Ireland tour of New Zealand: Byron Kelleher is feisty and confident, as befits a scrumhalf with Cork roots, writes Gerry Thornley
Ask Byron Kelleher when he first dreamt of becoming an All Black and he tells you it was the first day he picked up a rugby ball. Initially more drawn to soccer and judo, he was invited by a friend along to a rugby game at Southern Rugby Football Club one Saturday morning in the winter of 1984. He was seven years old, yet he can remember the day as vividly as his All Blacks debut 15 years later. It is a classic Kiwi tale.
"It was a cold, frosty morning, like Dunedin is down there. Ice on the ground, no boots, running around in bare feet, but it was an awesome feeling to be able to get into the sport. I took to the sport basically within minutes of running around the field."
The All Blacks' immediate status as idols in young Kelleher's mind was reinforced when his heroes played a Test match in Dunedin that same winter. Like thousands of others, he procured autographs from David Kirk, Michael Jones, Eroni Clarke and more.
Originally he was a prop and briefly played flanker before settling as a "halfback" at the age of 13. He'd found his place, and loves the broad range of skills and influence entailed in playing such a pivotal position.
An innately energetic, feisty and confrontational player - which he believes all scrumhalves have to be - he began to make strides as soon as he conquered his discipline.
As a 13-year-old, he wasn't bothered that classmates laughed when it was his turn to reveal his ambition. And he repeated it two years later in the same scenario, and to similar mirth.
Not surprisingly, given his demeanour on the pitch, he admits to being self-confident, and aside from the All Blacks culture, you wonder where this derives from. Interestingly, whereas Isaac Boss's Irish lineage can be traced to a maternal grandmother, Kelleher's father, Kurt, hails from Cork.
"He grew up there until he was 17, did a degree in university, but his parents passed away quite early, so he was pretty much on his own and decided to come on the ships to New Zealand, and met my mother, a Kiwi bird, so that lassoed him and brought him to this part of the world," explains Kelleher smiling.
His father regularly embellished pictures from his youth with tales of the old sod and his desire to return there to live for a while. He's served in the Dunedin fire brigade for 30 years and along with Kelleher's mother, Carol, has always been hugely supportive of their son's rugby career.
"He believes that's what Irish culture is like - pretty family-orientated people, pretty passionate as well, and fiery - and loves a few pints or two of Guinness. Also the work he's done in the fire brigade has actually contributed to my career because he's worked in a team environment and I've applied it to some of my rugby."
Kelleher loves his treks to Ireland, even if the compact itineraries haven't as yet given him the time to find the county of his roots, "but Cork is definitely on my visiting list".
Indeed, his elder brother Toby travelled with his Irish passport to complete a physiotherapy degree in Ireland, since when he's moved on to Bucharest.
"It's a bit like ying and yang," laughs Kelleher. "He had a crack at rugby, but his long hair and his winklepicker boots didn't really suit the image. He's an older brother so he used to throw me around a bit when I was little. I hated those days as a younger brother."
All part of the toughening up process though.
The nomadic genes were clearly passed on, and Kelleher's rationale for moving from his native Otago, the southernmost province in the South Island, to relatively unfashionable Waikato and his home ground on Saturday underlines his desire for self-improvement.
"I was getting a bit stale at Otago and I realised that I needed something to get out of a rut. Basically the decision that I made was to make sure that I went to a team that was struggling a little bit because it would challenge all aspects of my game, and I could develop it, and if I really grasped it I could become a leader, and being a leader I could grow."
It was, he reckons, the makings of him as an All Blacks scrumhalf and as an All Blacks leader, even if he'd already made his debut against Samoa as a replacement in Albany, seven years ago this month.
"Looking around the changing room and looking at the players in there, I remember thinking, 'I've idolised these guys for years and now I'm sitting here with them.' And that really hit home. It probably wasn't until I actually pulled the black jersey on that I thought, 'Man, this is my opportunity to be part of something great,' not just individually, but historically as well. So that's something I treasure and always will remember, and every time I'm named in the All Blacks I never take it for granted. It's the same feeling of rejoicing, and living that memory basically."
On Saturday he plays his 40th Test; 20 of them have been as a replacement, most often to Justin Marshall. Despite Kelleher appearing to have the quicker distribution and as much of a break, Marshall perhaps benefited from having more All Blacks experience and playing with the all-conquering Canterbury Crusaders. In any event, the impression has never been of bosom buddies.
"It was probably a bit confrontational at times," he admits with a smile, "but that's the nature of halfbacks. But at the end of the day I have always been a team man for the All Blacks, I've always wanted to put the team first.
"Even if I was sitting on the bench - yeah, sure, individually I'd rather be out there playing - I'd like to live and die for the All Blacks jersey. It means everything to me. It's given me everything in my life and I'm really appreciative of it. Therefore I try to put the team first, and if I'm not on the pitch, I'm going to support the person who is."
He started the second and third Tests against the Lions, and with Marshall off to Leeds, it seemed Kelleher's time had come. Unluckily, he suffered concussion in the first Tri-Nations game and had to watch Piri Weepu grab the number nine jersey. Nonetheless, Kelleher played a starring role in the Grand Slam tour and, like all active All Blacks, has his sights on the World Cup next year.
An abiding image of the 2003 World Cup is of the camera clearly picking up George Gregan sledging Kelleher toward the end of the Wallabies' semi-final win with the reminder that he and his All Blacks team-mates would have to wait another four years.
Water off a duck's back, he maintains, but for all their successes in recent years, and especially an all-conquering 2005, Kelleher admits: "The holy grail is the World Cup. I think that's probably what keeps me ticking at the moment. At the back of my mind it's there, but you can never look too far into the future as an All Black."
Kelleher believes the team's structures in the last couple of years have helped bring the best out of the players, and that the All Blacks are building something special.
He takes pride in the speed of his defence, believing many scrumhalves take too many steps before passing, and is constantly seeking to improve it. He believes he's greatly improved his kicking game in the last few years and while renowned for his tackling, admits he's corrected a youthful tendency to overcommit in defence.
By his own admission, it took him five or six games with the Chiefs to find his form this season, attributing this to "outside distractions". This does not appear to be a reference to his much publicised relationship with Ashley Spalding, a star of "adult" movies.
"Life aspects, and what I got up to in my personal life off the field was all good, but I like to make sacrifices for my rugby."
With whatever those sacrifices were came a strong run of form toward the end of the Super 14 campaign.
His NPC coach at Waikato is Warren Gatland, for whom he has "a lot of time".
"I didn't know him at all when he was thrown in at the deep end in the NPC last season. The ideas he's brought in to the province are definitely going to develop the team. I believe he's a great people's person, and a players' coach with great direction and good ears on him as well. He listens to his experienced players and gives them good feedback. I think the world of Warren Gatland."
Like Gatland, Kelleher senior will be in attendance on Saturday, though there will be no divided loyalties. Always on the sidelines, always supportive, buying him boots so he no longer had to play barefoot, Kurt Kelleher long since became imbued with the All Blacks culture. His son's odyssey, after all, is a classic Kiwi tale.
