All Blacks: A warm welcome in the northeast

New Zealand All Blacks hooker Keven Mealamu in action, during the Pool C match between New Zealand and Georgia, at the Rugby World Cup 2015. Photo / Brett Phibbs

The All Blacks will be based this week in the market town of Darlington, near Newcastle. Danny Brown, arena and events manager at the town's Mowden Park, wrote last year about the thrill of being asked to host the men in black

We were absolutely gobsmacked when we got the call asking if New Zealand could come and take a look at Darlington Mowden Park.

Although we had bid to be a team base for the Rugby World Cup, we knew we would be lucky to end up with any of the five countries playing matches in Newcastle.

We certainly never dreamed we would get the All Blacks, one of the biggest teams in world sport.

They came to visit us about three or four months ago (in mid 2014). Steve Hansen, travelled over with two of his colleagues and we had dinner with them.

The following day, we showed them around the arena. Steve thought the facilities were fantastic.

Keeping quiet has probably been the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I even had to lie to people asking if I had heard anything.

New Zealand can certainly look forward to a very warm welcome during their six days in the northeast.

The fact that they do not pay for using the facility is totally offset by the fact that we will have the world champions staying here at the arena.

We want to make a huge event of it and may well look to do the world's biggest haka, which at the moment stands at 2500 participants.

If we can just get a small percentage of local people involved in rugby in some way, shape or form and inspire them in that way then it totally outweighs what costs the club will incur.

The legacy word is used a lot and we have got to take a lead from the Olympics.

We need to make sure that NZ are best prepared for the World Cup and cannot stand in the way of that. Speaking to Steve Hansen, we know that they are open to ideas.

We want to give them a base that is a home away from home and make sure they enjoy what Darlington and the local area has to offer.