Matua Parkinson - Wild man at heart

From humble beginnings to the world sporting stage, Matua Parkinson is a good Kiwi bloke with a love for whanau and a lure for the wild.

There are three main reasons Matua Parkinson has to be fit.
One: He plans to compete in half ironman, Iron Maori, at the end of the year. Two: The rugby season starts in April. Three: He's got to keep up with Handsome, Sam and Dogel - the family pig dogs.
"If you've got hounds on a big boar and you don't get there in time, you've got a big vet bill coming," he tells me.
"Down on the coast the vet's an hour away and carrying them outta the bush that's a good five hours."
Parkinson might look like he's just stepped out of an advert in a surfing magazine but at his core is a country boy.
Flat white today. Eel and flapper tomorrow.
He screws up his face when I say I don't like eel. He screws it up again when I ask what a flapper is.
In case I'm not the only one who doesn't know, it's a young duck that can't fly yet. They're quick to catch and tasty in a pot.
His words, not mine.
Best known for having captained the New Zealand Sevens team to the world championship, playing for the Maori All Blacks and the Canterbury Bulldogs, Parkinson, of Te Whanau a Apanui descent, originates from humble beginnings.
Born and bred in Te Kaha, he is the "potiki" (youngest) of five children.
Parkinson's dad Reuben was a "huge rugby head" and because there was no junior rugby in Te Kaha when Parkinson was growing up, he religiously drove him to Opotiki every Saturday morning.
"My dad owned this old Bedford truck, no warrant, no rego, no brakes," Parkinson says.
"We'd leave home at 5.30am, pick up all our mates on the way, get to town and play our games of rugby. Then we'd usually go down and watch the senior game played in town."
So that was the social occasion of the weekend then?
"Oh. Huge," Parkinson says.
"You know you go to town, you go to Opotiki and let's be honest, Opotiki is not much. But when you come from Te Kaha, where there's only one shop, that's huge. That's massive. That was our outing for the week. We loved it."
Reuben, who died from a heart attack at age 67, 11 years ago, was a crayfisherman.
He was out cycling when the heart attack struck.
"It was a big loss to the family and tough for the old lady."
Parkinson adds: "We used to use crayfish for our fish bait, we had that much of it."
His mum, Mereana, was a school teacher and still lives in Te Kaha.
"Mum used to get up at 4.30am with my dad, go and do the crayfish boat, come off the water - and because we never had hot water when I was growing up - she'd have a cold shower."
Then Parkinson says, she'd hop on his motorbike and go to work.
"Still to this day, I can't believe how she did it," he muses.
"It was very much a rural background; hard upbringing. We didn't have hot showers until I went to boarding school at St Stephen's in Bombay.
"Still to this day, I don't like hot water on my face. I'd rather have a lukewarm shower than a hot shower. Whereas my wife will jump in the shower for 20 minutes and cook herself, you know?
"What a waste of water, man."
The upbringing shapes the man in Parkinson's case. He's pretty down to earth.
Whereas once his life revolved around nothing but sport, today it's whanau and new opportunities.
He's a dad of three boys; Marangai, 9, Kiira, 5, and Nikau, 15 months. And on March 5 he and wife Cheri - who he met while playing touch rugby - celebrated their sixth wedding anniversary.
"It's gonna be all off the cuff mate," he tells me with a clap of the hands.
"I'm a typical male," he laughs. "Just remember at the last minute."
Parkinson's not a romantic "unfortunately", but he does like doing romantic things. His wife, who he refers to as "my darling", had booked a table for dinner.
Parkinson keeps a pretty busy schedule these days.
Once a celebrity on the rugby circuit, he's now better known in Tauranga as a Bay of Plenty District Health Board member.
Parkinson, who works as liaison officer for Aotearoa Construction, received 7189 points, the third highest candidate. He likes his new role but confesses: "It's a huge learning curve for me, I'll be honest with you.
"Obviously having a professional sporting background I know how to keep myself healthy but going into this arena you're looking over a lot of things ...
"Maoris, we're on the wrong end of every statistic. Whether it be heart attacks or diabetes. Maori health is terrible at the moment."
Why is that?
Parkinson says it's a combination of economics, laziness, easiness and time.
