Plenty to nil as Heartland boys leave for Argentina

All Blacks centre Luke McAlister gets his pass away in the tackle of Heartland's Faaitu Tuamoheloa yesterday. Picture / Brett Phibbs

Prop Dylan Higgison is as beefy as a winter stew, with a bristling goatee to boot. It was the Wairarapa dairy farmer's secret weapon to grind away at other faces in the scrum.

He was one of the Heartland team boys - big boys with nicknames like "T-Bone" and with real jobs like farming. In fact they hark back to the days when a Colin Meads workout consisted of banging in fence posts..

On their second day together, the second and third division provincial players took to the field against the All Blacks in a warm-up for their three-match tour of Argentina.

The truncated game at the Trusts Stadium in Henderson also fitted into the ABs' three-day training camp for their tour of Britain and France.

The earpieces of Heartland managers and support staff were attached by sticky tape.

"It's about function," Heartland physio Jon Warren said. "We are not about good looks. You've got to go to the other team for that. None of ours went on with hair gel either."

It started ominously when all the photographers - keen to get photos of a try being scored - deposited themselves at just one end of the park. The tries came thick and fast but only for one side.

The rallying cries of the Heartland team began as "in their face, boys" but nobody pointed out how difficult it was to get in someone's face when all you can see is their back scooting away to the try-line.

However things didn't all go the All Blacks way. First blood came just before the half-time whistle when Joe Rokocoko managed to get the ball down but came up with a crunched honker. But at half-time several Heartland players sporting ice packs.

Higgison was facing off against Tony Woodcock whom he'd met when Wairarapa Bush played in a Ranfurly Shield challenge.

After the game, he thought the All Blacks might have been holding back in the scrum. "But it was a good learning curve.

"We have to get up in the morning and go to work and then fit in the gym and training. The All Blacks' job is to get up in the morning and go to the gym and do training."

The team took heart from the game. In the post-match huddle, the coach told them it was "a bloody good effort. Some bloody good stuff." But also: "A lot of things to learn from."

As for the final score, nobody was quite sure. Everybody lost count after the All Blacks' first 15 tries. So it was plenty to nil.

When all else fails, leave the country. So the Heartland team did just that, getting on the plane to Argentina yesterday afternoon, for their first game on November 1. They will play matches against provincial side Salat, the 2005 Division A champions Tucuman and Argentina A.