Rugby: Auckland fitness guru returns

By Wynne Gray

Fitness expert Jim Blair is back working with Auckland rugby.

The deal was done yesterday and Blair, the Scot who revolutionised training schemes with Auckland, Canterbury and the All Blacks in his rugby portfolio, will supervise Auckland's NPC programme this season.

Blair left New Zealand in 1997 for a new job with the Bath rugby club in England, a move made to dovetail with some necessary care for elderly relations.

But with the family obligations sorted and Blair increasingly concerned about the financial fragility of the English rugby scene, he returned to New Zealand a few weeks ago.

It was a move which had a gilt-edged fortune yesterday when he accepted the NPC position.

Blair returned to set up a corporate gym in Albany with his son, and while he wanted to get back into rugby, he did not know where or how.

His timing, like his renowned drills sessions, was impeccable.

As Auckland cast about for new coaching staff for the NPC, Blair was approached soon after his return.

"It has made a double dream coming home," Blair said.

"It was logical for someone turning 65 in November to wonder who would want such a person.

"I thought it would be nice to work for Auckland, and then to be asked has made me feel 10 feet tall."

Blair will work alongside new coach Wayne Pivac, a relationship which began back in 1981 when Blair, then a lecturer at North Shore Teachers College, helped to coach the Northcote rugby side where Pivac was playing in the loose forwards.

Two years later, Blair started work with Auckland under John Hart, then the Maurice Trapp-Bryan Williams partnership and finally Graham Henry until he left in 1997.

His work included honing the All Blacks for their 1987 and 1991 World Cup campaigns, America's and Admiral's Cup yachting , the New Zealand cricket team, the national men's and women's hockey sides, and the Auckland cricket squad.

Blair and Pivac met yesterday to sort out some ideas so the fitness expert could arrange programmes to complement the game-plan the new coach wanted.

Fitness assessments will be next and then the NPC.