He doesnt like the expression, but hes Poriruas self-made man. The king of

bone-crunching rugby tackles. The worlds leading blindside flanker, ensconced in the surreal world of the All Blacks. But thats

not really him. MARGOT BUTCHER finds the grounded Jerry Collins smarter than

you think. And possibly tougher.

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W hen the traffic is streaming down the Johnsonville-Porirua motorway, the commute from Jerry Collins house to training, at a small, scruffy ground in Newtown on the other side of Wellington city, takes an hour and 15 minutes. Thats on a good day, and even on a good day Rugby League Park

is a mildewy place. It has an undulating surface and cold, concrete changing rooms, its very name suggestive of working-class toil.

A sharp counterpoint, these no-frills environs, to the often-surreal world of professional rugby players: this is where you keep it real. The Hurricanes and Wellington sides train here, the All Blacks too, and for Collins the journey up Adelaide Rd and the outline of the eucalypts on the embankment are as familiar as the back of his hand. But he doesnt give a stuff about the grounds kinks and crappy facilities. If he did, he wouldnt, for the past six years or so, have spent two and a half hours most days driving here and back. He calls it, quite simply, going to work.

The All Blacks flanker lives alone in Cannons Creek, on the edge of Porirua, in the house in which he grew up. Cannons Creek has a sheltering backdrop of large, sheep-sprinkled hills and small grids of pine forest dominated by a large, bleached canvas of low-yield pasture that is part regional park.

Its bareness under the open sky is all that makes it striking: strong and elemental behind the flat lattice of the suburb, a district of row after row of homogeneous state or ex-state houses sitting on blank, blistered lawns. Appearances havent changed much in 40 years. The Four Square on the corner is painted a screeching banana yellow and wears heavy-duty security screens all around; inside, it sells coconuts and taro to a brown neighbourhood that empties on Sundays as quickly as churches fill.

This is the sort of hood where a swish renovation would stick out like a gold-plated letterbox and, apart from the satellite dish tacked bang on the front, Collins house looks like all the other little wooden boxes in his street. And thats very much the point the symbol, in a way, of a tough, complex character who firmly believes its whats on the inside that matters.

When you watch him at training, physically Collins stands out as an unusual athlete, even amid his All Black peers. For a start, in a sharp breeze hes the only one wearing a Y-backed singlet instead of sleeves, and his arms, which are massive, hang out of it like legs of mutton. His biceps are officially the largest of the squad, apparently measuring 52cm in circumference. His head, hands and forearms are huge, shoulders broad, trunk meaty, his overall shape that of an inverted cone. His legs arent inconsequential but, against the solidity of his upper body, they look like stovepipes.

He has concrete in those shoulders and, combined with a heavy gaze, its no wonder hes feared, regarded as one of the games hardest tacklers. Hes built more like a heavyweight boxer than a rugby flanker.

Its a mixture of genetics, sweat and mentality. I was really, really skinny as a kid, Collins will tell me, with insistence. I was always tough, though. I was skinny, but I would play up the middle in league. I always had guts. Thats why coaches liked me.

Apart from that, he reckons that as a boy he was entirely average at team sports, whether it was rugby or soccer, basketball, league. He never learned how to run fast, he says. Was never the quickest in any team, or the strongest or most skilful or the best or the fittest. But he was the hardest worker and he was quickly playing above his age group playing under-21 rugby at just 14 and against men by the time he was 16, in the forwards, where bruising physicality matters.

To be sure, his rugby CV glitters. For two years running he was picked for the national secondary schools team and was made captain. He sprung into the New Zealand under-19 side in 1998 and, when they won the world junior championships the following year, he was named player of the tournament from a group including Richie McCaw.

Whats more, he was the first player from that team called into the All Blacks, after two years grooming in the New Zealand Under-21s and New Zealand A, despite some cruel injuries that well come to later. By rugbys measure it was a fast, flawless rise to the top.

Yet and you will become used to these paradoxes from Collins he insists he never took himself seriously until he was 18, and that was only because hed done all right against big hairy men in some social sevens tournaments.

