McDonald’s Black dream comes true

RUN, CALLUM, RUN: Poverty Bay and Heartland XV openside flanker Callum McDonald (back right) closes in on a New Zealand Marist player. Picture supplied

Poverty Bay’s livewire openside flanker Callum McDonald’s performances in the Heartland Championship were rewarded with selection for the New Zealand Heartland 15 squad, and he came off the bench in the second of two games, a 46-19 win against New Zealand Marist in Taupo.

Unfortunately for the Bay and McDonald’s club, Enterprise Cars OBM, the Heartland selectors were not the only ones impressed with McDonald.

“I’ve had a chat with the manager of one of the Taranaki club teams and he asked if I was interested in going over there,” said the 27-year-old, who was the Bay’s best player in their Ranfurly Shield loss to Taranaki.

“I haven’t made any decisions. It’s not an offer (from the Taranaki union), just a chat with a club manager.

“Even if anything concrete was offered, it would be a hard decision. The heart is saying stay here, where I’ve got a great job and awesome boss at Fenn Refrigation and I love playing for OBM and the Bay.

“The head would probably say go, but I love it here.”

The Rotorua-born, Gold Coast-raised McDonald was called into the New Zealand Heartland Championship XV as a replacement for injured South Canterbury flanker Nick Strachan.

“I was stoked to be included in the Heartland Championship squad as a standby player,” McDonald said.

“Playing against Marist, wearing the black jersey with the Silver Fern, was a dream come true.

“I was brought up on the haka when I was younger so had no trouble doing it, but it was still pretty emotional.”

The New Zealand Heartland XV started with a 60-0 thumping of Fiji’s Vanua in cold, wet and windy conditions in Taupo.

They retained the MacRae Cup with a record 46-19 win against NZ Marist.

Bay chief executive Josh Willoughby said the union would do everything it could to retain McDonald for next season.

“I’ve had a talk with Callum and, as he said, he hasn’t made any decisions.

“We’d love him to stay. It was a huge moment for us when he was picked for the Heartland squad and he’s a great role model.

“He’s a ball of energy . . . a player who goes out every week, no matter who the opposition are, believing he can win.

“He’s still young enough to make it as a professional player and we’d like to help him fulfil his potential.

McDonald could be in line for another honour — representative player of the year — when the Bay hold their end-of-season prize-giving next week.

“I don’t know about that,” McDonald said.

“Even though it was disappointing not to make either of the finals or even the semis, we had players who individually played really well.”