With a worn-out Manchester United beanie worn back to front, Grant Hastings gingerly plants his spindly frame on the wooden railing at Park Island, Napier.
Just like the clear blue skies bathing the region after a week-long inclement weather, his impish grin and cultured swagger on the sideline belie the fact that the Bluewater Napier City Rovers coach has dodged his fair share of potholes to a memorable winter of football.
You will be hard-pressed to guess it in his demeanour, though, when you ask him how how old he is.
"Ummm ... 45, including GST," Hastings quips, only days before his troops play Wairarapa United in the Chatham Cup (knockout) final at Palmerston North tomorrow.
After a mediocre winter last year, Hastings has methodically whipped his team into an outfit that commands respect on a bunker philosophy of yesteryear.
With five matches away from home to kick off the Central League season, the Blues wobbled before hitting a bullish patch that not only caught the attention of Central Football and Wellington's high-flyers but also a nation in the cup campaign.
Yes, Andrew Bevin and Stuart Wilson's ability to counterattack and to score goals, after some serious meditation in the sentry's booth from the Rovers' Beefeaters, go a long way to explaining why they are also not going to finish below the third rung of the league ladder after languishing in seventh place last winter.
Gloveman Shaun Peta's agility and son/midfielder Matt Hastings set-piece plays also count.
Nevertheless, you have to acknowledge the man, Grant Hastings, who occasionally growls from the dog box and glares when his words fail to find traction with the players at the height of the battle.
So how did he turn around the fortune of a group of blokes in Blue who looked at sea a year ago?
"Last year was rebuilding and I said publicly to Napier City Rovers to make people aware of its own entity as a club, not as a cover for Hawke's Bay United.
"We have to stand on our own feet. Last year was step one and this year we've taken it another step up," Hastings says.
Last winter he opted not to talk to Hawke's Bay Today at all but broke his silence at the end of the season, imploring understanding from his employers on his debut season with the team.
It's not unusual to find him dragging heavily on a cigarette after a game, not long after the smattering of fans besiege the clubrooms in the hope of ritualistically mingling with players.
As the season wore on, Hastings started showing some emotion, most noticeably punching the air in triumph when they knocked out his hometown club, Manurewa AFC, in the quarterfinals here.
"I'm a pretty laid back person. It takes a fair amount to rile me up," he says.
"I enjoy life and like sharing in people's success."
Some what selflessly, Hastings switches play, in the mould of a football savvy midfielder, to share his progress with wife, Jenni.
"She's always at every game and my best supporter. It's a tough life for her," he says.
Like Matt Hastings, Jenni's children - Sarah Bradley, 21, at Wellington University, Bradley, 19, and Kimberely, 17 - are adults but it brings different pressures for the couple who have been running their business, GJ Training, which runs specialist programmes in schools.
"I can't tell you enough about Jenni. To live the dream is absolutely amazing," says the man who is also the Softball Hawke's Bay development officer and a firm believer that personality and ambiguity are prerequisites to working with schoolchildren.
"Jenni has the business acumen and does the administrative stuff.
"I'm on the grass kind of person and I hate the computer, so it's a real partnership."
Born to the late Des Hastings and Freda Hastings in a middle-class Manurewa, Grant Hastings' truck-driving father was a "burly prop for the Otahuhu Rugby Club".
At the age of 5, Hastings wanted to play rugby but his parents aligned with older brother, Steven, who wanted to play soccer, thus negating the stress and cost of transporting them to different venues on a Saturday morning.
He fondly recalls scoring his first goal on his debut season as a midfielder with Manurewa Soccer Club, where his mother is still a life member and brother a manager of the premier team.
"It's a game you grow to love. It has the ability to take over your life, if you know what I mean?" he says.
Playing the beautiful game in the yesteryear carried its share of stigma.
"In those days players were referred to as soccer poofs and what-have-you," Hastings says of a cross-cultural population of the Auckland suburb.
"A skinny white boy playing football, no doubt about it, you were a sissy.
"You learn to make them laugh, learn to run or fight. I won my fight from 50 metres," he says with a grin.
He went on to become a Franklin District age-group player before rising to become a 16-year-old fringe player in the John Adshead-coached team that won the 1978 Chatham Cup.
In 1982, the aspiring butcher moved to Hamilton AFC before finishing with the Cambridge FC with a couple of title-winning teams.
A sale representative for drinks giant Pepsi, the then 30-year-old took up coaching because he would turn up to training on Tuesdays and Thursdays knowing exactly what his Cambridge coach, Chris Roberts, was going to do.
"He was pretty ho-hum and predictable so I thought I could do it differently," says the man who today holds a New Zealand Football international coaching licence and sees himself as passionate.
Simplicity is his mantra on the foundation of an enjoyable environment. "Coaches tend to over-coach players and make things complicated.
"You play the simplest pass you see and receive knowing what you want to do with it next," he says, adding that his strength lay in organising people's roles in and out of possession.
Hastings isn't sure if his role transcends to one of motivator. Coaches, he believes, can only offer 10 per cent, if the troops turn up with 90 per cent in their tank.
They invariably perform a delicate tactical and technical balancing act.
"If players are not technically effective, then how did they end up with me? They shouldn't be there."
Hastings says coaches employ different formations and and possess varying degrees of tactical awareness.
It doesn't bother him that others, including the public and media, have contrasting opinions.
"People have a right to that opinion.
"I try not to be dismissive of others.
"The day you have it all is the day you should quit," he says, adding the evolving nature of any game commands coaches to adapt.