Dudes would put together an invitation team to go off and tour Samoa or Tonga and chuck in a schoolboy like me for fun and I learned some good lessons from those old school guys. I went to the Singapore 10s while still at college and Id gone pretty well, so after a couple of years I thought Id give a professional rugby career a crack.

He considers his first tough game when he was barely out of school was his debut NPC appearance for Wellington, a match he remembers for the fact he was lining up against Michael Jones, a player hed only ever seen on TV.

A lot of my friends, theyd just finished work and were all at the pub watching it. They saw me run on, and when I stood next to Michael Jones in the lineout is when we met. I said, Wassup, Mike? and he said, Hey. That was pretty much when I said to myself, Hey look man, I made it. I got here.

Collins was nonetheless a surprise to the sporting public when coach Wayne Smith and his fellow All Black selectors picked the 20-year-old for the 2001 test squad. Judging by the first training camp that season, it was equally a surprise to Collins: rushing back from Samoa, where hed been cutting scrub for relatives, he was covered in mosquito bites, had conjunctivitis and was crook from the water, a sad-looking specimen unable to perform his fitness test.

It was the first of many surprises back then, Smith recalls

Poriruas self-made man still lives on the edge of the working-class, state house Wellington suburb.

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with a smile. He was the only player Ive ever had who refused to take a sponsored car: he thought it would get put up on blocks in Porirua and someone would flog the wheels, which he didnt think Ford would like; and he wanted to keep working on the council rubbish trucks, which was rather unique for a modern, professional rugby player. It quickly became apparent he does things his way a different sort of person to a lot of the others Id been dealing with.

Admittedly they took a punt on the green Collins, at that age an incomplete loosie in a position that takes much refinement. But wed seen something special and felt it was just a matter of time before he came through, says Smith, so we thought wed accelerate the process and pick him early to get him into the set-up.

Besides, 1970s/80s loose forward Graham Mourie was coach of the Hurricanes and there was no better man than Graham to be teaching Jerry, or to get a line on him. He thought Jerry had a special ability to work hard, and really special anticipation. We knew because of the work Graham had been doing with him that hed have good lines and understanding, so we didnt have too many fears.

That Jerry Collins worked as a council garbo when offered his six-figure All Blacks contract (these days, fringe All Blacks start on about $150,000) is a well-known Collins tale. He liked the mateship, and it was great conditioning. That he refused to be paid for chucking rubbish bags, from the day he got his first Wellington rugby pay cheque, is far more revealing.

I threw rubbish for four years for fun but it taught me what people are like, says Collins. Those four years I threw rubbish for the same people every week, same route. They wouldnt even give you a look. But when I got better at playing rugby, thats when they started saying hello to you. Its the biggest

lesson I took from working: how people treat people.Unprompted, more often than not, there werent many topics

that didnt come back, in some reflective, illustrative manner, to his upbringing and his distinctly working-class, immigrant roots.

It was, he kept reiterating, a good upbringing in a tight-knit, principled family. Weeks meant schoolwork. Saturdays was rugby, Sundays meant going to church with his father, David Collins, followed by league.

The men in the family are Catholic, but his mother, Galuia, and sisters Shaolin, Brenda and Helen attended a Protestant church. His parents were united, however, in making sure all their children made the most of education. Education was our ticket, says Collins, who earned an A bursary at St Patricks College, a school far across town

Collins and the sporting public were surprised when the 20-year-old was picked for the 2001 All Blacks test squad. His mother Galuia (right) was educational-pushy, he says, not pushy in sport.

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in Kilbirnie, near Wellington Airport, which his father believed offered better prospects than Tawa College.

They were never pushy in sport, but my parents were educational-pushy, and quite sharp in the way they pushed us.

Galuia came from a very rural Samoan family and had never been to school in her life; apart from Jerry, her children are all now teachers. From her side of the family Collins inherited Samoan and Chinese ancestry; he is also part-German and Irish, accounting for his surname. Some dude probably jumped ship, he half-jokes, and my first name came from a doctor. But few of his Samoan family still live in the islands. Most are scattered around the world, though he still has some aunts and great-uncles in Apia, where he was born. A great-uncle is a cabinet minister in Samoas Parliament.

