The world mourns rugby great: Head and shoulders above the rest

The no-fear mantra that defined Collins as a player appeared to extend to all parts of his life. Photo / File

In a game full of hard men, Jerry Collins, the kid from Porirua, stood out head and shoulders - and 58cm biceps - above them all.

Too sad. A tragic end to one of the game's most enigmatic and colourful characters. Jerry Collins - never dull, never conformist and never a great bet to stay out of trouble when his career took him to inglorious places as he searched for the adulation and meaning he had in his prime as a 48-test All Black.

The no-fear mantra that defined Collins as a player appeared to extend to all parts of his life. As easily as he could destroy an opponent silly enough to run at him, so too in recent years did it seem as if Collins was just as capable of self-destruction. He wouldn't be alone in having travelled that slow road to ruin - professional sport is full of legendary players who can't find their place in life when their best days slip behind them.

From the moment Collins made the surprise decision to quit his New Zealand contract in 2008, his name cropped up in this part of the world only for the wrong reasons. He jumped from club to club, never quite delivering what the pay cheque demanded and with whispers in the local media that he wasn't necessarily living life on the straight and narrow. He had no choice, though; professional rugby was the only thing he knew and was without question his salvation.

Tangible evidence that things were going wrong for Collins came in April 2013 when he was arrested in Japan after guards found him in a store carrying a knife.

It was maybe no surprise that trouble would eventually find him, as Collins played hard and fast and lived much the same way. But there was a time when his spontaneous decision-making had happier outcomes. After the World Cup in 2007, Collins was in a cafe in the UK when a group of locals sidled up and asked if he fancied a game on the weekend with their club. They were kidding, but Collins, unbelievably, said yes and played for the Barnstaple 2nd XV. A rather stunned collection of butchers, bakers and farmers in the Newton Abbott side facing Barnstaple could hardly take in what they were seeing.

No one who encountered Collins, either on or off the field, would be likely to forget the experience. On it, he played with no concern for his safety. Collins, pound for pound, hit harder than anyone. Who could forget when he thundered into Colin Charvis in 2003 and the Welsh hard man was unconscious before he even hit the deck? Or the way Collins and the Springboks' equally tough Schalk Burger would knock lumps out of each other in tests. Collins never asked for any quarter, never expected it and never gave it. That's how he won global respect.

To survive a head-on Collins tackle was a badge of honour; even in a game where the physicality is increasingly outrageous and there are hard men all over the place, Collins was always the benchmark.

All Black coach Steve Hansen once joked that Collins trained like Jane but always played like Tarzan and to his peers, that's all that mattered. On the field, when it mattered, the jersey got everything, and between 2003 and 2007, the nation felt a sense of anticipation whenever any opponent was brave enough to dash down the blindside.

For it was there that Collins would be lurking, his 58cm biceps - he had the biggest upper arms ever measured by the All Blacks - poised to club someone at chest height and shake them to their core.

But again, the no-fear mantra was never switched off. It was never just the way he was when he played. When he was made All Black captain in 2006 for a test against Argentina, the first words in his live post-match interview were expletives. Out they came, natural as you like, because that was Collins. He didn't feel the need to adjust or censor his natural self. He was never willing to pretend that he was anything other than a poor kid from Porirua.

It made him complex and engaging. It made him someone without ambiguity or hidden agendas. It made him a treasured part of the rugby landscape and a loyal friend to those with whom he shared the jersey.