Jerry Collins - Great to see

[Dinny Breen]

One-match wonder
With Barnstaple's second XV a man short, they called on Jerry Collins – the All Black forceDavid Walsh
On September 8, 1905, the first New Zealand rugby team to play in the northern hemisphere landed at Plymouth after a six-week voyage aboard the Rimutaka. The next day the Originals, as they would become known, departed for Newton Abbot, where they would base themselves for much of their tour. They arrived in England as New Zealand and departed as the All Blacks.

One-hundred-and-two years later, on the morning of Saturday, October 27, another All Black breezed into Newton Abbot. It is doubtful if the arrival of the Originals all those years ago caused as much stir as Jerry Collins's more recent coming. With his highlighted hair and terminator-tackles, Collins showed up in a Barnstaple T-shirt, intent on helping that club's second team put Newton Abbot's seconds to the sword. Colin "Punchy" Thorne, Barnstaple's hooker, remembers the moment they climbed off the bus and walked through the gates of Newton Abbot's ground, Rackerhayes. "They'd heard he might be playing and were watching. As we walked in, you could see the look of complete amazement on their faces. 'That's him there,' said one fellow. 'No, it's a looka-like,' said another. 'I'm telling you, it's him all right.'"

Barnstaple's bus didn't arrive until 40 minutes before the start of the game and there wasn't much time to consider the implications. Should the poor second-teamers of Newton Abbot have laughed or cried, rubbed their hands in glee or wrapped themselves up in extra padding?

It would be Collins's first game since New Zealand's shocking loss to France in the World Cup quarter-final three weeks before and he was itching for a run-out. "When I'm fit and don't play, I become like a loaded gun," he said, though thankfully not to the Newton Abbot boys. They showed Collins and his new teammates to the back dressing room at Rackerhayes, a homely little place where you couldn't swing a cat.

But Collins loved it. "We were getting changed on top of each other, one guy telling jokes, and another guy sitting in the corner having a cigarette. One of our guys asked me if the All Blacks did anything special in their warm-up routine. 'No, mate,' I said, 'we just get dressed, go out and play, same as you blokes.' It was me who had to fit in with the Barnstaple guys, not the other way around. The captain gave a team talk, everyone got in a huddle and we all did the one-two-three-four-five-six-seven routine on the changing-room floor. It wasn't foreign to me and not as different from the professional ranks as you might think. We all work from the same blueprint."

Barnstaple's training session the previous Thursday evening hadn't been the best. A few guys weren't there and so a team couldn't be picked. Instead it was read out in the changing room. "No 8, Jerry Collins."

Punchy Thorne was the guy in the corner drawing from the Embassy No 1 and it was the flanker, Josh May, who wanted to know how the All Blacks warmed up. The previous evening, Josh's brother and fellow back-rower, Max, had called Barnstaple's director of rugby, Kevin Squire, to say he couldn't make the Newton Abbot game. Squire sent a text to Josh. "Don't worry about Max, I'll get Jerry Collins to play instead." And so Barnstaple made a late change. Collins was in for May.

THIS remarkable little adventure began at The Blue Groove cafe in Croyde Bay 15 days before. Collins was there with a few friends, sipping a coffee, minding his own business. After the All Blacks' exit from the World Cup the previous Saturday, he decided to stay on in England and spend time with friends in North Devon. "People from overseas think of London and all the touristy spots," he said, "but when you're in Devon you'd be amazed to see all the people who come from London for the weekend."

As Collins relaxed at The Blue Groove, Squire and a couple of his workers dropped in for lunch. Squire, a builder, had a job in Croyde Bay and first thought the man who looked like Collins couldn't be the All Black back-row forward. Deciding it was, he introduced himself and in no time they were speaking the same language.

"If you'd fancy coming down to the Barnstaple club at any time," said Squire, "you're welcome. We've got a big home game against Exmouth tomorrow week."

Eight days later, Collins was driving over the new bridge on the River Taw in Barnstaple when seeing a rugby game in progress. He found the road to the club grounds, parked his car and spent the afternoon watching Barnstaple beat Exmouth. Affable man that he is, he stayed for a beer afterwards, signed autographs for a lot of kids and when Kevin Spencer came up to him with his lad, he suggested that Jerry might like to take the Barnstaple Under-14s for a training session the following Friday evening.

Collins was there. The session lasted two hours and the kids learned about the importance of body position. Squire and everyone else at the club was chuffed by the generosity of the All Black and asked if there was anything they could do for him. "Well, mate," he said, "I'm gaspin' for a game of rugby." Not being a registered player with Barnstaple, he couldn't play with the club's first team, so instead he was offered a game with the seconds. "We'll supply jersey, shorts, socks," said Squire. "All you need are boots. Bus leaves at quarter to twelve in the morning."