Though raised in New Zealand, Collins clearly identifies with his Samoan heritage and religiously returns to the islands every year. Its a tonic for him, but he also feels the cultural shift between his parents and his generations, the dichotomy of being a Samoan and a New Zealander.

I dont think I would bring up my kids the same way as I was

brought up because they probably wouldnt be able to handle it, he offers candidly. Because theyd be starting from a different base, you know? Times have changed, so Im going to have to adapt to be a parent, but its going to be hard for me because Im a bit of a chip off the old block.

When he was 16, he ran away from home. A lot of things happen to a person when theyre young and I suppose I thought it was time

for me to go out on my own. I was hanging out with guys who were a couple of steps ahead of me and I suppose I just wanted to be with them and thought I didnt need to go to school.

I took off for three weeks and the only reason I went home was my Dad got hold of the people I was staying with, rang them up and told them my Mum hadnt eaten for three weeks and if she died while I was away then Id better move out of the country because he was going to kill me! I was so worried I went home straight away and got a bit of a dust-up.

Lets make it clear: Collins chuckled away at this tale and its obvious he sees his father as a hard but fair figure in his life. Hard, he says, in a way that people are attracted to it.

As much as the ever-uncertain world of sport can be predicted, Jerry Collins, the All Blacks loosie hard man, will notch his 50th test match this year, aged 26, during the all-important Rugby World Cup. He will do so not just as coach Graham Henrys pre-eminent number six but as the man regarded as the best blindside in the world, a man who can carve through a wall of players on attack and crumple opponents in defence.

Hardly a veteran, still on the ascent, he seems to have had a lock on success since he first kicked off this surreal double life. Wayne Smith, now an assistant coach and selector under Henry, quickly zeroes in on the All Blacks barnstorming 45-6 demolition of France, in Paris, on the 2004 end-of-year tour a game in which Collins could easily have bombed to illustrate his value to the team.

Beforehand, as usual, the team went down to a local square in the afternoon for a final run-through of plays and lineout calls, but when they piled out of the team minivans they realised Collins was AWOL. Smith: The team, to their credit, went ahead and prepared themselves, and just as we were leaving Jerry turned up. Hed simply forgotten the lineout run was on, which is highly unlike him, and he was full of remorse.

Now obviously we would have preferred not to have had that disruption, but he went out and had one of the best games Ive seen him play in the All Blacks jersey. It was a great example of his ability to overcome stress. It said to me, This guys got something special to be able to do that when he would have been feeling like shit, thinking hed let the boys down.

Collins made a whopping 27 tackles in that test and yet in mid-2004 just a few months earlier he had been far from secure in his status as a frontline All Black. Having started his international career at the back of the scrum as a number eight, hed been kept there when 2002-03 coach John Mitchell elevated Reuben Thorne to the All Blacks captaincy instantly filling the blindside flankers jersey. But with Henrys appointment to the coaching job the specialist blindside position, Collins most natural berth, was once again up for grabs, while others muscled in on the number eight spot.

But the selectors made it clear that to fight off rival contenders and there was a posse of good blindsiders jostling for the slot at that time Collins had to improve his tackling technique; meantime, he would find himself in the reserves more often than he liked.

Carrying the ball up the field, Collins tended to want to smash into people rather than use a bit of guile and hit the weak side of the tackler, Wayne Smith explains. Sliding out of a tackle makes it a bit easier on yourself to perhaps win that collision, but he just wanted to run over the top of them, because hes tough and tends to come across as a macho character.

It wasnt until he was really made aware it was going to affect his career that he changed and became what I think is a much more dangerous flanker, both in opposition and on attack. He can step and weak-shoulder his opponent now and is less predictable just as liable to give the pass away than he is to smash someone.

Hes also recorded personal bests in his recent speed tests, and a shoulder-repair job should see his lineout lifting and jumping hit new marks. Says Smith, it will make him even better.

But truth be told the enduring macho image may just be the greatest of those Collins paradoxes. Certainly we met with a friendly interview: he was talkative, with a gentle speaking manner that somehow doesnt fit the visuals. He told us his hard-case stories, threw in some ripe jokes at his own expense, had a talent for swearing and was clearly not worried about keeping up a guard.

