Tim Dow keeps getting asked where he has been all these years.
The answer is pretty simple - he has been right here in Northland, but that reply doesn't seem to quite cut it with his new professional rugby team mates at the Blues.
They all wonder how Dow hasn't popped up on the rugby radar screen before.
They aren't the only ones.
The affable rugby hooker has been one of the standout performers for the Northland provincial side for three years now, but unable to bust into the professional ranks.
Now he's there Dow is revelling in his new found status.
"It is kind of strange because I feel like one of the young guys in this team but I'm 25-years-old which makes me not one of the young guys actually," Dow said.
"I mean some of the other new faces are real young compared to me.
"They ask me my age and I say 25, and they look at me and say `where have you been?' because I never played for any age group teams or anything like that either," he said.
But getting into the Blues squad was one achievement, getting some game time with the Blues this year might be another.
While Dow is one of only two specialist hookers in the Blues squad, the fact that All Blacks rake Keven Mealamu is the other, and happens to have been named squad captain, will limit Dow's chances to get on the field.
At least in the starting role.
"It does make it a bit harder I suppose but it doesn't surprise me really.
"I had the word that Keven would probably be captain so I knew all along what was going to be expected of me."
Not that his role as Mealamu's understudy has taken the edge of Dow's introduction to rugby professionalism.
From the moment Dow received word in October that he was in the reckoning for a place in the Blues squad, he has been following a daunting training schedule.
The moment he was confirmed as a full squad member, the training went ballistic.
The result is a bigger, fitter and stronger version of Tim Dow.
But even so Dow was a little cautious when he made his first foray onto the rugby field in a couple of pre-season encounters with the Blues in Australia recently.
"I have never trained so hard in my life. It has been great, but a lot of very hard work at the same time.
"But I was a little worried about what would happen when I got on the field. "It was the same when I first played for Northland, you just don't quite know how it is going to work out.
"I ran onto the paddock for my first Blues game thinking `okay then, it's just going to be hitting rucks and pushing in the scrums', but I was quite pleasantly surprised to find a bit of space to run with the ball in this level as well."
Under-the-radar Dow keen to step up in Blues squad
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