After seeing just a day's worth of sunshine during a brief visit back home, former All Black Mike Delany flew back to Japan yesterday to the prospect of playing in snow for the first time.
Delany's club side, the Panasonic Wild Knights, lie second in Japan rugby's top league but by the time the season resumes next week snow could be falling at the team's base in Ota City, 80km north of Tokyo.
"I've been hanging out for some sunshine but it's only come out today [Monday], just in time for me to fly back again. Apparently it snows every winter at our ground so that'll be something different, but trainings shorten up when it does so bonus."
Delany left in July after 61 games for Bay of Plenty spanning six seasons but arrived home in Tauranga on December 27 for five days, with the Japanese season three-quarters over and the Wild Knights sitting second, just behind the Eddie Jones-coached Suntory Sungoliaths. Delany has slotted in well at Panasonic at first-five, helped by the backs being coached by former All Black Tony Brown and most of his teammates speaking good English.
"The level's quite a high standard, particularly the games against the really top sides, and I'm fairly lucky I'm in a team that loves throwing the ball around, which makes it enjoyable footie to play," Delany said. Expectation is high on sides' foreign players to influence games, although only three were allowed in the field at any one time. "Because of that we have to switch on right away and do what we can to help the boys out, although the Japanese guys in our team are good players so it's not hard to fit in with what they're doing."
Panasonic use former All Blacks frontrow guru Mike Cron on a consultancy basis and the horror stories of some Japanese clubs running their players ragged for hours on end thankfully haven't been borne out. "There are clubs where apparently the training gets a bit taxing and it can be hard to change the Japanese ways so it's good to be with a club that listens. Having Tony involved in the coaching set-up helps too."
Wild Knights are defending Japanese champions and are on a collision course with Suntory, which boasts former Wallaby George Smith, Springboks Danie Roussow and Fourie de Preez, Tusi Pisi and Ryan Nicholas, and Toshiba, with former All Blacks Steven Bates and David Hill.
Does Delany ever contemplate it could have been him, not Stephen Donald, kicking the winning World Cup penalty for the All Blacks if he'd stayed? "It has been mentioned, but it would have taken a few injuries [at first-five] before they got down to giving me a call. I'm pretty happy with my decision [to head offshore] and enjoyed watching the final with a beer in my hand."