But not one left-field or curly question threw him and he was a sharp listener, keen on distinguishing perceptions from reality. Apparently one of the few All Blacks who dont need to write down lineout codes or plays for later reference, he is also smart enough to know when he can use that muscle-bound, pugilistic veneer to his advantage.

He hid behind that tough front as a youngster and admits that as a widely recognised adult he has been happy to dumb himself down for public consumption. People look at you and think youre just a lug of muscle and theres nothing between your ears, he says. Its a good way to be, because then youve only got to measure up to yourself, and to be happy with yourself is the main thing.

Neither does he mind admitting that he was a roughneck growing up in his gang-sprinkled suburb, but he was never a bully and thats something Im quite fucking proud of. I didnt

have to bully anyone because I was tough on the inside.

There were a few bad crowds around, for sure, but Id walk past them in the street and wouldnt be scared to turn around and say, What are you looking at? I was always like that, but I was never bad, and theres a difference between being tough and being a criminal. I never robbed anyone. Ive got no respect for guys who steal from people and beat up people for no reason. A lot of my friends were thieves and are still doing it today, but they knew that shit was in their own time, that they had to make sure they didnt do that crap in front of me.

Because of his god-fearing upbringing? I cant say Im overly religious, but I believe in God and I understand right from wrong and

understand when bad things happen, but thats not all it is. Sometimes you can have two people growing up in the same

circumstances, but they meet different people and their paths go different ways. I was lucky. But then, a lot of my friends come from one-parent families or broken homes, on the breadline, stuff like that, and in the end it still comes down to the choice of the individual. One of my mates, his parents split up, he was living with his mum who was a druggie, and hes a lawyer in Sydney now.

We were back in parable territory and Collins goes on to stress he sees no reason to be sympathetic to kids playing up in his home streets. I tell them in no uncertain terms to get to school when I see them down at the dairy in the middle of the morning. Because I know the majority of them are smart, you know? Theres no reason they cant do anything the European or Asian kids do at school: it comes down to choices. Thats what my father showed me growing up. But some of them just use their smarts for the wrong kind of things.

He calls Porirua one of the hardest school circuits for sportspeople because the kids just give you crap. Still, judging from the number of brown faces (none of whom he knows personally) tooting at him or stopping to clasp his hands as we stroll along Lambton

Jerry Collins On...Being An All Black: Losing is unacceptable and the attraction is the pressure that comes with that, on and off the field. Which is a weird thing to be attracted to, but once youre there, theres no other footie you want to play. You try to measure up as many times as you can, because youll experience nothing else like it, the good and the bad, in your whole career.

The All Blacks loosie hard man breaks away from the Springbok defence in Rustenburg, South Africa, in the 2006 Tri Nations.

Jerry Collins On...Racism In Rugby: A very good friend of mine has called me a black bastard and I dont have a problem with it because its left on the field. Afterwards we get on really well, but out there, you say and do whatever you need to.

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Quay, its obvious hes deeply cherished by his community.Ive met good people there, from the man who owns the dairy

to our local priest to our local electrician, he says. I can go to my mothers Protestant church and get just as much love in that church as I do in my own. I can walk down to the dairy in summer in my sarong, sleep still in my eyes, to buy my bread and milk and no one gives a toss because theyve seen me do that all my life. That feeling never changes and thats what I like about it.

To be an All Blacks flanker means playing through persistent, clawing physical pain. This is something for which both Collins and Richie McCaw, on the openside, are known inside the All Blacks camp: an exceptional ability to hide the punishment.

All Blacks doctor Deb Robinson confirms that throughout last year Collins played with cartilage and tendon injuries, shoulder damage that must have sent hot needles through his body every time he made a tackle or took a hit in his role as a professional bruiser. Yet he was prepared to ignore the pain, waiting until the off season to undergo surgery to trim away the offending debris.

Likewise, at the 2003 World Cup, Collins played through the quarter-final with torn ribs the most painful of injuries and against France despite a seriously bashed-up knee. His room was littered with pills. But if he seems determined not to be thwarted by the limitations of the human body, his determination has perhaps been painfully reinforced by a poor run of luck.

