TRACTORS TO TRACK SUITS

Clarke Dermody didn’t plan on being a coach. In fact, he didn’t even plan on being a professional rugby player. “I was always going to be a rugby player, I just didn’t know it was going to be a career.”

But it’s how life has played out for the former prop; opportunistically, accidentally.

“The Highlanders and Southland have given me everything really,” he says. “Roger Clark [now Highlanders CEO], when he was boss of Southland, offered me and Jimmy Cowan contracts. It was absolutely nothing financially, but it was ‘gee, how cool’s this?!’ I’d just left school as an 18-year-old and I didn’t even know what a contract was. But it gave us the chance to delve into rugby. And then the Highlanders gave me opportunities as a player, and have now taken a punt on me as a coach.”

A punt which has seemingly paid off. But the path to now being the Highlanders assistant coach,