Fine-tuning the boys in black

By MICHELLE HEWITSON

Goodness, that Doc Mayhew's a nice fellow. He's the sort of old-fashioned GP you might see on a family values telly drama: caring, down-to-earth, sincere. You'd trust him with your life; or at least your dodgy knee.

Despite the high-tech, gleaming practice he runs out of the high-tech, gleaming Millennium Institute of Sport & Health, it's hard to think of him as anything other than Doc. And despite the framed and signed All Black jerseys in the hallway - he wouldn't have them at home; that wouldn't be fair on his wife - and despite the fact that he's Jonah's doc, you are more than welcome to make an appointment about your dodgy knee.

He's a working doctor and doctors aren't famous, he says, "just because they treat famous people".

Which doesn't stop the blokes at the barber shop or people at parties wanting the inside running on the ABs. Or from having a go about a player's performance.

John Mayhew has had 15 years to get used to reflected - or tarnished - glory. It is as much caution as niceness that makes it difficult to get a rise out of the All Blacks' doctor.

Which is not to say that he can't get the tiniest bit tetchy. When I phoned him last week about an interview, he sounded fed up. "That was your colleagues just driving me mad with Jonah," he said.

I didn't want to talk about Jonah [much], I wanted to talk about him.

"That'll be boring," he said.

He's heard it all before. How it must be terribly exciting being doctor to those black jersey-wearing agents of the country's hopes and dreams (or this is what blokes tell me). How he must have the job every rugby-mad doctor in the country envies.

"This week," he said, "they could have it."

His good nature wins out. He's happy to talk, he says. He's even happy enough to talk about Jonah, "in passing".

In passing, then: last week Mayhew got cross not simply because of the sheer volume of calls about Jonah's health, not simply because he was uncomfortable as Jonah's spokesman, but because of the nature of the inquiries.

"Here's a young man of 27 and okay, he's an icon in the rugby world, but he's a young man who's got a devastating illness. And all they're asking me is: 'Is he going to be available for the World Cup?"'

Still, the Doc likes to look on the bright side. He perks up and says "Jonah's done a lot of good for renal medicine. He's glamorised it, hasn't he?"

Umm, really?

"Well, you know what I mean: that famous people get it."

Mayhew may be management, but he is foremost a doctor - and nice guy.

"I'm seeing the human side and, okay, Jonah gets paid an awful lot of money ... Well, I don't know if you've ever seen someone in renal failure."

Mayhew is well aware of the dichotomy: medical confidentiality versus telling the truth.

"There are times we don't tell the whole story. The person involved may be a high-profile person but they've got as much right to confidentiality as you and me. Believe me, there's a lot of things we could have let out."

Keeping secrets has its own frustrations. Mayhew has spent the past couple of years listening to "the Murray Deakers of this world" speculating about Jonah's form and "biting my lip the whole time. Thinking 'there's a very good reason why his form's fluctuating and it's got nothing to do with ability'. But he wouldn't let me say anything."

Mayhew is terribly good at not saying anything. Unlike the majority of rugby nuts whose emotional outlet after a lost game is to slag off the players: as in "[insert any name you care to choose here] played like a dog." Mayhew's got his public response down pat.

"I'm a mere doctor," he likes to say.

BECAUSE he's sometimes privy to what the selectors are thinking, "you've got to be careful what you say". Sometimes he thinks "did I read that in the paper or did John Mitchell tell me?"

He's happy enough to tell stories against himself. About the time he injected anaesthetic into a player's nerve and paralysed his leg. About the time at Ballymore, Brisbane, where the guy behind him spent the entire match slagging the All Blacks. About how the guy came up to him after the game and Mayhew pushed the big mouth who tripped over a bank and cut his head. Then coach Alex Wyllie approached Mayhew and said: "There's a friend of mine hurt. Would you mind having a look at him?"

Very funny. And quite frustrating. Inside Mayhew's head must lurk some excellent stories. He has been team doctor since 1988 (he is also North Harbour's medic and is medical adviser to the rugby union). When he goes on tour he's on tour with the boys - and what goes on with the boys stays with the boys.

"You can't install yourself as doctor and put a little sign on the door saying 'see me between nine and five'. People see you in the raw." All he will offer, boringly, is that the team don't drink as much as the media might like to think.

He has a two-year contract "but we've seen rugby people get sacked who are on longer contracts than me".

It's a funny sort of doctoring job anyway, according to me. You finely tune bodies, maintain them, send them on to a field where chances are they'll run into another finely tuned body, fix them up so that they can run on to a field and ... He looks at me for a brief moment as though I am a lunatic, then grins and explains valiantly,"it's a bit like army medicine". See how nice he is?

Mayhew is planning ahead for his gradual retreat - from the All Black doctor role; not, he hopes, from the rugby union. He's interested in injury research as a tool in preventive medicine.

"The huge worry now in sports medicine is: are we going to be sued in years to come by saying to a player 'well, you do have a bit of a knee injury but it's okay to play'. Then in 10 years [they come back] with osteoarthritis in the knee."

Mayhew is, despite that little pushing incident, now 48 and nice and sensible.

And a good Catholic boy to boot, surely. He and his three brothers, all sports-mad, went to Rosmini College. His three sons, all sports-mad, go to Rosmini College. His sports-mad daughter goes to Carmel College.

Ask him about being a good Catholic boy and he stutters a bit. "I haven't been to church for 20 or 30 years."

Well, he does adhere to that other religion: rugby. When he couldn't make his eldest son's first communion the priest phoned to ask why ever not. Silly question. North Harbour were playing Auckland in the NPC final.

The priest said, "We'll do it at another Mass. What Mass do you normally go to in the morning?" Mayhew, not having a clue, said blithely, "Oh, the first one."

At the 7.30am Mass, the family joined the priest at the altar where Mayhew was introduced to the congregation. Here stood the father who would rather go to the rugby than his son's communion.

"We had to stand at this bloody altar being identified as public sinners."

Goodness, that Doc Mayhew's a wicked fellow.