Rugby--The Afterlife by Wynne Gray

Author:Wynne Gray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Upstart Press
Published: 2018-04-13T04:00:00+00:00

Josh Kronfeld

Josh Kronfeld debuted as flanker in 1995 and was a key All Black until 2000, with 54 tests and 14 test tries. He played for the Highlanders in Super Rugby and represented Otago. He went on to play for English club Leicester Tigers.

Once I played my last test, I thought I’d stay in New Zealand. If things started to get a bit stale, challenges would come from new kids on the block like Ron Cribb, Troy Flavell, Norm Maxwell and Scott Robertson and that reinvigorated me.

There was also a transition in the way the game was played as we had got pretty obsessed with the superstar player, the single player, the Jonah Lomu syndrome if you will — because that’s probably where it started.

There were individuals who weren’t really team men in terms of playing. I’m not talking the social aspects here, I’m talking about guys who would try to make a play when they had teammates alongside them. That’s what made them great players and I don’t begrudge that because some of them in that era were the greatest attacking players I’ve ever seen in my life.

But coming from the Otago mentality and my role there and the way that evolved, it was all about link and team and support and keeping the play rolling, and if you can’t score the try you are thinking I’ll shift it to someone who can give it back to you to score.

So I was getting a little despondent with All Blacks rugby to a point, because you’d chase someone yelling, ‘I’m here, I’m here,’ and they’d end up dying with the ball.

I felt like I was becoming a stats man, first to the ball, high-level numbers for cleanout, turnover ball, tackle numbers — love those things because they were my game — but I liked running with the ball. Maybe I wasn’t as fast as I had been but pretty close, and that’s how I felt, and it was getting me down a bit.

The New Zealand union wasn’t expressing any interest, although they said they wanted to keep me but couldn’t afford to at my previous salary. Imagine them saying that to Richie McCaw, not that I’m putting myself in his category, but I felt affronted by that.

I blew it, I think. If I had another go at it, I wouldn’t have mentioned I was leaving at the end of the year. When I said that, they treated me differently, and I should have just finished out 2000 and gone. After I signed to leave New Zealand and the All Blacks had toured Japan, France and Italy, the coaches said they would have taken me on to keep me at home, while the union offered me a mad-dash contract. I’d signed by then and was a man of my word, so I went to Leicester, which was the worst signing in the world.

They had a really good incumbent with Neil Back and another young guy, Lewis Moody, so I figured I

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