Taranaki team part of the good vibrations

By CHRIS RATTUE

They're not just crowing about their rugby team in New Plymouth.

Business is booming in Taranaki and they're even prepared to glory in things well beyond human control.

"A lot of people don't realise we've got the highest number of sunshine hours in the North Island. We're second only to the top of the South Island," says New Plymouth District Council spokesman Rex Moore.

It's sunshine all round in Taranaki these days, with the rugby team leading the way in the publicity stakes.

It may only be two rounds into the NPC, but Colin Cooper's side have already knocked over Auckland and Otago, who have the significant advantage of being Super 12 franchise bases.

But Taranaki have more than just an excellent provincial XV.

They've got another energy project - the Pohokura gas field - set to start production in a couple of years, Tom Cruise and a cast of hundreds will film some of The Last Samurai in the province soon, the dairy company giant Fonterra lies in the southern part of the province, and dear old (horrible) Rugby Park has had a $20 million revamp and become Yarrow Stadium.

They've even turned the city around, so to speak, with a foreshore redevelopment.

Throw in a few other tasty little morsels such as a new superyacht venture, a major arts festival, and a combined museum/library/visitors centre/heritage project worth more than $20 million, and you are left with a happy picture to match the sunshine.

And then there's the rugby.

"It's like the All Blacks. When they win, the country feels good. The same thing happens on a smaller scale in Taranaki," says just about everyone you talk to.

New Plymouth Mayor Peter Tennent says: "Everyone is walking around here with a skip in their step that the rest of the country would love to have. Economically, things are pumping."

And here the rest of us were thinking Taranaki - population 110,000 - was the sort of backwater where when you won the Ranfurly Shield, you hung the thing on a cowshed wall.

Still, there is a secret ingredient somewhere in Taranaki rugby, when you consider their achievements, despite having players such as Greg Feek and Mark Robinson hiking off to the All Blacks' development centre in Christchurch.

"I think the isolation has something to do with it," says Taranaki manager John Knowles, who hails from Feilding. "Look at what the Ngati Porou have achieved with East Coast in a similar situation.

"The people here are so passionate about everything Taranaki. I've lived here 12 years and you are never quite a true blue Taranaki-ite ... not unless you're born and bred.

"I remember even when I was at teachers' college that all the people from Taranaki seemed to go back there. They never considered going anywhere else.

"Maybe that's a reason why we've developed such a good culture in this team. The players go out there to die for each other."

Taranaki can also point to the grounding they gave All Blacks coach John Mitchell and captain Reuben Thorne in their youth.

They're even taking over at the Hurricanes. Cooper is the coach, Knowles will be the manager, and fitness trainer Gil Barnitt has been elevated to the top side.

It's not all roses, though. Taranaki finished a disappointing eighth in the NPC last year, after making the semifinals in two of the previous three years.

Last season started badly when illness struck virtually the entire squad at the pre-season camp, and didn't improve when they lost their first three games at home.

Things perked up, though, when they then beat Waikato in Hamilton.

Today's match in New Plymouth between those two is an unlikely top-of-the-table battle between the only unbeaten sides after a couple of rounds.

It would be some feat if Taranaki claimed a third consecutive Super 12 franchise-base scalp.

Their sporting support did come under some pressure, though, in the last round against Otago when about 6000 ticket holders decided not to brave the rain, but you would hate to suggest some of the big-city ways had infiltrated the Mighty Naki.

Maybe they'd just got too used to all that sunshine.