RUGBY: Storm'n Norm still just as honest

In his playing days former All Black and Magpies rugby hooker Norm Hewitt was well known for his hard-nosed, up-the-guts approach.
Who will forget his powerful charges and try as he led the Magpies to a 29-17 win against the 1993 British Lions? Or his display including a try in the 30-25 win against France a year later?
These days Hewitt, who along with Hawke's Bay basketball legend Di Robertson will be inducted into Hawke's Bay's Sports Hall of Fame at the UnisonFibre Hawke's Bay Sports Award in Taradale on May 29, is just as hard nosed off the field. Particularly when SportToday got the Te Aute College product chatting about his pet hate in rugby - politics.
The 1993 and 1995-98 All Black and former Maori All Black wants the New Zealand Rugby Union to follow the South African Rugby Union's stance and apologise to Maori for the exclusion from the 1928, 1949 and 1960 tours of South Africa.
"We've already got an apology from South Africa and an apology from the NZRU should be a significant part of Maori rugby's Centenary celebrations. New Zealand's defiance shows a lack of leadership ... it's just an apology it's not hard to do," said Hewitt, who once made a televised apology after a 1999 drunken escapade in Queenstown.
Now a teetotaller (check out his favourite drink), Hewitt is also disappointed about the way former Maori representatives are being treated compared with how former All Blacks are treated.
"Each year former All Blacks are flown to Wellington for a pre-test dinner and are given two free tickets to the game. If I want to attend the function in Napier (before the Maori side plays England on June 23) for former Maori players I have to pay to go to the function and pay for my ticket to go to the game," said Hewitt, who will be in Australia for work with the SPCA that day.
The former Hurricanes captain can't believe Magpies co-coach and Highlanders assistant coach Peter Russell missed out on the Hurricanes coaching job. Hewitt said the Hurricanes region was dictated to by the New Zealand union with the appointment of Crusaders assistant and fellow former All Black hooker Mark Hammett.
"It was an appointment to stop Hammett from going overseas. The New Zealand union should have told him 'see you later and come back when you're ready'.
"We've got good coaches in the region like Peter Russell, Dave Rennie, Jamie Joseph, Andre Bell, Jason O'Halloran and Alama Ieremia ... we don't need outsiders," said Hewitt.
While he will miss the Maori game next month, Hewitt won't miss his May 29 induction.
"It's very humbling ... the more it sunk in I thought 'far out'. It's a huge honour to be put up in the same echelon as the likes of Kel Tremain, George Nepia and co," said Hewitt.
The veteran of 90 first-class games for the Magpies from 1988 to 1994, Hewitt, 41, agreed "there were many good times in the Magpies jersey and a lot of times where we had to dig deep".
No prizes for guessing the highlight of his Magpies career - the victory against the Lions.
"It's a significant day in history. It had never been done before and Hawke's Bay may never get the chance to play the Lions again," Hewitt said.
His All Black highlights included his first game against Midlands in 1993 at Anfield, the headquarters of Liverpool Football Club, and the 1995 World Cup in South Africa.
"That 1993 tour was my first time out of the country with the All Blacks. Time went so fast in my first game but when you look back that was a significant moment," said the father of two.
"Being in South Africa at a unique time when that country was divided is something I'll never forget. Not winning the World Cup was hard to take but watching South Africa win it and what it did for the country in bringing it together was an experience," said Hewitt, who along with his wife, former world aerobic champion Arlene Thomas, children and parents Russell and Mabel lives at Pauatahanui near Wellington.
"I might live down here but I'm still a 'Go the Bay' man. You can take a man out of the Bay but you can't take the Bay out of the man and it's been great to see the Magpies doing so well with their back-to-basics approach in recent seasons ... it's not just about money."
Two of Hewitt's biggest feats since his playing days, besides "getting married and having children", have been his biography, Gladiator, which was released in 2001 and has sold 35,000 copies, and his Dancing with the Stars win in 2005.
"People still talk about the book. It was revealing and honest and that's why it sold well," said Hewitt, who hinted he is working on a couple of other books.
He credits his wife for encouraging him to enter DWTS.
"Arlene told me if I was going to talk the talk with all my mentoring work I needed to walk it and get outside my comfort zone," recalled Hewitt.
"I told the show's executives I would win it when I first met them. I just had to transfer the skill set from rugby to dancing ... not so much the dancing but the dedication to training and the mental hardness."
SportToday won't be surprised if Hewitt gives us a waltz or a tango at the May 29 awards ... it would be an appropriate touch from one of our latest Hall of Famers.