All Blacks: Quiet achiever a quick study

Bryn Evans at an All Black training session in Wellington. Photo / Getty Images

By his own admission, Bryn Evans was never a front-of-the-class type of student. Not a bad student by any means, but one content to fly under the radar, soak up the information and process it when the time required.

Being made an All Black after just three Super 14 starts for the Hurricanes in '09 has put Evans on one of the steepest learning curves in sport. It's why you'll see him before a match, exercise-book in hand, going through the notes he has compiled during the week. Kick-off plans, lineout calls, they're all in the book.

"I always like to read back what I have jotted down, what the coaches are trying to implement and what involves me in my role - lineout patterns and things like that. By the time I get on the field I want it to be second nature."

There's something quite other-worldly about the image of a room full of All Blacks studying their notes before a test (aren't they meant to be head-banging walls?), but there was also something quite other-worldly about Evans' initial selection.

In his notebook somewhere, scrawled in bold font, should be the words "BRYN WHO?" It was the common refrain when he was selected for the series against France, ahead of more fancied locking rivals Tom Donnelly, Jeremy Thrush, Kevin O'Neill and Craig Clarke. But rather than use the collective raised eyebrows of the media and critics as motivation, those who know Evans well say it suits his personality to avoid the spotlight.

"I'm the type that likes to sit back and observe," Evans says. "I've never been a big talker, that's what I was like when I was studying too. I like to listen to others asking the questions and take it all in."

The 24-year-old knows, however, that blend-into-the-background approach can only get you so far.

"It's something I'm really working on in terms of my rugby. I know I need to speak up and talk. When I cross the line on to the rugby field, a different personality has to come out."

"THAT'S HIM to 'T'," says Tom Blake, Havelock North Rugby Club coach and the man Evans credits with getting him "serious" about the sport. "He's so unassuming. I mean, he gets picked in the All Blacks and the first text I get from him is asking me whether there's any chance he could get a run for the club side on Saturday.

"He might not push his barrow but that doesn't mean he's not a quick learner. At the end-of-year reviews he was told what he needed to work on so he made a note and practised. He didn't get those starts for the Hurricanes but he didn't complain, just got on with the job of trying to make himself better. I thought that said a lot about who he was."

Evans concedes he was hardly the obvious choice for the All Blacks - "When I heard my name read out I was floating around for the next couple of days, unsure of what had really happened" - but feels he has the tools to not become just an All Black, but a good All Black.

"We talk about that a lot - that it's one thing to make the All Blacks but we should all aim to become good All Blacks."

The selectors clearly believe he has the goods to become more than a novelty pick, as a few of their more left-field choices have become (read Sosene Anesi and Campbell Johnstone). It's the fact Evans can do what the All Black coaches have decided they want their locks to do - which is, funnily enough, play like a lock. The days of the de facto flankers seem to have gone.

Said Graham Henry at the time of Evans' selection: "One of our challenges in New Zealand rugby is our lock forwards are quite often an extension of our loose forwards.

"They don't often don't do the core job of a lock as well as they could. Jeremy Thrush is a prime example of that. He's a hell of enthusiastic young lock forward and I think he's got a big future, but kick-off and lineout sometimes just falls away.

"It's just that core role. We think this guy can do the core role. You've got to make sure you do the basics of the game right, then you can add the icing. A lot of our lock forwards have got the icing without the core."

You can throw Eaton into that mould, too. The selectors love his general game awareness but believe his game corrodes when the acid comes on at kick-off and lineout time. But still, Eaton and Thrush were the preferred Hurricanes' pairing while Evans did most of his bidding off the bench.

IT WAS not by accident that Evans' first room-mate in the All Blacks was Brad Thorn. If Henry and co feel Evans has shortcomings, most of them revolve around his work at the clean-out. Who better to learn from?

"They want me to be effective at what I do at the breakdown. They don't want me to just be another number at the breakdown but to be effective at the clean-out when I get there.

"Brad Thorn's the key example. He's one of the best at that in world rugby. Just to be able to kick around with guys like that day in, day out is really amazing.

"He was the best guy I could hope to be roomed with. He's an easy guy to get along with and when he says something everyone stops and listens because he doesn't talk for the sake of it, it's something worth listening to."

Thorn's path to the All Blacks via Brisbane (twice) has been tirelessly documented. Evans less so.

"Rugby was always strong in the family. I've got a couple of younger brothers who are pretty keen on rugby so we'd be out mucking around on the front lawn, giving it a good crack.

"My dad [Dai] was involved in Havelock North so he'd drag us down there, too."

But despite a Welsh heritage on his father's side and a South African mother, Jenny, rugby was not first and forefront. When he joined the boarding house at Napier Boys' High, his height caught the eye of those involved in basketball and volleyball and he didn't take up rugby until his last couple of years at the school.

"I was tall," says Evans, "so I was kind of pushed into basketball and volleyball in my first couple of years at high school and didn't play much rugby at all. It wasn't until my last two years of high school that I started playing rugby again."

This quirk he shares with another couple of All Black locks you may have heard of. Both Gary Whetton and Ali Williams spent their initial high school years kicking a round ball until they got serious about the 15-man code in their 'senior' years.

"When my interest in rugby grew towards the end of school, it was good because I could crossover a lot of the skills, particularly handling skills, I learned in the other sports."

His skillset was developed enough to be picked for the NZ Secondary Schools in 2002 and it was his range of skills that re-ignited the interest of Blake, then Hawke's Bay sevens coach.

"He was a colossal unit but what impressed me was the fact he was good at everything he played: rugby, basketball and you can throw a bit of cricket in there as well.

"I first watched him play at Havelock when he was under-12s and his dad was coaching him, so I was pretty happy to be able to pick him for the sevens when he was a teenager. He had the skills and the speed. He was bloody good. Gordon Tietjens wanted him but he had his heart on getting a Super 14 contract so, through me, instructed Gordon that the answer was 'no'."

After the hubbub over the anthem, Evans should at least be expected to add a bit of grunt on this front. With a family that includes three boys called Bryn, Rhys and Gareth and a father named Dai, you'd expect a hearty two-course meal of leek and potato soup and Welsh rarebit to be followed by a family singalong of Land of My Fathers.

Perhaps while he's in All Black camp under the tutelage of Graham Henry, an A cappella version of Cwm Rhondda might be more appropriate - "Guide Me, O Thou Greet Redeemer."