Adrian Hyland: Hard graft in high-stakes

Mt Albert Grammar School celebrate after their win over King's College in the 2010 secondary schools rugby final at Eden Park. Photo / Steven McNicholl

About 11 minutes are left on the clock and Mt Albert Grammar, who have just missed their sixth place kick, are finding it hard to put Hamilton Boys away in last year's school rugby showpiece, the national final.

They may have scored three tries and done it playing fluid, largely error-free rugby, with width and intelligence, but they trail 15-17. In the defending champions they face not only one of the few teams that outweigh them, but also a team well-versed in the art of securing possession and winding the clock down.

From the restart MAGS fullback Albert Nikoro leaps and gathers cleanly, then accelerates into the heart of the Hamilton defence. His forwards swarm around him as they have done all game, the ball is recycled quickly, and the process begins again.

MAGS edge forward, their runners targeting the fringes and eliminating defenders, until lock Sean Brookman is turned in a tackle and goes to ground facing the wrong way. He twists himself so his team-mates can access the ball, but in a high-tempo game like this a few seconds are precious. The momentum is lost ...

Mt Albert Grammar, founded in 1922 as a subsidiary of Auckland Grammar, sits in the centre of the world's largest Polynesian city. Now a state school in its own right, and co-educational since 2004, it doesn't dominate the landscape around it the way Auckland Grammar does.

MAGS creeps up on you, its creamy walls revealing themselves from behind a façade of palm trees just as you think the noiseless suburban streets of central Auckland are going to go on forever.

It's a tranquil, almost dreamy spot, but step through the front doors and it's business time. The reception area displays enough silverware to equip a mediaeval jousting weekend.

Sports fans will find familiar names among the inscriptions: Peter Snell, Bryan Williams, Joe Stanley, Matthew Ridge. Those interested in the peculiar nature of modern celebrity can search for the name of Mt Albert Grammar's 13th and most recent All Black, the newly world famous Sonny Bill Williams.

The sporting history of MAGS is well storied, but it seems last year the school decided to ratchet everything up a couple of notches. Had the normally dominant boys' soccer team not unexpectedly crashed out, the school would have won national secondary schools titles in four competitions instead of the three it did win - netball, girls' soccer and rugby.

The level of rugby performance being achieved at MAGS is such that a South London school, Beth's Grammar, sent out their first team in July last year and lost by 20 points to the under-15s.

According to former All Black Bryan Williams, who attended Mt Albert Grammar from 1963 to 1967 and is now director of the school's rugby academy, 2010 was more than just a random golden year; it was the realisation of plans hatched in 2001 when the academy was established.

"I guess a lot of the credit initially goes to Kevin Fallon, who set up his soccer academy. They've been very successful and have basically set the standard for MAGS sport. So we set up a rugby academy to go alongside it, focusing on the fact that rugby was now a professional game and a career option for young boys," he says.

The logic of taking the high-performance constituents of the professional game and implementing them in the developmental arena of schools rugby had occurred to others, Williams says.

"Graham Henry at Kelston Boys had applied professional elements in the amateur era, from the mid-'80s to the early '90s. I don't think it's rocket science - it's very much putting the emphasis on fundamentals: training, methodology, nutrition, hydration, mental skills, sports science stuff.

"And more emphasis on team building, on the premise that good people make good rugby teams."

Sitting in the MAGS bootroom listening to first XV coach Charlie McAlister tell me about his pre-season programme, I would assume that only very "good people" make it past the first six weeks of the military-style conditioning he deals out to his players.

McAlister, who is the father of former All Black Luke, may be fluent in modern coach-speak - he talks a lot about "processes" and "outcomes" - but he's also old-school, a veteran of the no-excuses world of league, and if any of these boys plan on making the final squad of 30 there is, in his words "a price to be paid".

"The first month is not a lot of fun, there's a lot of soul-searching, a lot of fact-finding, doing stuff I wouldn't want their mums to see in terms of physicality. Just shaping their minds for what's coming.

"Then we go into a skill and intelligence phase, our patterns, our plays, our game plan, the laws of the game. That's four days a week, probably 16 hours a week."

