Southland captain born for the job

Clarke Dermody

It's easy to be sure Clarke Dermody is a bona fide Southlander. Get him to say his surname out loud, and there seems to be a hell of a lot of "r's" in it.

He takes the northern ribbing of his southern accent in good heart. "I lost mine for a while. We shifted to Christchurch for seven years and I started to lose it. It came back pretty quickly."

Dermody, 25, is, in these days of professional rugby, almost a rarity - Southland born and bred, and about to lead his home province against the visiting Lions tonight.

The prop is also part of a local rugby dynasty. Father Gus played 50 games for Southland between 1974 and 1983 and uncle Gerald holds the all-time record for turning out for his province - 120 times between 1965 and 1977.

Dermody has resisted transferring to some other province and remains happy to continue his upward rugby progress locally. So far, that has seen him play 58 games for Southland as well as making the Highlanders age group national side and, this year, the Junior All Blacks.

"We've shown you can make higher teams from down here, so I don't think there's much point shifting away from home. With my family's history in Southland rugby, it's quite an honour.

"Gerald was captain of Southland for a long time as well. I can relate to the Southland fans a bit more, how they like things done for the team."

So none of that fancy stuff?

"If it comes off, I think they would enjoy it."

Dermody, who turned up to Invercargill's Rugby Park yesterday dressed in shorts, isn't worried about playing the Lions at night, despite the likely sub-zero temperatures of midwinter, on the year's shortest day.

"[Having] 20,000 people around you is going to make it warm enough."