Newstalk ZB's D'Arcy Waldegrave and the NZ Herald's Bonnie Jansen get together to preview a packed weekend of sport. Video / NZ Herald
Griffin Neame will provide impact from the bench when the Kiwis take on the Kangaroos in the final of the Pacific Championships in Hamilton tomorrow. He speaks to Michael Burgess about his unique road to the top.
When Griffin Neame was a teenager, he would have a six-hour round tripjust to play his chosen sport.
Neame would face a 250km drive to get to the game, then hop back in his dad’s car for the trek home after the match.
For most Kiwis, the scenic alpine drive from Greymouth to Christchurch is a rite of passage, a trip to be savoured at least once in your life. For this West Coast product, it became a test of endurance as he made the same journey every Monday for the entire season.
Neame, who will play his third test for the Kiwis tomorrow in the Pacific Championships final in Hamilton against the Kangaroos, has taken the long road to success. Every player who represents their country has tales of persistence, endeavour and perseverance, but few can match the sacrifices made by Neame.
When he was 16, the local age group competition in Greymouth folded.
“It was pretty hard,” Neame tells the Herald. “There was nothing, nowhere to play. It had slowly died away. There was only one team that would play a game every now and again against each other.”
Neame was in limbo but he was never going to give up. He had long dreamed of being a professional footballer, so had to find a way. But it was far from easy, with the “endless drives” to turn out for Halswell Hornets in the Christchurch competition.
“You get sick of looking at the same stuff – three hours is a long drive,” says Neame. “And then to drive three hours (back) after you have played; I just had to make sure I was doing the best I could and making the most of every game I played. I couldn’t go all that way to play an ordinary game, and Dad was pretty good. He would try to give me some tips - we had three hours to talk about stuff.”
As an added complication, the club matches were played on Monday evenings. Neame would leave school just after lunch, while his father would finish work early. Being sedentary for that long was far from ideal preparation.
“I’d have to get there a bit earlier and walk around, just to loosen the legs up,” says Neame. “I wouldn’t say you got used to it, but it got easier.”
Kickoff was at 6pm or 7pm – “it was cold and muddy, under lights, pretty tough” – which meant a return to Greymouth at 11pm, before getting ready for school the next day. Neame did his own training and strength work during the week, and his team would run him through the plays in the changing room before the match.
There were considerable sacrifices but Neame was willing to pay the price. He had been league-mad since he was a young boy, watching his father Chris turn out for the West Coast and South Island representative teams.
“Greymouth is a small town – there’s not too much else to do apart from play sport,” laughs Neame. “We would play league in the clubrooms from when I was a little fella.”
After being spotted at a regional game against Auckland, Neame was picked up by the Cowboys as a 15-year-old. That meant coming to Auckland once a year for camps before he shifted to Townsville in 2019.
Neame (in white) made his debut in the 50-0 win against Samoa. Photo credit: Alan Lee / www.photosport.nz
The Covid-19 pandemic interrupted his progress through the lower grades, but he eventually made his NRL debut in August 2021, then became a regular for the Cowboys last year as they reached the preliminary final (23 matches).
Neame’s presence in the black and white V continues a strong tradition. In the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, the West Coast was a heartland of the sport, producing many famous names like George Menzies, Jock Butterfield, Bill McLennan, Frank Mulcare and Tony Coll. More recent representatives have included Quentin Pongia, Brent Stuart and Whetu Taewa, though the demise of mining and other industries has affected the pipeline.
“Coming from Greymouth, you hear about all the Kiwis who used to be from there, though there is not much league down there at the moment,” says Neame. “It’s special to be in the Kiwis, especially to be in the same team as some of the names here.”
The 22-year-old made his debut in the 50-0 win over Samoa, before a second-half stint in Melbourne last weekend. Saturday’s match will be extra special, with his parents and grandparents making the trip north for the game while the rest of his family “will be glued to the screen”.
The game will be a unique occasion: just the third trans-Tasman clash in this country in a decade.
As always, the Kangaroos will be favoured – especially with their 36-18 win last Saturday and a deeper squad – but the Kiwis have a proven ability to upset on home soil, as they did in Wellington in 2014 and Auckland in 2018.
Michael Burgess has been a sports journalist since 2005, winning several national awards and covering the Olympics, Fifa World Cups and America’s Cup campaigns. He has also reported on the Warriors and NRL for more than a decade.
