Crockett - the capped Crusader who never gave up

Wyatt Crockett has propped up the Crusaders since debuting in 2006. Photo / Getty Images

He won't get the Super Rugby title this year, but he'll be back to try again next season, and the season after, and the season after that. Wyatt William Vogels Crockett, the most capped Crusader in history, possibly the most criticised prop in world rugby history, is a man who never gives up.

Wyatt Crockett grew up in the camping ground at Tukurua Beach in Golden Bay.

I wrote about Golden Bay once. "It's the kind of place that gives a compass a headache. It cradles the eastern side of the northwestern edge of the South Island, a great arc of hill-hemmed coastline that stretches from Separation Point to Farewell Spit. Separation to farewell: it feels like one long goodbye."

Sometimes, Crockett's career had felt like one long goodbye.

Like the time he turned up to the South Island under-16s and was told he was too tall for a prop. Or the time he made the South Island Schools team but missed out on the Otago under-18s. Or the time he made the New Zealand under-19 side but missed out on the Canterbury Colts. Or that time he started the first two tests of the 2011 Tri-Nations but was not required for the third. Or that phone call he received the next day when he was told he wouldn't be in the Rugby World Cup squad. Imagine taking that call. Only three of them did; Hosea Gear and Liam Messam were the others.

In 2010, Crockett was one of the most penalised players in Super Rugby, a lightning rod for referee calls. His personal nadir had actually come the season before, when the All Blacks were held to a 20-9 victory over Italy in Milan and the All Blacks' scrum was mercilessly penalised by Stu Dickinson. It cost Crockett his All Blacks jersey in 2010, and it shot to pieces his reputation. Throughout the season he would be pilloried in public, he would have run-ins in pubs. But he never gave up.

The following year, he would be named New Zealand's Super Rugby Player of the Year.

He never gave up after missing out on the Rugby World Cup either. He went away, back to Golden Bay, just like he did after all the other disappointments and injuries and setbacks, and he ran the hills and worked on what he needed to work on and became a regular test All Black again, and has played in 25 of the last 28 All Blacks tests, including 13 of the 14 tests in that historic unbeaten season of 2013.

And all the while he has committed to the Crusaders, that team for which he was first chosen for in 2005, and for which he debuted in 2006. That team coached by Todd Blackadder, who once upon a time would come to the Tukurua Beach camping ground selling raffle tickets for his Collingwood club, and who the young Wyatt Crockett would measure himself against and have a photo with (at his mother's behest) and think, "f*** he's not much bigger than me!"

He says of his new three-year deal with the Crusaders and New Zealand Rugby that he has "been living the dream playing my footy here" and that he "can't imagine pulling on the jersey for any other teams". If you know Crockett, you'll know that is not some finessed and convenient line.

Once, in a match for the Crusaders against the Blues, Crockett conceded an early scrum penalty and as the ref began to explain his decision to big Wyatt, Ali Williams called out 'you can't change the habits of a lifetime, sir'.

Turns out, Ali was wrong. Crockett is no longer the most penalised prop in Super Rugby. In fact, there are 22 props who have conceded more this season. Reputations, of course, always lag behind facts, but Crockett grew up watching those gnawing, nibbling tides of Golden Bay. He knows that what goes out, comes back in.

Maybe in three years' time Crockett will be remembered for something other than an old and irrelevant penalty count. Maybe by then he'll be remembered, instead, as the most capped player in Super Rugby's history. Maybe he'll be remembered, instead, for loyalty and for hard work.

And for never giving up.