Coach builds success on Ngati Porou pride

CHRIS RATTUE visits Ruatoria, where the country's smallest union is living out a rugby fairytale.

When Joe McClutchie became the East Coast coach in 1998, he gathered his squad and talked about the past.

This wasn't a rugby lesson as such. Instead, it was the Ngati Porou people whom McClutchie spoke about.

Some of the players knew the history, but body language showed McClutchie that others did not.

The history of the East Coast tribe - the intertwining of families and their stories - was the base of former Navy man McClutchie's strategy.

He had tried as coach before, but was dropped in 1993 after one season. Now he had a second chance, with chairman Bill Burdett and manager Anthony Nelson - the current chief executive - also believing that East Coast could succeed their way.

Without that determined trio the union may have disappeared, because two influential board members had demanded amalgamation with Poverty Bay in 1998.

A board meeting two weeks before the NPC season became so heated that Burdett feared violence.

But when he openly polled each member, East Coast rugby survived, by 10 votes to two.

"It's like land," Nelson says. "You never give land away. Once you do, you lose it forever."

So Ngati Porou East Coast was up and running. And three years on, they are a sporting fairytale.

Their base, Ruatoria, is a half-street town once infamous for unrest involving Rastafarians, but now famous for the sort of beating-the-odds sports yarn that scriptwriters dream about.

Put it this way. The culinary scene gets going in Ruatoria only when the Kai Kart opens for a few hours at night.

Yet from this tiny base, a union with only 6000 inhabitants to call on believes anything is possible.

Now, the country's smallest union - its 500 players put it on a par with Ponsonby and 300 adrift of Auckland's biggest club, Pakuranga - is second behind Hawkes Bay in division two.

After surprising most by winning division three in consecutive years, they are hunting the second division title, having won five straight games after a narrow loss to Hawkes Bay.

A win over Nelson Bays at Whakarua Park in Ruatoria today might secure a home semifinal with a round remaining.

It would also raise the prospect of East Coast being the division winners who go into a promotion- relegation game with a first division side.

But they are ineligible for division one status because of NZRFU financial and stadium requirements.

Whakarua Park's covered seating of 250 is a little short of the 6000 standard.

And East Coast's annual budget of $500,000 (up $300,000 on 1998) is barely an All Black's salary.

Still, the dream will live on.

"The rugby team is all we talk about," says Aroha Parata, proprietor of the Ruatoria Hotel. "They've lifted the spirits of all Ngati Porou, not just those living on the East Coast.

"We were talking the other night and by the end East Coast had won the Ranfurly Shield and Joe Mac was the next All Blacks coach."

So what is the East Coast secret?

Before 1998, East Coast recruited players without links to the area.

But McClutchie wanted to use the passion of Ngati Porou players, such as captain Wirihana Raihania.

Raihania, from Tokomaru Bay, was to join Poverty Bay when he was 19, but instead took a detour through Wellington nightlife.

He made a Wellington Colts team and played for Wests premiers, but was dropped and drifting.

McClutchie left a note at Raihania's flat, inviting him to return home. Raihania didn't hesitate.

"East Coast rugby could always do this," says Raihania, who is among players who live in Hastings.

"They just needed a few ingredients like fitness.

"It has a lot to do with almost all the guys being related.

"When blood comes into it, it is different. Just look at the Italians and the Mob.

"When you see your auntie shouting for you, or look over and see your grandfather ... "

Others have answered the call, such as their only Super 12-experienced player, inspirational 36-year-old prop Orcades Crawford, who plays overseas.

And there are "connections," as the Italians might say.

Fijian lock Kele Leawere and outside back Jason Bright, the side's only Pakeha, have Ngati Porou partners. That leaves Mano Flutey and Willie Collins from Wellington as the "unconnected."

Success and family ties are revealed in many ways. The barely 300-strong home crowds have exploded to 2500.

Weddings, birthdays and even funerals are interrupted to attend matches.

It is hardly New Zealand's richest area. Yet before last year's third division final against North Otago in Oamaru, a 66-seat charter plane trip costing $425 a ticket had a paid-up waiting list.

About 5000 greeted the triumphant team at Gisborne Airport, and the celebrations at the Ruatoria pub went on for a week, apparently a mere whiff of a party compared to the year before.

Yet this is a team who succeed by ignoring trends, although the NZRFU's $150,000 grant and brewery money (through two Auckland bars) are vital.

There is only one full weekly training and McClutchie doesn't do video analysis.

Gymnasium work is not encouraged. Pig hunting, farm work and general life provide strength to be honed by skills and fitness drills, although McClutchie suspects his Wellington-based players do push the odd barbell.

There might be 30 practice scrums and lineouts a week, and 10 minutes of back moves.

McClutchie, who did some coaching courses years ago, admits he holds pre-season whiteboard sessions. But paramount is the protection and encouragement of instinct and flair.

The players are on $100 a game - money is decried as a motivation, although it is naive to think the subject is never raised.

And their accommodation often involves mattresses at marae and rugby clubs.

Alarmingly, for those obsessed with coaching courses, weightlifting and sports shrinks, this all seems to be working amazingly well.

Good spirits and the pride of Ngati Porou are never far from the surface. Before each match, there is a short prayer and a haka, and McClutchie sometimes draws on heritage in the pre-match minutes.

Among the people he talks about is Victoria Cross winner Moana Ngarimu, killed in Tunisia during the Second World War.

Ngarimu would surely be proud of his team.