Sunday News | Sunday, 03 August 2008
Legendary All Blacks hooker Sean Fitzpatrick has become an ardent armchair fan of European rugby!
"Fitzy" moved to the UK five years ago with wife Bronwyn and their two daughters, Grace and Eva, and he's loving the local footy.
"It's been interesting. You sit in New Zealand looking at the Northern Hemisphere and think they're different in the way they play and their competitions aren't as good as ours," he told Welsh newspaper the Western Mail.
"But then you actually come up here and realise the Six Nations is a tremendous competition.
"Some of the rugby's not great but everything that goes with it is enjoyable as a punter.
"And that's what I am. I've turned into the most amazing fan."
Now based in Bath, an hour's train ride from London, Fitzpatrick was versed in the British game as a child.
His dad Brian, who played for New Zealand in the 1950s, would rouse his sons at 3am to tune into test-match action from 19,000km away.
"I remember lying on the floor of the living room watching games from Wales on a black and white TV," said Fitzpatrick, 45 who played 92 tests (51 as captain) over 11 years.
"My hero growing up was Gareth Edwards. When the Lions toured New Zealand in 1971, every boy in New Zealand started kicking the ball around the corner because that's what Barry John did.
"Just ask Grant Fox, one of our greatest No 10s. Everybody wanted to be Barry John."
Fitzpatrick, whose opinions on the game are sought around the world, said his decision to move to the UK was a cultural as well as a sporting one.
"Educating the girls out here was an opportunity to broaden their horizons," he said.
"We're from the most beautiful country but we've become very tunnel-visioned in terms of the greater world, the world wars, all those things we participated in as New Zealanders.
"The generation growing up now, I believe, doesn't really see the significance of that.
"Being here in Europe and being able to take the girls to Gallipoli, Flanders Field and those sort of places makes them realise what New Zealand went through.
"In World War One we lost 10 percent of our male population, which was extraordinary. It's really important to me the children learn things like that."
Fitzpatrick, who played his last All Blacks game against Wales at Wembley Stadium on November 29, 1997, said he was enjoying watching what his former teammate Warren Gatland was achieving as Welsh head coach.
"Wales have done really well. Same players, different attitude, that's the key thing," he said.
"I remember Shane Williams saying after two weeks training under Gatland he'd never trained so intensely.
"I found that bizarre, he'd been in the Welsh team for five or six years and he'd never trained as intensely as that? Why?
"I think they could still be fitter but their body shapes are changing. I know that Warren is big on that. And he's instilling a belief in them.
"At the end of the day they'll be the same size and strength as the next team but they'll also have the attitude. If you've got that belief about winning, nine times out of 10 you can beat anyone.
"Warren ... likes winning and, if you talk about winning all the time, it helps."
It's a mindset Fitzpatrick has had ingrained from birth.
The boy who grew up throwing a rugby ball around the garden in a Welsh jersey, "because my older brother wouldn't allow anyone but him to wear the All Black shirt", absorbed the values of rugby-saturated New Zealand.
"I remember when I was playing, two weeks before a test match I'd be in the pub having a beer and someone would tap me on the shoulder and say, `Fitzy, time to go home'.
"I'd never met this guy but here was a complete stranger telling me to go home and start preparing for the test.
"That's the attitude you grow up with.
"As All Blacks we celebrate success but we park it very quickly.
"Our fans celebrate and then they move on.
"We won the World Cup in 1987 but we've never had a reunion as a team, yet ... the English still talk about 1966. I think it's a good thing to park success.
"What really gets to you is your defeats. You remember those more than your wins."
Before Fitzpatrick ever wore the silver fern himself he was acutely aware of how much losing hurts an All Black.
"Unfortunately for dad, who passed away a couple of years ago, he lost to the Welsh in 1953, which, of course, was the last time the All Blacks lost to Wales. He never got over it.
My brother and I used to remind him of it all the time!
"Cliff Morgan would ring him every year and invite him back to Wales for the reunion of the 1953 team and he never went once.
"Even in 1989, when we toured Ireland and Wales, mum had to go by herself because dad wouldn't go back to Wales, which shows how we park our success and remember our losses.
"Dad carried that out to the letter of the law."
No comments:
Post a Comment