TANIWHA TIM

Like most Kiwi kids, my love of rugby started in the backyard. Growing up on a farm in Maungakaramea (to the south west of Whangarei), my brother Mark and I would spend hours running and tackling - dreaming of being All Blacks. As I was the youngest there weren’t many victories, but there were certainly plenty of good memories. We used to build our own Ranfurly Shield with a log of wood and tinfoil, before filling up Dad's empty beer cans with water (that’s what Dad thought anyway) and pretending to have a beer after the match.

I can remember Inga the Winger (19 test All Blacks wing Va'aiga Tuigamala who also played for Samoa) came to our school one