For Love of the game

A Rotorua-based sports academy is teaching rugby and league players more than just how to play the game.

Daily Post sports editor CRAIG TIRIANA talks to the man behind the concept.
Not too many people could see a rugby ball in a hammer - Jim Love did.

Years ago, Love was involved in New Zealand's now defunct Trade Training programme. That model gave him the inspiration to create the New Zealand Sports Academy which is now giving a new generation opportunities with the traditional tradesman's tools as well as rugby balls.

The former Marlborough and Maori All Blacks player and coach is a carpenter by trade.

"I was ex-trade training. What I've done is taken that module and basically put sports with it."

It didn't happen straight away. Love's self-admitted inadequacies as a fledgling coach convinced him to try something.

"When I finished playing I was coaching an under-18 side, I enjoyed them because they all wanted to learn but I didn't have the technology to teach them," remembers Love.

The academy idea, which improves players' and coaches' skills, floated around in his head for about 10 years before he found the inspiration to take the plunge.

"I met up with two beautiful ladies and it became a reality in about two months," he says of co-founders Jeanna Love, his wife, and Sharon Mariu.

They kicked off the academy eight years ago in Wellington and moved it to Rotorua after two years.

"This is a Maori academy and Bay was pretty heavy in Maoridom was the way we looked at it," says Love.

One of the biggest disappointments for Love has been that despite many attempts to build a formal relationship with the Bay of Plenty Rugby Union, there still isn't one.

"I get some brilliant rugby players here but they all go away ... that's the sad thing about coming here, the Bay's attitude towards us - one day they'll realise but it'll be too late," Love believes.

Those "brilliant" players are heading out of the area to many offshore rugby clubs and NRL clubs like Paramatta and Canberra Raiders, with which the academy has ties.

While Maori culture is a big part of the academy's focus - they learn waiata, haka and life skills - the programme isn't limited to Maori participants.

About 240 New Zealanders, most from rural and provincial areas, and overseas students, have graduated from the two-year programme which Love unashamedly says teaches more than just football.

"It's been worthwhile," he says. "It's not only about rugby and sports, it's giving kids from the East Coast and giving kids from all around the smaller unions an opportunity. Most kids in the cities have a lot of opportunities but these kids from a place like Tikitiki don't.

"I always say it's about getting these kids the confidence to stand up in this world and be counted.

"Once they've done a year with us they basically start to realise, rugby is not what it's all about, they've got to start looking at other opportunities for their lives."

The programme is split into three components: rugby, career and kaupapa Maori.

Love uses a team of former All Blacks, Maori and Kiwis greats like Wayne Shelford, Frano Botica, Hika Reid, Matt Te Pou and Tawera Nikau, for specialist rugby training each afternoon while mornings are spent learning trade skills with various education providers.

Former Bay of Plenty Steamer and now North Harbour-attached Ngarimu Simpkins is one of the star graduates while many others have secured overseas rugby or league contracts.

The overseas students love the opportunity to learn rugby in New Zealand and Love says the cross-cultural exchanges are very healthy.

"It's amazing how these Poms end up like horis," Love laughs.

The model is working so well Love is happy to leave his assistant Darryl Shelford in charge while he heads off for a two-year stint with Italian club side Viadana.

The former New Zealand Maori assistant and coach of Tonga had been chased by the wealthy Viadana club's owner for some years and in true Italian style, made an offer Love couldn't refuse.

"They were trying to get me for a few years, it's a very good offer and I was pretty keen to have another go at professional coaching," Love says.

Viadana is a small centre with a population of about 20,000, situated just half-an-hour from the hustle, bustle and fashion of Milan.

Love is contracted as the head coach while former Bay of Plenty Steamers and past New Zealand sevens representative Peter Woods will be his assistant, a role he also had with Fiji.

Woods, who is a skills adviser for the New Zealand Sports Academy, will be one of 15 staff Love will have in his camp. They will get to train in a huge indoor facility which Love says is bigger than Rotorua's International Stadium.

"There's a lot of money over there ... I'll have a squad of 36 players and they're all professionally paid."

He believes the only way is up for Viadana, which finished fifth in the recent Italy Cup competition.

Meanwhile, Love also has plans for his academy set-up to expand into America where he is tied up with coaching the Falcons in their NA4 competition.

Locally he says there is definitely a chance for the academy structure to grow into other codes and talks with sporting bodies are ongoing.

And the man who built his own house in Rotorua still has a hankering for the tools of his original trade.

"I enjoy building - I hope to build a brand new indoor training facility here."