The first bitter knockback came when a busted shoulder ruined his debut All Blacks test: it sidelined him for the best part of the year. It was all the more devastating to the keen recruit given that, in 1999, still a rising star playing NPC rugby for Wellington, hed broken a leg in two places, both bones. Even today he cant straighten one of his legs on the floor and some say its a miracle he even made it to the international stage its the kind of injury from which some players never recover.

All up he has endured five operations, including a childhood mishap when his sister accidentally pushed him into a fence rail, sending it though the side of his mouth. His GP sewed it up without anaesthetic and, perhaps under the spell of the macho mystique, I inquire whether he cried. Hard out! Collins exclaims. Did I cry? Of course I cried!

Structural injuries are the major bastards, though, demanding a long, cautious rehabilitation that tests the guts and patience of any player. Yet Tali Lilo, who played and coached alongside Collins in Porirua club rugby, recalls that as soon as Collins was cleared to resume running after his broken pin, he pushed himself through the premier sides three kilometre training slogs, coming home second or third despite running with a limp. His mates, hard men themselves, were incredulous. Lilo: He made us sore just watching him.

So when, in April this year, Jerry Collins neck was suddenly

jolted sideways during a Super 14 match against the Crusaders and he crumpled to the ground clearly in a tsunami of pain, his torso seemingly frozen, shivers went through all who were watching.

Hed heard an ominous sound, like bone breaking, in his neck; all feeling was gone from his arm and as he lay there in the middle of Jade Stadium he couldnt stop his foot twitching.

But the next day, as rugby reporters huddled glumly at the airport to report on what they expected to be a season-ending if not career-ending spinal injury, there was the human tackle bag breezing though the terminal, a smile like a Cadillac grille above the stiff ruff of his

neck brace. Which, in Collins mind, was hardly enough to stop him training he was back within a fortnight.

What is toughness? I dont think its a quality, he reiterates, more a mentality. After all, during the entire nine years of his professional contract, there hasnt been a game when he hasnt played through some pain or other.

I spend half my time in the doctors or physios room getting pills or something adjusted, he says. But all loose forwards would be lying if they said they werent carrying something all the time; a lot of players play with injuries. Generally theres not a day you could honestly say you feel 100 per cent, but you can still feel pretty good afterwards.

A lot of people dont get that, though, when you play like shit. They just see you play like shit and think you are shit. Well, they need to see the guy when he comes home to his wife and kids, clutching his shoulder all night, too drained to talk. And after a while it gets harder to do even the simple things that other people take for granted.

Such hardness, a quality that is more than physical, he seems to have inherited.

His father David arrived in Porirua in the early 1980s, looking for work and a roof for his young family. Samoan clans would usually arrive piecemeal from the islands: one person would come to New Zealand, get himself established, then bring his sister out. The sister would get herself established, then bring another family member out, and so on.

But though most of Galuias family were already in New Zealand, David Collins was determined not to lean on anyones charity and in the space of a week found a job as a machine operator in a rubber factory and a state house in which to raise his family.

At first they couldnt afford furniture, so for several months he slept on the floor while Galuia, Shaolin and Jerry slept on a borrowed mattress. A single pot had to suffice for both cooking and boiling water, and Jerry and his sister shared dinner from a single plate.

Recounts Jerry Collins: My mothers sisters would tell me they thought Dad was crazy. How can you uplift your family to a place with no beds, no furniture, no curtains? But Dad said that was why he went to work, that he would buy one thing at a time. And thats what we did.

Years later, rugby commentator Keith Quinn was on the board of the Carillon Club, a Wellington sports charity. Quinn remembers the trust receiving a letter from a 16-year-old Porirua

boy inquiring, rather humbly, if it could help him with a pair of rugby boots. It always stuck in his mind, he says, because most kids wanted money. The letter was from this kid called Jerry Collins, and we got him what was probably his first pair of boots. We had no idea he was going to be an All Black.

Even so, it was one of the few times Collins ever sought a hand-up, and its not the only quality he shared strongly with his remarkable father. For though Collins junior is renowned for his rugby toughness, hes got nothing on a man still playing hard-core club footie at 63 just one grade below his son.

