Sunday Star Times: The tears well up in Keven Mealamu's normally sparkling eyes as the conversation turns to last November's tragic accident that changed him, and his family, forever.
For a guy who carries some vivid scars of his trade, it's the one you can't see that cuts the deepest.
The man who may well be New Zealand rugby's nicest guy, is for the time being also one of the saddest. The cheerful smile and engaging personality remain – life goes on, and all that – but, deep down, Mealamu is hurting. His heart will eventually lighten and the jolting memory of a family celebration turned tragedy will diminish. But right now the Blues captain carries more than your regular baggage into a season.
Last November – at a time when he should have been on the other side of the world with the All Blacks – Mealamu lost his six-year-old niece Christina to a freak accident at an Auckland park. He was there, as was his older brother Luke (Christina's father), when the nightmare unfolded. That it occurred while family and friends were playing a social touch tournament all about kinship and festivity only heightened the heartbreak.
As Mealamu prepares for his third season as skipper of New Zealand's most frustrating, and under-achieving franchise, he opened up to the Sunday Star-Times on the reverberations of that tragic afternoon. "Our niece was a livewire, a real personality. You could feel her personality when you walked into the room. It was a tough Christmas for us not to have her there.
"We're really blessed with a good family, really tight. We looked after each other.
"It wasn't the same Christmas but we were always around for each other and we all tried to keep each other's spirits up.
"In some ways it even brought our family closer, if that was possible. It was just a really tough time for us all."
It was also a time when Mealamu knew he had to be the rock for his brother, and one-time Auckland team-mate, whose world had just come crashing down around him.
"Growing up, my brother has always been my right-hand man. He was best man at my wedding, and has always been the person I turned to whenever I needed help. At that time I needed to be there for him.
"He's a strong man, and a strong-willed man, but just to see him with a broken heart like that I had be strong for him." You ask Mealamu if the events of last November help put some things – maybe even rugby things – into a fairly rich perspective. The man who's played 71 tests and two world cups for the All Blacks nods in agreement.
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"As a sportsman you come through some hard times, but you've got to realise how precious life is. When you walk out that door and sometimes forget to say `see you later' to the kids, or your parents, or your partner, I remember my brother saying `whenever you can, make sure you tell your mum, your family, that you love them, because when God says it's time, it's time'."
It seems almost trivial to mention the rugby, but this is what Mealamu does. This year, following six months off to rebuild his ruptured pectoral muscle, he's hoping to do it well enough to not only lead the Blues out of the mire, but find his own way back into the All Blacks. This will be Mealamu's third season skippering the Good Ship Blues. He's convinced his experiences of 2006 and '09 make him better prepared, and believes lessons have been learned from the past by key people. And there have been a few as their finishing record since 2003's last title triumph indicates – working backwards, 9th, 6th, 4th, 8th, 7th and 5th.
"We're definitely better than that," he says. "In some of those we were like a point or two out of finishing fourth, but it's not good enough. We're a proud franchise and we want to be at least in those semis."
That prospect, though, received a setback with Friday's season-ending Achilles tendon rupture suffered by Ali Williams in the 31-21 warm-up win over the Chiefs in Albany. The big All Blacks lock had been designated the skipper's deputy for 2010. Coach Pat Lam had spoken about his hope that Williams would take some of the onus off Mealamu. That theory's now out the window.
But Mealamu is confident his side can overcome the loss of Williams, with other leaders in the group stepping up.
Adds Lam: "The key is he's got respect and he leads by his actions. That can have more impact than guys out there shouting and raving. Kevvy does talk, but he's not out there shouting and all that sort of stuff. What he does say, the guys hear."
Interestingly, given Williams' tragic twist, Mealamu believes his own long spell out of the game can be "a blessing in disguise". He feels ready to hit the ground running.
The knock on Mealamu is that he's too nice a guy to be an effective leader.
"Everyone says nice guys finish last, but the way I am on the field is different to the way I am off it I don't have eyes like this or an ear like this from being a nice guy. When it's time to cross the line, you cross the line. Look at a guy like David Tua who's the nicest guy out of the ring."
Some call the Blues captaincy a poisoned chalice, but Mealamu prefers a more optimistic viewpoint.
"It's a real honour to be captain of the Blues. It's good being part of something that people hold to high expectations. It means we have to go out and perform every week."
31 January, 2010
