remember that."

Anthony Foley is the only other member of that squad and this one, though - as Kidney points out - Johnny Bell might have been, and there was also Conor McGuinness, Jeremy Davidson, and James Blaney as captain as well as others who've played club rugby.

"Conor Davis got the man-of-the- match award. He started playing again within two weeks of returning from New Zealand and did his shoulder and never really recovered, even though he went on to captain Loughborough. An absolutely brilliant number seven," said Kidney of the Ulsterman.

Returning to New Zealand 10 years on, Kidney says: "Everybody says they're indoctrinated into their rugby but I coached Munster for five years and I don't see anything different from Limerick." Basically therefore, Limerick gone national.

"Yeah, everybody has an opinion on the game. That's just a thing you enjoy. If you enjoy the game you enjoy that."

Auckland's waterfront, about 10 minutes' walk from the Irish squad's hotel base, is unrecognisable from the tour here four years ago. This can be attributed entirely to New Zealand winning the America's Cup, which they host again later this year. As a result the local council pumped millions into an Admiral's Cup village down by the viaduct which is now full of restaurants and bars, as well as designer label shops, not to mention expensive boats.

The Italians, whom we've been reminded this week take their sport rather seriously, have booked two floors in one of the most upmarket hotels nearby solid for two years for their crew to come and go.