I remember very clearly the day my phone rang in the Greymouth Star offices in 2007 with the new media manager of the Canterbury Crusaders on the other end.
As a former member of the Fourth Estate himself, this keen official explained the Crusaders wanted to have a better connect with their supporters in the franchise's wider provinces, so would I be interested in ghost-writing a weekly column with former West Coaster Tim Bateman.
After leaving Greymouth, the 19-year-old Bateman had emerged well polished from the industrious Christchurch Boys' High School as yet another promising playmaker, following in the footsteps of Andrew Mehrtens, Daniel Carter, Stephen Brett (whose presence saw Bateman convert from first-five to midfield), and in later years his current Hurricanes team mate Marty Banks.
For the next three months, with the exception of one week where a night out with the lads in South Africa was a little more important than a ringing phone (which he sheepishly called back and apologised for when home in Christchurch), Bateman and I talked every week about how the boy from Blaketown was finding life inside the strongest professional club in world rugby at that time.
What became clear to me in our conversations, which covered everything from Auckland vs Canterbury rivalries through to what novels giant lock Chris Jack liked to read on the team bus, was that Bateman was 19 going on 40.
