All Blacks: Not all it's WAG'd up to be

Although the world of football WAGs might be fast, furious and fancy, it's far from glamorous for AB WAG Amie Jane. Photo / Getty Images

Neighbours of All Blacks star Cory Jane did a double take when they first saw his heavily pregnant wife, Amie, pushing a lawn mower outside their Upper Hutt house.

Glamorous WAGs [wives and girlfriends] of sporting stars aren't supposed to do their own chores. Instead, like the paparazzi-hounded WAGs of footballers overseas and the characters portrayed in TV's Footballers' Wives, their lives are a dazzling medley of fast cars, too much jewellery, too much fake bake and too many designer shoes and handbags to complement designer jeans.

But Amie Jane, 29-year-old wife of All Black winger Cory, scoffs at the very thought.

Do they have a rock-star lifestyle?

"Hell no!" retorts Amie. "If you ask our friends and neighbours they would laugh at that ... I am just the opposite to what people would assume. I think if you look at all the All Blacks and their wives, some of the women run the farms while the husbands are away. You've got women who have had difficult pregnancies and difficult births, some women and children who have had health issues."

With her husband away for "months on end", a baby and a young son with health and behavioural problems to look after, Amie sees her lifestyle as anything but glamorous. More likely, she will be up at 6am to feed 10-month-old Tennyson and 4- year-old Cassius (Cory was in the US playing for the New Zealand Maori when he was born) and her day is full on until night time.

Cassius, diagnosed with tuberous sclerosis which affects major organs of the body, including the skin and brain, also has epilepsy and ADHD.

Cory: "He has little tubers in his brain ... but the heart is okay at the moment. It can turn to cancer, but you don't know. So you have to take each day as it is."

He agrees his wife is no WAG.

"She doesn't get her makeup and hair done, stuff like the superstar wives. She is a busy mum, she does a lot of work with the boys. I mean it's hard enough with both of us here, but when she is at home on her own for weeks without me...it's hard work."

For Amie, Cassius' ADHD means there is little time in the day for aWAG lifestyle. She still teaches youngsters cheerleading with the Extreme Dance Company and does all the chores a "normal mum" does. In addition, she is dealing with medication and supplements for Cassius, and organising appointments with specialists, nutritionalists and the Ministry of Education to monitor his progress.

Amie: "The minute he [Cassius] wakes up you can tell what [sort of] day it will be. He will be fidgety, there is a look in his eye where he will be argumentative. He will scream, yell and be demanding. He will be impulsive. I can't even go to the toilet because if you stop and go to the toilet anything can happen." That includes hitting baby Tennyson.

"He gets violent to me and violent to Tennyson. "It is really, really sad because when we go out, especially with Cory, people look at Cassius and think he is a spoilt All Black kid. Unless he fell down and had a seizure in front of them you'd think he was just acting out."

Rather than a glamorous WAG, for the most part Amie sees herself as a solo parent.

"Cory has been away so much I have lost count of how many weeks ... it would be at least 180 nights."

And sometimes, when she's had a bad day, she lets fly.

"Sometimes I ring him [Cory] and vent. If Cassius has had a really bad day, and I'm talking about from 6 in the morning till 7.30 at night, it is full on."

But children and lawn mowing aside, Amie says she is not likely to slip into a WAG lifestyle even if she had the money.

"Cory and I are so working class it's not funny."

Like other ordinary Kiwis, she uses the petrol discount coupons from her supermarket receipts.

"There's no glamour in our lifestyle, but in saying that we do get invited to some awards and events so we are lucky to be in the presence of people who have achieved amazing things in their lives."

And she admits to being "lucky".

"We have a lovely new house (a "basic three-bedroom" house the Janes bought in 2008) and new cars for our age. Cory's treat was his new car."

The "treat" is a black Toyota Aurion, with black mags, from a dealer, and a Toyota Highlander for Amie.

Amie: "I went in and bartered them down in price."

Cory says their lifestyle is far from lavish.

"Just because you are an All Black it doesn't mean you are getting millions. I get heaps of people wanting things from me. I can give them things like gear and stuff ... but I have to tell people I have a mortgage as well."

People assume because he is an All Black and on TV he is "a rock star or a movie star".

"But I am like everyone else, I have bills to pay, too. If you have been an All Black for a long time, fair enough, but I have only been an All Black for a few years."

For Amie, life in the hard-work lane has no surprises. Her father died when she was young and, she says, she learned "really good work ethics" from her mother.

"I used to clean ... we worked hard for everything we wanted... Cory is the same."

But her mother thought the lawn mowing - with Amie suffering from morning sickness (she was pregnant with Tennyson) and bad hay fever - was going too far.

"My mum would ring and say, 'You can't be doing this'."

Amie went through that second pregnancy "pretty much" on her own, with Cory away with the Sevens and the New Zealand Maori.

And she blames her early delivery of Cassius on herself - because she was still teaching dance classes until 8.30 each night.

It was through Amie's cheerleading routines that the couple first met 8½ years ago.

Amie was performing a cheerleading routine at the Totara Lodge in Upper Hutt and Cory was in the audience.

"We had mutual friends who introduced us and we went from there."

The couple were married in 2007 just before Cory played with the Hurricanes in January that year.

While Amie says she misses her husband "terribly" when he is away, she doesn't have time to get lonely.

"I remind myself this is very short lived. You have to remember there will be a younger, newer version of Cory soon so I remind him to have fun and achieve all the goals he wants."

When he is home, she says, Cory is a "fantastic" father. "He is hands on, he is fun, energetic, very punctual with the kids' routine. We are complete opposites so we balance each other out," she says.

"He never takes things to heart but I do. He'll get the kids fed and bathed in no time but only kind of half done. I would take half an hour extra, but everything would be done and it would be immaculate."

Tidiness in the household has become the subject of on-going tweets between the couple.

Amie complains that the only way she can talk to her husband, or tell him off, is to Twitter with him.

"Some people have been on there and said we need to get over ourselves and we shouldn't be having fights over Twitter but it's all in good fun. The people who know us and follow us call it the Soup Opera ... they called him Soup in rugby because there is nothing to him and he can eat what he likes."

Cory: "She [Amie] will be sitting with me in the same house and tweet me because I am always tweeting. She says that's the only way she can talk to me and tell me off. She just gets into me and says I am lazy as well. If I say I'll leave the house and it's a mess, she'll let everyone know that. I try to tidy up, but I guess I tidy up like a guy tidies up."

Cory flew out to South Africa yesterday for the Tri-Nations.