Bay hero goes down fighting

Hawke's Bay rugby star Jarrod Cunningham lost a long and brave battle against motor neurone disease when he died last night.
The gutsy 38-year-old 1990s fullback and holder of the record for the most points for Hawke's Bay in first class rugby passed-away only hours after stoically going through the coming week's fitness and exercise programme with physio Mark Foote.
On Saturday Cunningham defied his illness and insisted on going ahead with an invitation to officially opening the refurbished Havelock North Rugby clubrooms, during which the club's Hawke's Bay premiership-leading side paid an emotional tribute with the Ngati Kahungunu haka Tika Tonu.
His father, Hilton, had performed similar duties when the clubrooms originally opened.
Also on Saturday night, Cunningham attended a fundraiser which had been put on for him at the Cinema Gold in Havelock North.
Long-time Havelock North and Hawke's Bay teammate and current Havelock North coach Murdoch Paewai said today the haka was organised by Cunningham's good friend, Conrad Waitoa, on a training night last week, but none anticipated it would be the symbolic last time the stalwart would see it.
Paewai first played with Cunningham after moving from Dannevirke in 1991, after Cunningham had played about one match for the Bay.
It was during that year that Magpies coach Grahame Taylor started the player's representative career in earnest, with a revamp of his backline after a humiliating thrashing by Northland.
Cunningham played the game the way he was later to fight the battle, after learning of his illness while still playing in England.
"He was competitive in everything he did," Paewai said. "He enjoyed running the ball, he didn't like to kick, and if he ran it, he wanted us there for support. We got used to it."
Good friend and former Havelock North teammate Damon Harvey said today the disease had become "really bad" recently, but "Jarrod went down fighting".
"He was the most stubborn and determined person I ever knew ... he just wanted to do those things," Mr Harvey said of the Saturday clubroom opening and fundraiser.
Cunningham was one of a rare band of players to score more than 2000 points in first class matches.
In New Zealand he scored 998 points in 77 games for Hawke's Bay between 1990 and 1998, and 173 for the hybrid Central Vikings in the Hawke's Bay-Manawatu NPC merger, playing 11 games despite the presence in the squad in the first season of All Black Christian Cullen.
He was an All Black triallist, a Maori All Black, played for the the Wellington Hurricanes and the Auckland Blues in the Super 12, and finished his playing days in England with London Irish.
At the time his illness was diagnosed, the player's Hawke's Bay-based manager, Havelock North stalwart Bob Mitchell, said loyalty was the hallmark of Cunningham's career. It was known he had turned down lucrative offers aimed at luring him away from Hawke's Bay and Havelock North, which had been his only club in New Zealand.
In England, London Irish director of rugby Conor O'Shea said at the time that the fact Cunningham had played with the disease in 2001 showed the player's mettle.
It was in England on February 22, 2003, that he married English girlfriend Carrie Gustafson, and with her he returned to New Zealand, where the Jarrod Cunningham Charitable Trust was set up to help the star and others stricken by motor neurone, a muscle-wasting disease.
A charity match featuring numerous All Blacks and Hawke's Bay and Havelock North teammates was played in Napier in June that year.
A date has not yet been set for the funeral.