Hastings doesn't want to share his aspirations, drawing on the analogy that if Man United coach Alex Ferguson arrives here tomorrow to coach then the blueprint can change for everyone.
"It's great. We're humming along and it's better than we thought it would be and I'm enjoying Napier City Rovers.
"Whatever happens, happens because you never know what's around the corner with sports or life, for that matter," he says.
Grant snapshot
* What do you love about soccer?
The passion it brings out in people. When Man United were playing for the treble against Bayern Munich in 1999 I had a friend who was crying when we were one goal down. He was crying again when we were two goals up.
* What do you dislike about it?
When bureaucracy stops people from playing. You are told you can't do this and that when all you want to do is play.
* Favourite food: Coat and cook chicken on couscous with gravy.
* Drink: My relaxant is a quiet scotch.
* TV show: Any game Man United are playing.
* Music: Jeff Healey Band and my favourite song of all time is Angel Eyes.
* Who would you not like to sit next to on a flight?
Anyone with bad personal hygiene.
* What would you be doing if you weren't coaching?
Teaching youth to smile.
* Least favourite household chore: Cleaning the toilet _ refer to personal hygiene.
* If you could have anything for your next birthday, what would it be?
A director's corporate box at Old Trafford (Man United's home ground) and the means to get there.
Chatham Cup factbox
The road to Chatham Cup final:
TITLE HISTORY
* Four-time winners Napier City Rovers:
1985: bt North Shore United 3-1 (Harry Clarke, Paul Halford, Greg Brown goals).
1993: bt Christchurch Rangers 6-0 for cup and won National League (no play-off).
2000: bt Central United 4-1 (Jimmy Cudd, Chris McIvor, Ricky Ravenhill, Leon Birnie; bt University Mt Wellington 0-0 (4-2 penalty shootout) for National League title.
2002: bt Tauranga City 2-0 (Birnie, Brad Scott).
* Rookie cup finalists Wairarapa United:
ROADS TO FINAL
* Napier City Rovers:
bt Miramar Rangers 5-0 home
bt Stop Out 1-0 away
bt Palmerston Nth Marist 3-0 home
bt Manurewa FC 3-2 home quarterfinal
bt Caversham AFC 2-1 home semifinal
* Wairarapa AFC:
bt Wainuiomata 6-1 away
bt Lower Hutt City 2-1 away
bt Wellington United 1-0 away
bt Red Sox Manawatu 6-0 away
bt Waitakere City 4-1 home quarterfinal
bt Bay Olympic 1-0 away semifinal.
TEAMS
* Bluewater Napier City Rovers (likely): 23 GK Shaun Peta, 5 Regan Cameron (captain), 2 Lee Jackson, 4 Bill Robertson, 9 Matt Single, 10 Danny Wilson, 7 Matt Hastings, 20 Hamish Price, 17 Fergus Neil, 14 Josh Stevenson, 8 Stu Wilson.
Reserves: 11 Andy Pickering, 22 Sven Exeter, 18 Luke Chapman, 6 Reilly O'Meagher, 19 Nick Matheson, 21 Willie Stanger, 1 RGK Matt Gould, .
Coach: Grant Hastings.
Assistant coach/player: Bill Robertson.
Manager: Malcolm Wilson.
* Wairarapa United (from): GK Matt Borren, 2 Miroslav Tvaroh, 3 Carl Shailler, 4 Scott Robson, 5 Nathan Cooksley, 6 Dale Higham, 7 Pablo Moya, 8 Waisake Sabutu, 9 Seule Soromon, 10 James Oxtoby, 11 Campbell Banks, 12 Aaron Speirling, 14 Adam Milne, 16 Niki Keinzley, 17 Pita Rabo, 18 Nobuyoshi Ishii, 19 Adam Cowan (captain), 31 RGK Josh Mann.
Coach: Phil Keinzley.
Officials: Referee Peter O'Learey (Northland), assistant referees Jan-Hendrik Hintz (Auckland) and Simon Lount (Wellington), fourth official Matt Conger (Palmerston North).
Kick off: 2pm, tomorrow.
Where: Memorial Park, Palmerston North.
* Women's final: Coastal Spirit v Glenfield Rovers from 11am.
* Charges: Adults $10, children under-15 free.
Career highs
FAN STAND: Hannah Duff, partner of goalkeeper Shaun Peta, shares the joy with Grant Hastings.
The coaching path of Grant Hastings before he arrived in Hawke's Bay in October, 2006:
* 1993: Helped promote a fledgling Cambridge FC to Northern Premiership League from div 2 (1991) to div 1 (1992).
* 1995: Helped Claudeland Rovers to promotion to the Northern Premier League.
* 1996-98: Took Claudeland Rovers senior women to top league and into the Swanz (knockout) Cup semifinal.
* 2003-05: Obtained NZ Football international coaching licence.
* 2007: Led Maycenvale FC to Eastern Pacific Premiership champions, HB Knockout Cup winners and losing finalists in Rod Pelosi Cup clash.
* 2008: Eastern Pacific Premiership runners-up, HB KO Cup champions, Rod Pelsoi Cup champions.
* 2009: Left Vale in August but team won premiership title and were already in HB KO Cup final.
* 2010: Highest finish (seventh place) in Central League for Napier City Rovers for several years.
* 2011: Eyeing runners-up rung on Central League ladder with a game in hand, O'Brien Shield (CL challenge) holders and in Chatham Cup (knockout) final against Wairarapa United.
Football success has come without dollars and big egos at Napier City Rovers.