Gear reborn on a wing and a prayer

The moment Rico Gear (centre) will never forget. Morgan Turinui is just a second away from stripping the ball out of Gear’s hand and ruining a certain try. Picture / Fotopress

This season Rico Gear had ideas about playing centre but when Crusaders team-mate Casey Laulala was injured for the Super 12 playoffs, Gear prayed he would stay on the wing.

Gear's shift to the Crusaders has been another of the franchise's success stories, another galling sight for the Blues who watched similar advances from discards such as Ron Cribb and Mose Tuiali'i.

After talks with Blues officials, Gear felt he had little chance at centre in this season's Super 12 while the rivalry to play on the wing would be fierce.

He thought about the Chiefs or Hurricanes but settled on the Crusaders as a target and on Saturday collected a winner's tankard after the 35-25 victory against the Waratahs.

"It has been the right decision to come down here," he said. "I have had some really good coaching and for me to battle with Joe [Rokocoko] or Doug [Howlett] for wing at the Blues was silly.

"They are the best and to try and get past them would have been too tough."

Gear admitted he hankered to play centre this season but when he looked at his best chances of cracking the All Blacks again he figured wing was the best position for him to concentrate on.

In some ways Gear's shift south can be compared with team-mate Caleb Ralph who left the Blues when he could not crack his preferred centre berth.

But Ralph has spent most of his career on the wing for the Crusaders and this season passed the 50-try mark in Super 12 while Gear has scored 15 tries to match Joe Roff's season high.

"When Casey [Laulala] was hurt I was very worried I would have to go into centre," Gear said.

"I was keen to stay where I was and eventually they decided Caleb would switch."

Gear fielded pre-match taunts from his opposite Lote Tuqiri that he had not been tested this year.

"Lote started off saying a bit to others but he quickly quietened down," Gear said. "Marshy [Justin Marshall] was getting into them a couple of times saying this was going to be easy because they were kicking it to us and not testing us.

"I think they wanted us to make mistakes but we showed composure."

Certainly more than Tuqiri, who was cited in the match for a dangerous tackle and whose thoughts may have been on his partner's late stages of pregnancy in Sydney.

The Waratahs' lack of ambition on attack surprised Gear.

"We thought they would attack us down the outside channels which they have done in recent weeks but they kicked a lot of ball away."

One of those kicks reached Gear in the 13th minute and his swerving return run and superb left-foot grubber kick gave Scott Hamilton the Crusaders' first try of the final.

The 27-year-old wing should have scored a record 16th try in the second half when he toed a loose ball past Mat Rogers and regathered for the run to the line. Just as he was about to cross the chalk, Gear had the ball slapped from his grasp by Morgan Turunui.

"The try that I blew," he laughed. "I tried to open up and I did not think anybody would get there but somehow he got a hand in. I was disappointed because I take a lot of pride in being a finisher."

Gear heads off on NZ Maori duty in Fiji then against the Lions in matches which may make the difference in the race with Howlett, Rokocoko and Sitiveni Sivivatu for places in the All Black squad.