A little after eleven o'clock the following morning, Jerry Collins walked into Apex Sports shop on Barnstaple's High Street. Margaret Ellicott, who was on duty that morning, didn't know him from Adam. "I'm looking for a pair of football boots," he said, "size 13 and I don't mind what they look like." "Size 13?" said Ellicott, before disappearing to a stock room at the back of the shop.

Collins waited nervously. What if there were no size 13s? Back Ellicott came with the boots in her hand and the All Black handed over £45 in a fair exchange. At 11:45, the boys on the bus were giving Squire a hard time: "So where's Jerry Collins then? Ha, ha, ha! Maybe he'll send Dan Carter instead. Ha, ha, ha!" At 11:46 Collins drove into the Barnstaple RFC car park and young rugby men thought if they lived to be 100, they would never see the likes of this again.

When Collins told friends he was going to play for Barnstaple, they said he was crazy. How would the New Zealand Rugby Union react if one of their centrally contracted players injured himself at Rackerhayes? They might as well have talked to the wall. "Every man to his own poison," says Collins. "Rugby is mine. I suppose what you love is always going to hurt you in the end. I've got a lot to thank the amateur game for – I made my debut in senior rugby at the age of 16 and I'll be back playing amateur rugby in my late 30s." AFTER leaving the back changing room at Rackerhayes, Collins and his Barnstaple teammates had a long walk across Newton Abbot's training pitch, through another field, over a stream by footbridge and eventually onto the club's second pitch. It wasn't Twickenham, and there were signs that neighbouring cattle occasionally crossed the fence for a taste of rugby grass.

To their credit, the players of Barnstaple and Newton Abbot did their damnedest to rise to the level of the All Black but, soon, everyone knew it would be easier if Collins made the reverse journey. "He could have run through every player on the field, theirs and ours," said Mark Singh, the Aussie prop in the Barnstaple team, "but he played to the level of the game."

"He played about five gears below the level he would play for the All Blacks," said Thorne, "and the way he handled himself on the pitch was amazing. He could have hurt people but he made sure he didn't. A lot of our boys put pressure on themselves to play better, to show we're not too bad, and as a result we made mistakes we wouldn't normally make."

But the result was never truly in doubt. Barnstaple and Collins won comfortably. They talked afterwards about his reverse pass that sent Ed Hill screaming through for the first try and the tackle that stopped Newton Abbot wing Aiden Tolley. It was a fine move by the home side and when Tolley came screaming through at a good angle, the try was as good as his.

The wing dived, the ball tucked under his left arm, his right arm shooting upwards in celebration. "He didn't see me coming," said Collins. "I caught him in the air, faced him the other way, and carried him back a few yards. He said, 'damn, it, you could have let me score that.' 'I couldn't help myself,' I said."

Late in the game, after Collins had been substituted, Barnstaple's Trevor Wayborn suffered what seemed a serious neck injury and an ambulance was called. As the prop lay motionless, he noticed Collins standing nearby. "Any chance of a photo, Jerry?" he said. Collins lay on the ground alongside the prop and Wayborn would have proof that he too played with an All Black. His injury turned out to be not serious.

They ate sweet-and-sour pork in the clubhouse afterwards, had a few pints and, of course, the bus stopped at a couple of alehouses on the way home and took twice as long as in the morning. Neither did it end there and Collins stayed with the boys to the death. Some asked if he would play in the Boxing Day epic against neighbours Bideford. He didn't rule it out.

One thing he has already decided. "I have asked the Barnstaple guys if it would be okay for me to wear their socks when I play for the Barbarians against South Africa at Twickenham. I have played for the club and it's something I would like to do."
Collins intends staying in North Devon until early in the new year. Bideford had better beware.

[AZOffaly]

Fair play to him indeed. Sounds a really nice fella the way he did the under 14 coaching, etc etc. Nice touch if he wears their socks for the Ba Bas. I'd heard about this a few weeks ago. Can you imagine being the back row or centres for that other team? In fairness it seems as if he coasted along through the game, and took it relatively easy on them.

Nice story.

[ludermor]

Fair play to him for even heading to devon and staying away from the bright lights, by the sounds of it he will leave a few good stories behind him

[Rufus T Firefly]

Was going to mention this myself. Great story and there was one or two brilliant photos as well, e.g. the photo when the fella was lying injured on the ground and Jerry lay down beside him!!