Rugby: A home at last for nomad of Super 12

By CHRIS RATTUE

Glenn Taylor has travelled the North Island circle in terms of a Super 12 career, but his latest tour of duty with the Chiefs is a vastly different experience from when he first played for them.

Professional the Super 12 may have been when it began in 1996, but there were some distinctly amateur things going on, especially for players such as Northland's Taylor, who were not close to the franchise centre.

Early every week, Taylor - and Norm Berryman and assistant coach Sid Going - drove from Whangarei to hook up with his Hamilton-based team-mates.

The following year he made the twice-weekly, four-hour trip alone as the only Northlander in the Chiefs. And the next year, when he was sent to the Hurricanes, he flew to the capital weekly to join his team-mates.

This nomadic and fairly bizarre sporting existence based around rental cars, planes and motels changed last season when he linked with the Blues, and flatted in Auckland with fellow Northlanders Justin Collins and Tony Monaghan.

And when the rugby powers, who can ship players around the country like cattle, decided Taylor's latest future was back with the Chiefs, he moved to Hamilton for the Super 12 season with his wife, Nicky, and their 10-month-old daughter Sara.

"That's the major difference this time, living in Hamilton. Everything was new in those early days of the Super 12 and you accepted it, but I got pretty sick of that drive," said Taylor, who leads the Chiefs into battle against the Hurricanes in Hamilton today.

Just how he has returned to the Chiefs is as much a mystery to him as it is to those who can't figure out why the Blues did not retain such a respected lock forward.

"I had no control over it whatever," he said. "I heard rumours that I was going to the Chiefs and then I heard rumours I was staying at the Blues.

"I only found out when [Chiefs manager] Steve Gilbert rang me in early December. I said 'great - it's nice to be told.'

"There had been a bit of to-ing and fro-ing between the franchises. It was the same as the year I went to the Hurricanes.

"I actually thought I was going to the Crusaders when [manager] Tony Bedford from the Hurricanes rang to say you're coming to us.

"It's a job and as long as I'm playing Super 12 rugby ... but the players should be involved in discussing where they are going, especially when you've got to move.

"Maybe they should contract players to the franchises rather than the New Zealand union. That would create some stability."

The end result however, is that the Chiefs have got a captain who earns respect by actions rather than words.

Gilbert, the Chiefs' manager since the beginning of Super 12, says Taylor is a far cry from the likes of Errol Brain, who are not afraid to pull an inspirational speech out of their bag of captain's tricks.

"I thought Glenn really made his mark as a leader in the last 40 minutes of the game against the Blues," Gilbert said. "The players were in awe of the way he threw his body into everything.

"He's not really a talker at all. I think he prefers saying a few words out in the middle of the ground, and then gets on with it.

"He gets respect because he is a man of his word and people know he's going to front all the time."

Taylor's upbringing was in the tiny town of Tangiteroria, between Dargaville and Whangarei. He went to Dargaville Boys' High, a couple of years ahead of New Zealand cricketer Dion Nash, before heading to Whangarei for a builder's apprenticeship.

Taylor still enjoys building and likes to swing the hammer every year around NPC time, which, he says, helps to get him away from the rugby, rugby, rugby mind set.

He conceded after an NPC game last year that he had not received any offers to move to a bigger provincial union in recent years, but said that he enjoyed the Northland lifestyle and never really wanted to move anyway.

In staying in the north, he has become a sporting icon in the region, bucking the trend which says you have to move to the big cities to further a sporting career.

His All Black career, though, has not taken off the way Taylor would wish. His first All Black appearance was in the disastrous 17-40 loss to Sydney in 1992.

"Please don't go there - I still cringe when I think of that game. All Blacks just aren't supposed to lose," he said.

His one test appearance was as a 50th-minute replacement for Ian Jones in the lost third test against South Africa in 1996, Taylor's last All Black game.

"What I really remember about that is the whole tour and the great feeling of being part of the first team to win a series in South Africa," he said.

At the age of 29, his All Black days are not necessarily over. After appearing to be on the wanted list of the recently departed selection panel, injury struck just as Taylor was to lead New Zealand A and he never found favour again.

Wayne Smith and company may see things differently.