All Black Colin Slade during an open training session held at the Trusts Stadium before heading the the Rugby World Cup in the UK. 9 September 2015 New Zealand Herald Photograph by Dean Purcell.
All Black Colin Slade during an open training session held at the Trusts Stadium before heading the the Rugby World Cup in the UK. 9 September 2015 New Zealand Herald Photograph by Dean Purcell.
He’s overcome the worst fate can throw at him and now he’s ready for the Cup. Gregor Paul tells of one All Black’s courage and determination to get back to the top.
If there's ever a nuclear war, chances are Colin Slade will survive it. He'd hardly welcome the comparison, but he'd at least appreciate the sentiment - that he's got the resilience of a cockroach.
He is a World Cup winner, but that's not his proudest achievement. What stokes his fire is the courage and tenacity he showed to rekindle a career that endured two broken jaws, a hernia and a broken leg within 16 months.
When he broke his leg - playing for the Highlanders - he had to wonder if he was being punished for sins committed in a former life. He was out for a year with a metal rod fitted between his ankle and knee to stabilise a limb that was in bad shape.
There will be plenty of stand-up blokes claiming they always had faith Sladey would make it back, but that's revisionist stuff. The truth is that as Slade was stretchered off in Canberra in early 2012, oxygen mask clapped over his face and a shot of morphine doing what it could to dull the pain, no one in New Zealand believed he'd ever be back in black.
And probably even Slade had similar thoughts, albeit only fleetingly.
"At some point I made the decision that I wanted to set the challenge for myself and get back [to the All Blacks]," he said.
"I wanted to play my best rugby after all that mayhem ... I could have used it as an excuse for never reaching my potential. I could have said I was injured and blame it on that and gone overseas.
"But I made a stand - a promise to myself that I wanted to come back stronger - and I think I have achieved that. It forced me to build my character and it has given me the backbone I will need for the rest of my life."
Strength of character is the big reason he made the final World Cup squad of 31. Over the next seven weeks, good players will wilt and ultimately fail to play the rugby they wanted to play.
That's what World Cups do - they put the fiercest mental squeeze on everyone, and the one consistent quality every winning side shares is extreme mental fortitude that garners its collective effectiveness from the individual parts.
All Black first five Colin Slade during the All Black gym session. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Slade adds plenty to the All Black machine - in a squad that is loaded with veteran war horses, he stands among them as an equal, as a player whose resilience is as impressive to his peers as it is to everyone else.
It's not just that he made it back from adversity that impresses - it's the fearless way he continues to throw himself about. It's the selfless way he accepts any role - from playing on the wing to having to nail a last-minute conversion to beat the Wallabies last year.
Sladey - as he's universally known - is willing to have a crack at anything and he knows why he's fought so hard to be like that; to win back his place in the All Blacks.
"I suppose I didn't want to have that reputation of being that guy who always got injured," he said.
"I still cop a bit of stick for getting injured which pisses me off. People sort of hold it against you. It's not like I was trying to get injured.
"It gave me a lot of desire to prove people wrong. I am stubborn like that - I want to prove people wrong."
Slade takes a selfie with students during the All Black To The Nation visit to Mataura school. Photo / Getty
He suggests, without quite being explicit, that at the last World Cup the people he had to prove wrong were his teammates. He was Daniel Carter's understudy in 2011, but there was always a sense he had reached that position not by playing out of his skin and proving he was ready, but because he appeared to be the best available option and the All Blacks had to have an insurance policy.
When the unthinkable happened and Carter was ruled out, Slade didn't lack confidence in himself, but four years on, he suggests his teammates didn't share his conviction. He can see that now, and he can say that now, because it's all so different.
"I am better prepared, but more importantly I think everyone else is better prepared as well.
"We went maybe 10 years where Dan was pretty much the only first-five we had and all of a sudden he was gone and everyone panicked. Over the last few years we have had a lot of injuries among the first-fives.
"Guys have come in and come out and everyone is comfortable - all the first-fives are comfortable with the role and then I think the team is comfortable with all those first-fives. That's key. We all want Dan to be healthy and to go through, but for whatever reason, if something happened we have shown different guys can step up."
One of those guys who has stepped up is Slade. He's fulfilled his ambition of playing his best rugby post-injuries. His strength of character has enabled him to show a range of skills and attributes that weren't necessarily obvious in 2011.
These days no one will be nervous seeing Slade take the field, and he won't be there only because disaster has struck. He'll be there on merit.
