Unusual rugby preparation

Press, 13 August 1986, Page 50

Unusual rugby preparation

When Michael Speight ran on to Athletic Park with the All Blacks for the first rugby test against Australia last Saturday, he would have been the first to admit his preparation had not been devised to have him at perfect pitch. Whether Speight remains in the All Black team to get his second cap at Carisbrook on August 23 will not be known until the selectors confirm their team this week-end, but, irrespective, he has had one of the more unusual buildups to a test match. Only a matter of weeks ago he was basking at Club Med in Corsica, enjoying life to the fullest and doing everything a prospective All Black should not perhaps be doing. His fitness was hot

at a high level. His rugby intentions, when he arrived back to start as a marketing officer for the Northland Harbour Board, were aimed at making the AH Black team to tour France later this year. His return to New Zealand shores was Just before North Auckland engaged the French in midJune and his own playing involvement amounted to three appearances for his province, one of them as a reserve, and a few club matches. Even for North Auckland he was used in the back row, rather than at lock, the position he prefers. So it was understandable his astonishment when he got the nod to replace the big man from Otago, Gordon Macpherson, whose right

ankle injury failed the final fitness test The name of Speight has appeared before in the New Zealand rugby heritage. Michael Speight aged 24, recalled that his great great great-grandfather, C. R. B. Speight appeared in the first official New Zealand team 93 years ago. That side made a 19match tour of Australia. Speight’s initial reaction was that there should be four “greats” in front of his ancestor’s name, but after some mathematical calculations settled on . three. The first recognition for Speight occurred when he was finishing a course in business management at the Waikato University. He was spotted by the well-respected Waikato coach, George

Simpkin, now the Fijian national director of coaching, and it was from then that the career of the rangy, raw recruit took the upward slope. Speight spent three seasons with Waikato, and the AH Black and Canterbury lock, Albert Anderson, will testify to his line-out ability after being overshadowed by Speight in last year’s provincial match in Hamilton, before spending a season with a noted French team, Biarritz. There he became one of rugby’s gentlemen. That, for the laid-back Speight, meant playing golf, tennis, doing a lot of socialising and playing a bit of rugby. While enjoying the joie de vivre of French life, he found it difficult to

fallow the format of their competition, but he slogged away fori nearly seven months before setting off for his holiday in Corsica. There was no sun, nor was he Imbued with too much joie de vivre, when he packed down'with another new lock, Brent Anderson, against the WaUabies’ scrum last Saturday afternoon. The weather was foul, the Australian pack unyielding, but Speight did his Job well, . especially in helping New Zealand to an unexpected advantage from the line-outs. It was understandable that his legs were getting decidedly wobbly near the end of a hard-fought match played at a solid pace.

BOB SCHUMACHER