Berryman says au revoir France and bonjour Canada

By CLAIRE TREVETT

Norm Berryman, Northland's favourite rugby son, has a new job, two good-as-new knees, and a baby due some time next month.

The cherry on top was the news that he would be leaving to play with the New Zealand Maori side in Canada next week.

"I'm pretty over the moon. I was hoping to get back in, but didn't think it would be this soon."

In May Berryman returned from a three-year stint in France, playing for Castres and then Bourgoin in the European club competition.

He was selected for New Zealand Maori after proving his fitness at the Northland squad's pre-NPC training camp last week.

He was hoping his injury woes would be over - the knees that gave him so much pain throughout his career were operated on last year.

He played for New Zealand Maori in 2000, just before he left for France. He was also in the team in 1999.

"That's the best team you can play for. Nobody's getting on your case, there's no pressure to do things differently and if there are problems, people tell you before it starts escalating."

It was, to use a Berryman neologism, "fantastible".

Also fantastible was a new job as a tutor with the Manawa Sports and Training Academy, helping to get young people into sports-related careers.

Berryman and his family left France two months before his contract with Bourgoin ran out, a move hastened by his wife's pregnancy and his own homesickness "for Mum".

But he liked France for the opportunities it gave his children, 8-year-old twin daughters and a 6-year-old son.

It was different for him. "Those baguettes were yuck. You can only eat so many of them. The snails and frogs' legs just weren't doing it."

Berryman shot to prominence in the Super 12 after the Crusaders picked him up as a draft choice in 1998. Jade Stadium crowds were quick to adopt him as one of their own - the speed, the hair, the grin wider than the goalposts he'd just gone under.

He thanks that popularity for his All Black selection that year, although he got only 16 minutes of test time, against the Springboks.

He left for France in the middle of the NPC in 2000, after criticising then All Black coach John Hart.

He doesn't regret what he said.

"It was going to build up to something worse if I'd held it in. I didn't think I'd ever make the All Blacks anyway. I think he only picked me out because the crowd were yelling so much."

The Maori side leave on Wednesday. They play Canada on July 26 in Calgary, the Rugby Canada All Stars in Ottawa on July 30 and Canada again on August 2 in Toronto.