The waiting masses watched reverently as ex-All Black Jerry Collins - the son of Porirua - was carried out on to the pitch at his home ground for the final time last night.
The coffin holding Collins' body was carried on to the Norths Rugby Football Club by a procession led by his father Frank.
Hundreds of people, largely wearing the Norths' colours of blue and white, lined the driveway. They fell silent as the hearse arrived.
Country’s sports channels ignore less dignified incidents as they pay tribute to former All Black killed in crash.
Jerry Collins. All that's needed for images, memories to well up: his name. His trademark bone-crushing tackles, the punishing runs. The smile. The spontaneity in interviews or one-liner media sound-bites that made polite people squirm and ordinary folk laugh.
His humbleness in staying a Porirua boy even when he became a rugby super star. How he turned out for a minor division rugby club in England and proudly wore their club socks in a Barbarians match. And the tragedy of losing him at 34.
But New Zealand lost quite a few All Blacks, most of them younger than Jerry, in World War I. You can imagine the grief felt by the families, by the nation. Just any sudden death is bad. I still have a residue of grief for my oldest brother killed in a horrific car crash which also took the lives of our two first-cousins and three others 43 years ago.
Mourners wearing tributes to Jerry Collins follow the coffin to the Norths Rugby Club in Porirua. Photo / Mark Mitchell
In France, Jerry Collins is the No 1 item on every sports channel. Ex-pat fellow All Blacks are filmed crying, Jerry's former coaches give tearful recalls of coaching a young man and not so young man they invariably loved. The Sydney Morning Herald's Peter FitzSimons dug out a mention he made of Jerry from 2007 and generally sang his praises.
In my rugby-mad town, Bayonne, in the southwest, the first thing every shop owner we visited said is, "Jerry Collins. C'est tragique." The butcher, the coffee shop, the bar across the street, the wine shop, my barber, only one name came up: Jerry Collins.
He played a major part in saving his French club from relegation. I saw him play a few months ago when his Narbonne team came to play Biarritz, our 13km-away neighbour who we've just joined, alas, in the 2nd division. One of my expat Kiwi mate's sons was playing for Narbonne, though he's French because he was born and raised here.
My mate had chatted to Jerry before the match and called out his name from the stands. "Go, Jerry!"
Collins turned and flashed his brand smile, gave the thumbs up and proceeded to have quite an effect on the outcome of the game, near singularly so. Though some have called me something of a case study in blind worship when it comes to All Blacks,
I yet declined the invite to go have a beer with the 48-test veteran after the game which they won. I now regret that. Just I find those situations a bit awkward and I'm sure the players do too. Though I did meet Richie a few weeks ago.
Fortunately I missed the initial New Zealand media reaction to Collins' death - his passing, some would put it but not a phrase pour moi. Jerry Collins did not pass through, he THUNDERED, stopped men in their tracks, made millions gasp at his tackling ferocity, the sheer power. That's not passing. He visited many of our Duffy Books in Homes schools as a role model too and the kids loved him.
Reliable sources tell me there was media negativity in recalling past incidents of Jerry arrested carrying a knife in Japan, Jerry drunk and abusive at a fast-food joint, Jerry and his couple of demons compared to the 48 times he ran out in black and gave his all for his country. Not one mention of that tiny, unimportant less heroic sliver of his life was mentioned here in France.
They don't do that sort of crap journalism. Like they are not interested in celebrities. Let alone supposed celebs who really buy into the nonsense they are someone special. Duh. A radio jock is special? A loud-mouthed TV presenter is a star? Pl-leaze. Jerry was a true star.
In imagining a conversation with Jerry, I'll quote from a Pablo Neruda poem I would read to him.
'I'm grateful to the earth for having waited for me when sky and sea came together like two lips touching; for that's no small thing, no? - to have lived through one solitude to arrive at another to feel oneself many things and recover wholeness.
And say, finally, at Jerry Collins' grave, that you, sir, did indeed live through one solitude to arrive at another. Just you did it with all of us watching; and now some of the wondering is answered and wholeness was surely recovered.