An independent cookie, just like his son, David Collins never goes to watch him play, even for the All Blacks. Never has. Tells him its because Jerry is the only person who can save himself out there and any distracting thoughts, like whos watching him in the stands, wont help. Neither will he allow himself to be photographed, even in family snaps.

Collins juniors peccadillos include an aversion to sunglasses, an apparent dislike of heights (this he disputed with us, though he clearly wasnt keen on sitting by the window at the top of his skyscraping hotel) and a penchant for the old, beaten-up car he bought with pay he earned as a teenager, when he worked as a bricklayer and furniture remover in between school and starting a bachelor of education degree (which, because of rugby, he never finished). The car still sits

in his rusting carport, by the drunken clothesline, in Cannons Creek.And iron work ethic ran on both sides of the family. Galuia

worked as a cleaner even as she battled cancer, and Collins sees that kind of dedication to family as a cornerstone of his community.

Everyone expects because you play for the All Blacks youve got to move upstate, he says. A lot of people ask me how come I havent moved to Khandallah or Seatoun, because I can afford to, and I go, I know I can afford to, but theres nothing wrong with living here. I was brought up here and look how I turned out; it cant be that bad. One day I might just decide to raise my kids here.

He did, however, move his parents upstate. When Collins bought them a nice home in Whitby, which overlooks the harbour north of Porirua, they gave him the old house and currently hes building them a retirement house in Samoa. But all that, he says, has nothing much to do with a nice fat All Blacks retainer (Collins is estimated to collect $500,000 a year from All Blacks and Super 14 commitments, $100,000 from provincial rugby and another $50,000 from other endorsements).

I promised my mum I would buy her a house when I was 16, 17. We were cruising around and I told her Id buy her a home in this area one day and she said, OK, Ill hold you to that. A promise is a promise. I would have bought them that house even if I wasnt playing footie.

Jerry Collins On...Peeing On The Pitch: Im not proud of it, but I was unlucky. At the time I didnt think anything of it because a lot of people do it on the field. The Aussie boys werent offended. It was only when I picked up the paper the next day I realised someone had filmed it. My mum understood. She said, Mate, if youve got to go youve got to go. Id drunk too much water and the changing rooms were too far away. The politically correct dudes got upset, but its not as if I was pissing on someones head. Some cameraman probably just wanted a pay rise.

A severely injured Collins crumples during the Hurricanes Super 14 match against the Crusaders in April. The following day he was neck-braced and smiling; two weeks later he was back training.

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No question, this year Jerry Collins, Poriruas first All Black and a revered working-class hero, wants to help New Zealand win the Rugby World Cup. But it comes at a difficult time in his life, for his precious mothers cancer has come back with a vengeance.

Galuia has always been the one who makes the scrapbooks and keeps a wall of pride at home papered with newspaper and magazine clippings and letters of congratulations to her high-flying son. All his All Blacks gear he jams into a suitcase and gives to her at the end of each tour. He suspects she gives much of it to the minister at church, but if she kept it, every last sock, it wouldnt be a surprise.

The hard man puts on a brave face talking about it and says shes gone back to see out her days in Samoa. His father was flying out to join her that day. It was clear to us that Collins, a senior player now, was torn between staying in camp with the All Blacks and heading to the airport himself but, always the worker, he didnt so much as let on to his rugby bosses that he might need a bit of compassionate leave.

Collins growing stature a man with brawn, balls and brains was rewarded with a cameo captaincy in Argentina last year when regular skipper Richie McCaw was given a breather. The scratchy 25-19 win in slippery conditions was adequate, but Collins elevation is mostly remembered for his casually uttering fuck on live television in the immediate post-match interview.

It seems only to have reinforced his independent style: he did the same on stage at a Wellington Sports Awards evening (Of course the audience roared with laughter, reports MC Keith Quinn).

Yet this is the same man who, reports Wayne Smith, has learned to speak remarkably eloquently in team meetings, to the point where everybody listens when Jerry speaks. Whats more, he has helped lead the way, says Smith, in building the current, successful, All Blacks culture.