By the time games start McAlister can call on at least 15 players who are "big, fit, lean and smart".

"That's the magic formula. You've got to be able to do it all. Rugby league says that you have to be the complete athlete, and I want all our kids to be able to kick, catch, run, offload, to know what space means, so that we are threats across the park."

The high proportion of boys of Pacific Island heritage in the team seem to fit his magic formula.

"They just have that DNA. They don't know they're good at it until they get fit enough to use it, but they have certain dynamics in their makeup, they can naturally run, they have the fast twitch, the European generally has the longer twitch. Brown kids are more known for their explosive power."

The days of students sleepwalking through their education secure in their position as a first XV member seem to be long gone at Mt Albert Grammar. Schools rugby is now relatively big business - as suggested by the legal wrangles endured by various schools, including MAGS, over the dark arts of player recruitment - and boys have to be prepared for life after school, and for what McAlister calls "the pathway".

Williams says the Sky Sports commitment to televising these games has been a game-changer. "Parents and kids can now see for themselves that if you make it in a secondary school team, you're not far removed from professional rugby. People now realise it's a career opportunity."

There is even, in keeping with the theme of high-performance, a degree of media training available at the MAGS academy, which aims to prepare students for the pressure that comes with public speaking. They practise the communication skills needed if they have to do an interview, and they act out after-match scenarios in front of their peers.

But Williams is eager to point out another factor involved in what MAGS are doing, and it's something no amount of sports science or attention to detail can legislate for.

"The school is now co-educational. Having girls around has improved the discipline and standard of behaviour of the boys, from my observation, quite markedly. They're more respectful, and not so stupid.

"MAGS have always had talented players, but in years gone by we didn't apply the same kind of brainpower to it, we would always have brain explosions at the key moments in a match."

Ten minutes to go. The ball slowly works back through a tangle of bodies. At this point, the MAGS first five-eighths, 17-year-old Matt McGahan, feels the need to speak up. From his position in the pocket behind the ruck, he delivers a series of instructions: he seems to be asking his forwards to wait, to delay the release of the ball so they can regain some of the timing of their hit-ups.

After a couple of seconds No 8 Dillon Halaholo finally picks up from the base, is hit by four defenders, and writhes like a harpooned whale before being slammed into the ground.

His efforts aren't in vain though: the momentum is back. From the subsequent ruck the ball is flicked out to McGahan, who has timed a diagonal run from deep, and he fixes his defender before slipping the pass to the man on his shoulder, replacement Ma'afu Likiliki. The man on his shoulder is Milford Keresoma, big, fit, lean and smart, and Likiliki calmly releases him to go over in the corner. 20-17 to MAGS is the final score.

That game involved eight players (five from Mt Albert and three from Hamilton) later picked for the NZ Secondary Schools team, and some of the MAGS boys have already secured "outcomes" - and incomes - for themselves on the back of the 2010 season.

Michael Fatialofa, their 2.1m talisman, has landed a contract with Southland rugby, and Matt McGahan, whose father is former Kiwi Hugh, will be joining the ARL's Melbourne Storm on a three-year deal. For this new generation, reared on a diet of self-sufficiency and financial pragmatism, the "pathway" could lead anywhere.

Honours board

MAGS All Blacks

* Victor Butler, 1928, 1 match
* Ronald Bush, 1931, 1 test
* Dave Solomon, 1935-36, 8 matches
* Mick Bremner, 1952-56, 2 tests
* Rod Heeps, 1962, 5 tests
* Ron Urlich, 1970-73, 2 tests, 33 matches
* Bryan Williams, 1970-78, 38 tests
* Mark Brooke-Cowden, 1986-87, 3 tests
* Joe Stanley, 1986-91, 27 tests
* Matthew Ridge, 1989, 6 matches
* Olo Brown, 1990-98, 56 tests
* Andrew Blowers, 1996-99, 11 tests
* Sonny Bill Williams, 2010, 4 tests

* Adrian Hyland is a freelance writer who divides his time between Britain and his native New Zealand.