Ormond ploughs on like a true professional

By WYNNE GRAY

Someone has left the mobile phones off the charger. Communication with Wayne Ormond disappears on both until he rings back from the family home near Rotorua.

It is a welcome reversal in the rush-hour modern world where gaining interviews with top rugby players can be quite some exercise.

Ormond phones back even though it is near mealtime in his household and he has just returned from another Bay of Plenty training session at Mt Maunganui.

The loose forward is one of the senior members of a team whose success has fired more interest in their progress and should deliver more players to incoming Chiefs coach Ian Foster next season.

They felt they might have achieved a little more in their $10,000-a-player bonus Ranfurly Shield challenge against Canterbury but are primed to take on another of the major unions, Auckland, in tomorrow's home NPC match.

As Ormond puts it, the Bay have three pool matches left and if they can find victories in those the province can look forward to more rugby in the playoffs.

The 26-year-old has always had a confident approach to his sport but, like many first division players, he was hampered by juggling a working life with his recreational ambitions. But he wanted more from his rugby; he wanted to become an NPC regular and a Super 12 player.

"Before that I had been working in the forest doing logging work, on the chainsaw, mate, slaving my butt off," he recalled.

"I was strong, had a good base of fitness and was mentally tough doing that job. But I struggled to get to training regularly."

Ormond took some time out in Taupo thinking about his future before he moved back to Rotorua and into a different job which allowed him time to concentrate on his rugby. "I got a lot of family support, my boss at Cooks Wire Ropes gave me time off to train, it was a real change."

Ormond also started working hard with Bay fitness conditioner Keith Roberts, mixing his natural athletic gifts to the disciplines of regular training. There were problems. He wrecked his knee and damaged a shoulder but late last year, after an impressive NPC, Ormond was picked for the Chiefs.

That meant shifting the family to Hamilton for six months and, with the Bay based in Mt Maunganui rather than Rotorua this year, Ormond has to make about four trips a week away from home.

"That is not so good and I am thinking about shifting next year. We will just have to wait and see what happens. I don't want to be shifting the kids around too much."

The kids are one-year-old son Raureti and four year-old daughter Te Kahui-o-te-rangi.

His daughter attends most of dad's club and provincial games in a hangover from the days when Ormond was babysitting while his nursing partner Yvonne was at work.

"She had to come but she loves it. I can often hear her on the sideline and she always runs on after games."

That was proven after the Bay's victory against Taranaki on Father's Day, when television coverage caught Ormond and his daughter, hand in hand, strolling the touchline.

As a youngster Ormond grew up on the western side of Lake Taupo in the small town of Te Hoi. In those days forestry work kept the town together and there was, of course, the local rugby team.

But that team does not exist any more and many like Ormond have moved on. The chance of a professional rugby career beckoned and after a few stutter steps, the 1.91m, 106kg loose forward has grabbed the chance.

"It was an awesome experience at the Chiefs this year, I just learned heaps and took everything in. Playing this level of rugby runs your life, it can be very intense and a demanding lifestyle but it is worth it."

Ormond, with his captain Clayton McMillan, is part of a potent Bay loose forward group which has been prominent in this season's All Blacks-free NPC. They have helped push the Bay's progress and their own Super 12 aspirations.

There is serious competition there from the Waikato posse of Jono Gibbes, Steve Bates and Co and the inquisition from a couple of crusty Auckland campaigners tomorrow, Xavier Rush and Justin Collins.

Just the sort of challenge Ormond uses to measure his play as a fulltime pro.


NPC points table