When Collins debuted in 2001, the All Blacks were a comparatively reticent band of men, perhaps still recovering from the brutal shocks of the 1999 World Cup and previous coaching regimes.

Says Smith, We were at a stage where a lot of guys were saying what you wanted to hear, to get by, but even though he was new in the squad Jerry wasnt prepared to do that. Its something Ive always loved about him right or wrong hes going to be his own man and do things his way.

The tell-it-like-it-is philosophy was promulgated by Tana Umaga, the 2004-05 All Blacks skipper who happens to be a cousin of Collins. Umaga, says Smith, grew not only Collins but the likes of McCaw and Aaron Mauger.

To be sure, Collins career has not been without its stains. The flanker regrets blowing a gasket in a Wellington bar in 2001 while still reeling from his injury-ruined first chance in the All Blacks. He punched club rugby acquaintance Kahu Tamatea, and the same night shoved over-the-top fan Sonny Shaw (a man known for pestering sports stars), which led to threats of assault charges and stern counselling from All Blacks management.

Aspects of my own life and behaviour werent acceptable,

says Collins simply. Sometimes the delivery gets in the way of the message and I had to learn that. Personal development has been the biggest aspect of his career, he adds, because this was nothing I ever thought Id be able to do, you know? But I always believe in trying and I enjoy that you get to prove people wrong.

Yet when I suggest this one-of-a-kind All Black has turned out to be the quintessential self-made man, hes not prepared to buy it.

No, Ive had a lot of help along the way, right from the first coach I had when I was nine. We all scrunched in the back seat of Jim Livingstones ute he was my Dads mechanic. Ive been lucky, helped by good people in my area, and theres been that help all the along the way.

Time and again it is clear his wide-open Porirua youth defines Collins, to the point where it is no surprise when he finishes a revealing interview by suggesting he is prouder of what hes done for Porirua rugby than anything hes achieved as a famous All Black.

Indeed, even as a raw 18-year-old hed set an unusual record as the worlds youngest senior club captain. Porirua sport then was down on its luck. Once a league stronghold, the districts clubs had shrivelled and folded under financial pressure, a prime reason hed veered from league to union a few years earlier. Now, though, the same was happening to rugby.

As a young man with ambition, his life-shaping decision to stick with Poriruas Northern United could have been career suicide. Being a Catholic boy, Collins could easily have gone to play for Marist, but Northern was coming last in the premier competition, struggling even to field

enough players let alone to win. His loyalty lay with Porirua.Today the club is one of the regions strongest, with five players in

the Wellington team, a bucketload coming through the academies and a flash home stadium. And Jerry Collins is a world-class rugby god. Its the only Wellington club, he notes proudly, that has a team in every single grade, from juniors to premiers, and he started that resurgence by dragging in former schoolmates to help rebuild the flagship team.

He delights in telling more parables of how players used to come along in his first year expecting for us to have tracksuits, have this, have that, before wed even won anything. Thats the biggest downfall in low-income areas, but its changing. We changed that mentality. People get this block in their heads that there arent the resources in places like Porirua, that the opportunities arent here, but if you build the mentality, you can do it.

Hes speaking about himself, of course, and hes not leaving anytime soon. And its been hard, he briefly concedes. For instance, I went out with a girl who used to work in the city, in a good job, and living out here just wasnt her thing. Cant please everyone, eh?

Beyond keeping Porirua strong, surprisingly or should we not be surprised by now? Collins says he has no major career aspirations or goals in rugby. I dont need to be the leading man. I dont want to be the star, just a great support player who gets chucked in to do the hard work. Ill be happy knowing people respected me for being a good servant. For being hard. Not dirty but hard.

We arent about to argue. n

Jerry Collins On...Spilling The Beans: If I wrote a book, it would be a feel-good book because out of 200 to 300 guys, Ive probably only played with two arseholes in my whole career. Whats the point of writing a book about two dickheads? The other thing is, when people write books they forget the people they write about have wives and children. I dont know how you sleep at night writing bad things about them just to make a bit of money.

JUNE 2007 NORTH & SOUTH 5574 NORTH & SOUTH JUNE 2007