KEY POINTS:
The most oft-heard statement from rugby players - usually those off overseas chasing sterling or euros - is that they have a short shelf life and have to make the financial most of it while they can.
Fair enough, too. But if you look at one John Eales, there is a darned good case for staying at home, playing your heart out and then making a successful transition to a new life.
Eales, in Auckland last week as part of North Harbour Stadium's 10th anniversary celebrations, is still only 36 and looks fit enough to be pushing the Wallaby scrum around.
Or, as one Australian wag put it when Eales announced his retirement in 2001: "Who will Anton Oliver throw the ball to in the lineout now?"
Eales said he knew he was going to retire because the passion for playing had gone. He now divides his time between his work for Mettle, his corporate training and development company, his sports management and sponsorship company, the speaking circuit and his wife and family.
He works, he says, "as much as I need to" and all he knew when he reached the end of his playing days was that he didn't want the rest of his life to be like the first bit.
He has segued comfortably into a type of leadership and business consultancy role for many clients, usually public companies, and it is clear talking to this laid-back but considered man that he is no rent-a-quote and not inclined to jump in with both size 13 feet.
As an after-dinner speaker with a heavy rugby crowd, he also comes across as different.
The rugby stories and humour are there but he specialises in insightful little, self-deprecating tales which have nothing to do with rugby.
Like the time he was driving in the car and his eight-year-old son Elijah said: "Dad, what's 'gay' mean?"
Eales did a double-take and, like a lot of parents, opted for the elliptical response: "It means happy, son."
"No, it doesn't," the boy shot back. "It means something else." When they arrived home, a concerned Eales asked his son: "Elijah, why did you ask me that. Did someone call you gay?"
"No, Dad," came the answer. "They called you gay."
Or the time when Eales addressed an Australian girls' school, using his business experience to talk about leadership and life choices. After his speech, some of the girls gathered around to ask questions. After a while, Eales thought he would turn the tables; make the girls think by asking them some questions.
"What about you?" he said, gesturing at one girl. "What are you going to do next?"
She looked at him, batting her eyes a little at the national hero and said: "Weeell, I was going to go straight home...".
So this is a man with more strings to his bow than his lineout play, his record captaincy and success for Australian rugby - and that painful, never-to-be-forgotten, last-gasp, stroked penalty from near the sideline to beat the All Blacks in Wellington in 2000.
It's worth listening when he says he rates the All Blacks for one main reason. Not speed. Not skill. Not brute force. But because they are humble.
"Richie McCaw and Dan Carter are the best players in the world in their positions," he says. "But you wouldn't know it - they are so humble. The All Blacks have a lot of humility and that is what will make them so dangerous at the World Cup this year. They will not be taking anyone lightly."
Beyond that, however, Eales has a clear message for New Zealand and world rugby: Get the Argentinians and Pacific Island nations more involved.
They should be, he says, playing in an expanded Tri Nations competition. I trot out the old IRB and NZRU arguments that it is hard to spring the Argentinian and Pacific Island players out of their clubs in the Northern Hemisphere and he stubbornly shakes his head: "Look, I don't have the answer to that. All I know is that there must be an answer.
"The Tri Nations is a good competition but playing each other three times is too much. We all know that rugby is coming under pressure from weakened teams, rotation and reconditioning; the focus on the World Cup - things like that.
"International rugby is where it's at. That's the real attraction and the growth factor in the game. The club and provincial competitions are fine but it's internationals that really count. So surely rugby has to find some way to get Argentina involved. They are a good side and very hard to beat at home - surely that is a challenge for players and fans.
"Pacific Islanders were just made to play rugby - they are so exciting to watch and play with. Surely the game has to find a way of giving those countries an adequate outlet."
Ideally, he says, there would be a global window where Northern and Southern Hemisphere teams could play each other - as the IRB is now, finally, advocating - but, even if not, he says they have to expand the game.
He is a little non-committal when asked to assess the worth of the All Black reconditioning programme. The proof, he says, will only be seen later in the year but then goes on to add: "There is a real focus in rugby now on the development, mental and physical, of the individual - and I think that is very good.
"There is nothing wrong and an awful lot right with identifying and undertaking the sort of training designed to help a player get better at what that player specifically does on a rugby field. It's a great idea - and if [Wallaby coach] John Connolly could have done it, he would have. Instead, all he's able to do is keep some Wallabies out of a couple of trial matches. You don't have to think very hard to see what might be the best approach."
But Eales also understands player frustrations.
"I would have found it very hard to have done reconditioning, even though I recognise the value. To be stood down and see someone else get that jersey you have worked so hard for - I would have hated that."
He also warns New Zealand rugby that they must jealously guard the All Black jersey and the hubris which goes with donning it. Water it down too much, he is implying, and the flow of New Zealand players to Europe could become an even greater flood.
He thinks New Zealand rugby short-term is in very good health but is concerned about the long-term if New Zealand doesn't 'protect the brand'.
But then he re-thinks the short term. The reconditioning, the rotation and the experimentation have given the All Blacks enviable depth, he says, so that they have every World Cup position well covered.
Except maybe for centre, he says. His eyes glint and he grins. "That's where things went wrong last time," he says. "Tana Umaga was injured [in the 2003 World Cup semifinal] and Australia exploited it."
Ah, so there is still a rugby player lurking in there.
And a Wallaby captain.
