Being back in a team environment is familiar to former All Blacks captain Stu Wilson. Photo / George Novak
He once flew down the wing in front of thousands of screaming rugby fans, but now former All Black captain Stu Wilson is ferrying patients up and down hospital hallways.
Known as one of the greatest finishers of all time, the 66-year-old is now at home in the engine room of Tauranga Hospital.
Wilson is part of a team of 50 orderlies working across Tauranga and Whakatāne.
Yes, you read that correctly. A former All Blacks captain who represented the country during the rowdy 1970s and 1980s is an orderly.
It's a stark contrast: slogging it out with 29 other muddy men on a rugby field to now helping patients in a sterile environment under fluorescent lights.
And how he ended up there is something of a tale.
Many will remember Wilson as a mesmerising winger who jinked and jived his way through opposition defences effortlessly.
He retired from rugby in 1984, a year after captaining the national team on the 1983 tour of Scotland and England.
Wilson has lived a number of different lives since then, working on television and radio, for charitable organisations, and even in real estate for a time.
He resides in the Tauranga suburb of Brookfield, moving away from Auckland for love three years ago and getting married in October last year.
However, not long after retiring, following some issues with his heart he underwent surgery at Tauranga Hospital to have a stent inserted.
It got him thinking the hospital would be a great place to work.
Wilson started working with a contractor supplying bariatric beds and mattresses to the hospital, but the job failed to hit the mark.
He eventually found his way over to the orderly team after building a rapport with them.
Now just over a month into his four- to six-week training phase, Wilson is loving the job that gets him out of the house for a couple of days a week.
When asked about what it's like to work as an orderly, Wilson's eyes light up and a broad smile streaks across his face when talking about his new team.
It's a mixed bunch made up of retired bank managers, a former jeweller for the royal family, housewives, business owners, a bricklayer, a prison officer and security guards.
Something Wilson has found is they are always willing to give him a hand or offer advice on how to do things better, he just has to ask.
The job is so much more than pushing patients around the hospital, orderlies also do the mail run, the linen, the waste and recycling, everything that keeps it going.
It's not all business and no play, however, and Wilson cackles when talking about the banter shared with his co-workers.
It helps many of them are Brits, and they are not star-struck by having an All Black in their midst and enjoy sticking it to him.
The topic of sport is never far away and while he has plenty of America's Cup ammunition, recent world cups in his code of expertise are a sore point.
"There's always good banter … it's good craic in there," Wilson said.
After spending plenty of years after his rugby career in dog-eat-dog environments, Wilson enjoys being part of a team again.
"It's an environment I've missed for 30 years … it's a brilliant job for a guy like me who is looking for a bit of mateship," Wilson said.
Working in an environment surrounded by terribly ill people, where they might be there talking to him one day and not the next, plays on Wilson's mind.
It puts into perspective how good he's got it.
Wilson said helping people was part of his upbringing and it's work he enjoys.
He explained his mother, a strict church-goer and Presbyterian, drove home to her children the importance of offering help to those who needed it.
And it's not something Wilson struggles to find the energy to do.
"[It was] pretty easy to say yes to a job where you can give back to the people that actually saved your life," he said.
"When you get into that situation where you've got a dicky heart, and you need some help, this hospital gave it to me.
"To get a job as an orderly, to give a little back, it's not the same as saving a life but I cart a few people around that need help."
Wilson comes across as a charismatic and sociable character, who clearly doesn't mind interacting with other hospital staff and patients.
He admits this past week had been a bit "hectic", full of media attention and old rugby mates calling him to make sure they had heard the news right.
Wilson has had a nurse pass on her father's thanks for rugby memories and he finds spends time with rugby-fanatic patients, too.
"If an old guy yells out and says: 'Stu, can you come and have a chat about an old match from the 70s', what are you going to do?" he said.
"My mother would turn in her grave and strike me with a bolt of lightning if I didn't say hello to that man and make his day.
"It only takes five minutes. That guy might not be there tomorrow."
Bay of Plenty District Health Board orderly service regional team leader Bruce Raynel said orderlies do everything from the start of life to the end.
They frequently walk between 10 and 20 kilometres each day around the hospital campus and always go home feeling they have contributed to the community.
They deliver drugs and equipment around the hospital - Wilson has got lost a couple of times - and help transport patients to and from wards, and much more.
"We are one big family, male, female, whatever age, walk of life you come from, we're all just part of the same team and Stu has fitted right in with that," Raynel said.
"None of us have medical backgrounds, but we're here to service the needs of the hospital and I think that's a common trait amongst orderlies, that sense of giving back and helping out."
Date of birth: 22 July 1954
Position: Right-wing
Matches: 85
Tests: 34
Test debut: 11 November 1977 v France, Toulouse
Last test: 19 November 1983 v England, London
Province: Wellington
Test tries: 19
Test points: 76
Tests won: 25
Test lost: 8
Tests drew: 1
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