Rugby: Time overdue to make grand entry

Daniel Kirkpatrick. Photo / Getty Images

Great entertainers know the value of making a grand entrance. Arrive on the big stage with a bang and always leave them wanting more.

Daniel Kirkpatrick would have preferred to have followed that path, but fate conspired against him. Ironically, so too did his winning the IRB Junior Player of the Year Award in 2008.

At 19 he wandered into the Wellington changing room a few seconds behind his reputation. The ink on his contract barely dry, expectation was already weighing him down.

Wellington had jettisoned the long-serving Jimmy Gopperth on the grounds he was no longer their future at first five-eighths. Kirkpatrick would be the man to steer the ship and deliver the title they coveted.

It didn't work out on either front. The Lions didn't win the title - they took up their customary second place - and nor was Kirkpatrick found much at the helm.

A combination of injuries and indifferent form prevented Kirkpatrick from making his grand entrance and coach Jamie Joseph used halfback Piri Weepu to pull the strings one berth further out.

The following year's Super 14 didn't produce a lift in Kirkpatrick's performances and there was a sense of a once-promising career crashing into the buffers.

The Blues didn't buy that theory. The cynics might say their desperation to find a five-eighths blinded them to Kirkpatrick's shortcomings.

But they saw a player with the tools to succeed as long as they were patient and prepared to accept Kirkpatrick couldn't learn his craft overnight.

They took that view because they have seen how expectation can swamp a young man.

"We have got a good example of that in our side, in Isaia Toeava," says assistant coach Shane Howarth. "Look how long it has taken him to mature and he really has matured. But that's taken five years.

"We have to be careful what we do with these players. We have to let them find their feet. I have found from the coaching ranks that Air New Zealand Cup to Super 14 is a big jump, so as a player probably add 10 per cent more.

"Daniel has had a bit of disruption with injuries and a lot of pressure on him to run a side at 19 - that's like saying to a businessman, 'here's a company, you go and run it'. He's a coachable kid and he wants to learn."

There was also a realisation within the Blues camp that life had moved fast for Kirkpatrick since he left Napier Boys' High to study marketing at Victoria University in 2007.

A self-confessed mummy's boy, the shift to the capital was always going to be tough for Kirkpatrick. He was expecting to play some club footie, chip away at his studies and adapt to his surroundings.

By July that year he was playing in the Air New Zealand Cup. The following year he had a son and, with a new baby and pressure to earn more money, put the studies on hold to work part-time. There was no gentle settling-in period.

His Super 14 contract relieved some of the financial stress but came too late for his relationship as he and his partner have now split.

"Kids do put a lot more pressure on but it's all about how you adapt," says Kirkpatrick.

"You have to adapt and make some changes and sacrifices. The hard thing was that we didn't have too much support base down in Wellington, but he's the best thing in my life."

There has been more than enough on Kirkpatrick's plate these past two years to distract him. But he's landed at the Blues with an element of stability he has never had.

The extenuating circumstances have been removed - there are no off-field impediments to fulfilling a potential many see as considerable.

His son is with his mum and dad in Hawke's Bay and, really, the time has come for Kirkpatrick to show whether he has what it takes to play at this level.

For the next few weeks at least, his role is likely to be confined to cameo appearances from the bench. Stephen Brett is the man for now.

It really is for now, however. Howarth has been impressed with Kirkpartick's defensive bite. He also likes the hunger Kirkpatrick has shown to learn and improve.

And there is perhaps an irony in waiting here, that Kirkpatrick could be the beneficiary of the expectation carried by someone else.

Brett is the man in whom the Blues have invested their faith to fix their most troublesome position. The scrutiny under which he will fall will be intense - certainly enough to break the confidence of the Cantabrian if things don't quite go his and the Blues' way.

There's also a desire among the Blues coaching staff to keep Kirkpatrick in the frame, as they can't risk Brett breaking his leg and then having to throw his back-up in cold.

Bringing two new first fives into the squad has created an interesting dynamic between Brett and Kirkpatrick.

"We work together a bit and suss opposition together," says Kirkpatrick. "But out on the field it's competitive. We are both fighting for the same spot and we both want the same things."

There is no escape. The Blues have put Kirkpatrick and Alby Mathewson in one apartment with Brett and Serge Lilo a few floors above them.

All four are trying to build careers in Auckland. All four have felt the frustration of too much time on the bench - blocked by bigger talents.

Kirkpatrick, while he's the only one not to be starting each week, is perhaps the one who is most likely to make Auckland his permanent home, for Super Rugby at least.

At just 21, Kirkpatrick, if handled correctly, could be the kind of player around whom the Blues could build a successful team.

Brett will return to Canterbury to play provincial football and Mathewson and Lilo will be back in Wellington. All three could easily be back at the Crusaders and Hurricanes respectively next year.

Kirkpatrick, too, will shift, having just signed with Hawke's Bay but, with no Super Rugby team in Napier, he accepts he will be transient as he tries to build his reputation.

"I have thought how that is going to work but I'll deal with that as it comes," he says of splitting his time between Auckland and Napier.

"When I go back to the Bay I'll try to establish something there so I can have him [my son] full-time. When you are in this career, it's what you have to do.

"But it has been really easy settling in up here. The players have made it easy. I have had a look around the town. I have been up the Sky Tower and been to all the beaches."

He's clearly taken with Auckland. Now he has to make that mutual.