His own diet is pretty healthy. He doesn't even like lollies.
If he does go for something sugary, his weakness is peanut slabs and his mum's blackberry pie.
He also doesn't mind an occasional social drink.
Parkinson and his brother Reuben owned the Creme bar in Mount Maunganui for seven years before it closed in 2008.
But hospitality, says Parkinson, is a fickle industry and due to a demolition clause in their contract they were running it year by year and couldn't plan ahead.
In the end, they decided to shut it.
Parkinson went on to other things, and appeared on the Maori Television sporting show Code for five years, before quitting last year, when the travel to Auckland became too much.
"On the show itself, I was kind of like the joker. In public, everyone expected me to be a funny guy and sometimes I just didn't want to be funny," he says.
Public perception can be harsh when you're in the limelight.
Parkinson hasn't always been seen as professional.
Growing up he was a "skinny little bugger" with "more hair than body fat".
During his league career and time with North Harbour he had dreadlocks.
But he got rid of them when his first son was born.
"I was a father and I was getting, well not sick of it, but people sort of had this image of me that I used to smoke dope and be a real lout because of my dreadlocks. I just wanted to be a little bit more responsible in my looks."
Parkinson's career is the stuff school boys' dreams are made of.
At 18 he moved to Auckland for work and made the North Harbour sevens team.
At a sevens tournament in Adelaide he was spotted by a Canterbury Bulldogs scout.
"I said 'I've never played league in my life but I'll give it a crack'. So I went from a young boy training Tuesday and Thursday nights to if not the hardest competition in the world training three times a day. I never got to touch a league ball for three months because I wasn't fit enough."
When his contract finished in 1998, instead of immediately re-signing, he returned to New Zealand
He played sevens for North Harbour and found himself going down to the nationals where he was approached by "a guy with buggered hips" - Gordon Tietjens or "Tietj".
The New Zealand sevens coach wanted Parkinson for his team.
"That got put in front of me and I was at a crossroads in my career. I rang the CEO of the Bulldogs at the time, Bob Hagen, and said 'Bobby this has happened to me, I have an opportunity to to play for my country, can you hold my contract for a year?"'
Hagen agreed but Parkinson never went back to league.
He played for the Hurricanes and the Blues, the Maori All Blacks, and captained the national sevens team to victory in the world championship.
He spent 2004 and some of 2005 playing rugby in Japan and then returned to Tauranga and played for the "mighty" Bay of Plenty Steamers.
"It ruled my life for a while there. The better you played the more money you got."
Nowadays, he plays and coaches for his local club in Tauranga, Nga o Papaka Rangataua, in Maungatapu, which roughly translates to "the crabs of Rangataua". The big games he watches on TV with his three sons.
"The boys love watching the All Blacks and they stand up and hand over heart when the anthem's on and do the haka."
Parkinson loves his boys.
During the Christmas holidays Parkinson and his two eldest boys jumped on horses and went pig hunting up the Raukokore River.
How would he have handled having girls?
"Oh, nah. That would have freaked me out, eh. I have a hard enough time looking after my wife," he says.
But he is taking his wife and two of her friends pig hunting for the first time at Easter.
"I just don't know how this is going to go down, eh? Because these are ladies that ya know, the GHDs (hair straighteners) go where they go. The pigs will be able to smell us a mile away with the perfume."
"They wanted to know 'have we got a hut?' I said 'Nah, nah. We'll just chuck up a tarpaulin'.
"Parkinson advised them to head to Stoney Creek to get some "pig hunting clothes".
"Doubt if we'll even get a pig, they'll be making so much noise."
How does this man live in town?
"One day eventually I'll move back down the coast but my wife's terms are I've gotta have a big flash house and hot water."
Parkinson, better known to friends as "Muts", has lived a life where "nothing ever came easy", New Zealand sevens guru Gordon Tietjens says.
"He plays a physical game and he doesn't take any prisoners."
Former All Black and sevens star Eric Rush says Parkinson's father was a "hard, hard man".
"You had to get tough," he says.
"He's got that pig hunting attitude that doesn't always go down well but in a tough situation, you're glad you're on his team."
"He's about as subtle as a bulldozer."