Once a forgotten man, Elliot fights to rekindle dream

Hika Elliot will celebrate his 100th Super Rugby cap this weekend. Photo / Getty Images

If Neil Sedaka thought breaking up was hard to do, he should have given making up a go. Breaking up is the easy part in professional rugby. And no one knows that better than Hika Elliot, the erstwhile Chiefs hooker who this weekend will celebrate his 100th Super Rugby cap in the qualifying final against the Highlanders.

He's been there, done that, old Hikawera, the Hastings boy who captained his New Zealand schools side and who also played for the world champion New Zealand under-19 team in 2004. He made his debut for the Hurricanes as a 22-year old in 2008, and his All Black debut against Munster in 2008. He's played three tests, too, but there were plenty of months in between and the last one came in 2012.

In many ways, as his career progressed and his name became a household word, he remained a man apart. There was something about Elliot that seemed eternally combustible, as if he should have come with a danger sign slung around his neck and a list of precautions regarding his use. There were stories about him; teammates talked about him in hushed tones, as if to utter his name was to invite the kind of trouble they didn't need.

He admits today that he made some mistakes when it came to the way he acted in a team environment, but, really, that's like us admitting that we all made some mistakes when we were growing up. Most of us get to do that in private. Hika, like so many other professional players, has had to do his growing up in the public eye. Mistakes are magnified when you're standing in the spotlight. They're even less tolerable when you are standing just to the side of it, as Hika did during his stop-start international career.

He thought - we all thought - he was done when he stumbled off the field against Canada during the New Zealand Maori tour of 2013. He would need neck surgery on a bulging disc. He said then that he could feel his body giving way. He said his brain would be saying something and his legs wouldn't listen. The doctors fused things together, grafting part of his hip to the top of his spine, and probably told him to find a new career.

Of course he didn't. Instead, he found a road back. The forgotten man wandered into the equally forgotten Poverty Bay last year and rekindled his love for the game in the Heartland competition. He says it made him realise how much he had taken for granted. His teammates all had jobs outside the game, and turned up for the love of it. He found his family again, he redoubled his efforts with his partner, and his daughter Willa. He says she was his saviour. He says she is his greatest achievement.

Dave Rennie came calling at the end of last year. Elliot's road to redemption would take him from Poverty Bay back to Hamilton, back to the Chiefs with their mana and their focus on character and their two Super Rugby titles and their thirst for a third. Rennie wanted to know if Elliot was ready to prove his worth. Elliot was keen to show him just how ready he was.

He's taken more hit-ups this season than any other New Zealand hooker, and thrown his darts more effectively than most - certainly more effectively than any Chiefs hooker last season. He's celebrated every big forward play with gusto - hell, he pumped his fist so high after the one particularly dominant scrum against the Highlanders that he could have punched another hole in the ozone.

Last week, he was presented with the Chiefs Mana Kotiate Award by skipper Liam Messam. The award is voted for by the entire organisation and goes to the person who has given the most. Prove his worth? You could say that.

And now he wants something in return: a second - maybe a third - chance to rekindle his All Black dream. There is plenty of water flowing beneath that burned bridge, but for a man who, against all odds, will this week bring up his 100th cap, maybe the rebuilding of that bridge has already begun.

Maybe, this time, making up won't be so hard to do.