Jerome Kaino with baby Milan in 2009. Photo / Supplied
Jerome Kaino with baby Milan in 2009. Photo / Supplied
In the second of three exclusive extracts from his new autobiography, Jerome Kaino talks about the drinking that led to a drink-driving conviction, the players who offered him support and the birth of his daughter and how it changed his life. Jerome Kaino: My Story, written with Herald sports reporter Patrick McKendry, is on sale now.
I look at the clock. It's just before 9am. The All Blacks are staying at the Heritage as usual, doing a week of promotional stuff ahead of travelling to Wellington to start preparing for the Tri-Nations test against the Springboks. The weekend just gone, I had sat in the stands and watched the boys play England. I hadn't been named in the match-day squad, for reasons that weren't entirely clear to me at the time. I could have stayed with my folks in South Auckland, but I'd decided to stay at the hotel with the boys. Devonport wasn't home any more. Di and I had split up. I wasn't sure I really knew the reasons for that either, or at least I wasn't going to admit to them.
Me and my mates in the ABs did a bit of drinking in that slow week. Drinking was part of the fun of being a top-level footy player. I would never drink before a game, but it was customary to have a few after a game. And soon it was usual to go out and have a few midweek, too. By 2005, I would be going out every Tuesday night, because Wednesday was our day off. I'd probably go out to a bar with a few of the boys and bar-hop from there. I had a few drinking buddies in the Blues, and a lot of young guys from my University club would join us straight after they trained.
We used to start off at a place called Vanilla in Parnell. It was a bar which played pretty good music.
The boys would say, 'It'll be okay, we'll just have a few beers and be home by midnight,' but by eleven o'clock it was packed and just beginning to jump. One of the owners of the bar always used to give us free drinks because we were there so often and I guess we used to draw some of the crowd for him, these flash rugby players out for a good time. It was hard to leave with that combination of free drinks, packed bar and great music. From Vanilla, we would often head to another bar - usually a place called V Bar in Hobson Street which was open until about seven o'clock in the morning. We were usually there at closing.
Jerome Kaino playing for Auckland in an NPC game against Waikato in 2005. Photo / Getty Images
Because I was so fit I felt I could get back up the next day and train and then sleep it off and recover before the next game came around. Looking back, it was already getting out of control by 2006 and 2007 during the Blues and Auckland seasons, but I didn't see anything wrong with it. I thought it was absolutely normal and, of course, I was having a lot of fun doing it. I would get hangovers, but if I had to do something the next day - training, for example - I would guts it out and get through it. If it was a day off, I pretty much spent it in bed. A lot of people would have known I was hungover. Sometimes I would make excuses for stuff I was supposed to do and not turn up at all.
There was no doubt alcohol was affecting my performance as a professional rugby player. I remember turning up to a few trainings at the Blues a bit worse for wear when David Nucifora was coach.
The senior players even called me out on it once or twice. Carlos Spencer and other guys in the Blues' leadership group would sit me down and ask me what I was doing. I was late to a few trainings. I would often get spoken to and get told to pull my finger out. Looked at in a sober light, it probably led to some of my injuries - including that pulled hamstring in 2005. I got dropped a few times. I was still playing consistently but my head wasn't in the right place, and such is the nature of the beast that I didn't see it as clearly as some of those around me. I wasn't doing my talent justice. At the time I was in my own little bubble, thinking what I was doing was normal. I felt the drinking went along with my success and was a perk of being an All Black. I loved the attention I got when I went into town with the boys. It was all part of the package.
Jerome Kaino fronts the media after appearing in the Auckland District Court on drink-driving charges in 2008. Photo / Getty Images
Keven Mealamu was one of my leaders at the Blues who took me aside about my drinking. He is one of the nicest blokes you will ever meet, and when he offers you advice you tend to take it. You want to take it. He is now the main disciplinarian at the All Blacks - not because he is a tough guy necessarily, but because no one wants to disappoint him.
All of these things - the lifeline the All Black management threw me and the support they gave me, the support of the senior players, the shame of my arrest, the court case, the public humiliation and the mortification of my parents, but their love and support and that of my friends and wider family - all helped me turn the corner.
And, of course, there was Di. When she came back from Fiji, apart from demanding a new car, the first thing she told me was to pick up my bottom lip and do what I do. I was, she pointed out, no use to anyone in that state. We had that meeting at her mum's and agreed to make a go of it, of us. It wasn't easy: man, 2008 was a hard, hard year. But I began to get it together. And on 15 February 2009, my beautiful baby daughter Milan was born.
It was a difficult birth. Many women in Di's family have a history of needing to deliver by Caesarean section, including her mum and sister, but she wanted to try to have Milan naturally. A couple of hours into the labour at North Shore Hospital the doctors saw Milan's head was in the wrong position. They said, 'We'll give it another hour; we don't want the baby to be stressed.' After an hour her head still hadn't shifted so a C-section it was. To make matters worse, I was already overdue to fly out with the Blues to play in South Africa. But there she was, my little girl. If ever anyone needed a reason to turn the corner, there she was. And if I ever doubted that all the trouble I'd had these last few months was a blessing in disguise, there she was: the blessing herself.
Jerome Kaino with wife Di. Photo / Supplied
After that, I had no option but to perform against the Boks at the Cake Tin. When they named the team on the Tuesday, Graham Henry pulled me aside and said I was starting at No8. His words were: "You'd better f****** perform this week because I'm giving you a chance." But he had a smile on his face when he said it. I knew he thought I'd bounce back. But I was under pressure, and I had to front, otherwise I could be on the sideline for the rest of the year.
My Story: An event. Jerome Kaino in discussion with Scotty Stevenson, in association with the New Zealand Herald and Paper Plus. Saint Kentigern College, Auckland, August 17. Tickets at eventfinder.co.nz.
