Brooke a top graduate of scrum of hard knocks

By WYNNE GRAY

Robin Brooke copped a few punches in his first game for Auckland.

That sort of punishment was regular treatment back in 1987 when the judiciary had not swamped the game and old foes Auckland and Queensland were doing battle in a South Pacific contest at Eden Park.

On that occasion, though, Auckland loosehead prop Steve McDowell was the one whacking Brooke in his debut game for the blue and whites.

The 34-year-old Brooke laughs as he recalls the first of his 112 games for his province, a huge provincial career that will end tomorrow at Eden Park against Counties Manukau unless Auckland make the Air New Zealand-sponsored NPC playoffs.

"Normally I played as a right lock and had learned to push more with my right shoulder," he says.

"But Gary Whetton was the senior man and played that side, so I had to swap and push behind McDowell. But I still pushed more with my right shoulder and that upset the balance of the scrum, which was not too good against blokes they had such as hooker Tommy Lawton.

"Suddenly in a scrum McDowell just grabbed a handful of my hair and smacked me a few times and demanded I [expletives deleted] push with my other shoulder."

While Brooke is happy running through his sporting memories, he does not need reassurance from those times to contemplate life ahead. His house contains no framed jerseys or pictorial evidence of an impressive rugby life.

"I know and my family know what I did and that's enough," he says. "The stuff is all away in a box somewhere."

It should be a large container for a man who was a huge part of the All Black tight five in 62 tests, a player who coped with the amateur and professional days in the toughest domain of test rugby.

His focus now is on working in the supermarket trade for Foodstuffs, a career he contemplated last year when it seemed he was being siphoned from the Auckland ranks.

He returned with some venom and captained the Blues in the Super 12 this season, but the comebacks are over.

No more curtain calls; no more rugby.

From his debut year in 1987, a season when elder brother Zinzan played in the first World Cup and present Auckland loosehead Paul Thomson was ballboy in the final, Brooke waited five years for his test call-up.

He was in Italy with Zinzan playing a bit of footy when new All Black coach Laurie Mains rang.

Zinzan answered the call, but Mains asked to speak to Robin.

"He wanted me home to play in the trials, and it started from there."

Brooke reckons his toughest opponent during his career was former Wallaby Garrick Morgan.

"I had the most trouble with him before he went to league. He was an enormous man - he had bulk and skill.

"I did not have to deal too much with John Eales during my time.

"The others who were tough were Mark Andrews and Martin Johnson."

With lineouts now becoming much more competitive, Brooke says the big men have to return. He agrees that his height (1.96m, or 6ft 5in) and size would make him a marginal lock these days.

Were he an All Black selector for the upcoming trip, he would choose Chris Jack, Norm Maxwell, Dion Waller and, with a view to the future, young Aucklander Ali Williams as his four locks.

He would also contemplate Vula Maimuri as a utility lock/loose forward.

"I reckon we could also do worse than go and offer some of those New Zealand basketballers contracts to turn to rugby," Brooke says.

He accepts that Auckland's NPC standards have dipped, which should not be the case in a city with its rugby reserves.

Brooke does not enjoy the game as much as he did because referees have too much influence and there are too many inconsistencies in rulings, he says.

"At the moment the game is not about set piece so much as it is about contesting broken play and field position. The rules have forced it to be that way.

"If we made it open slather again with rucking, except for attacking the head or groin, that would solve 90 per cent of the problems."