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'It's been good for the soul and the heart': Why Liam Messam has returned to Waikato

By Tom Vinicombe
(Original photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images)

Liam Messam, one of the most decorated Chiefs players in Super Rugby history, is back in Waikato country and getting ready to play in this year’s Mitre 10 Cup. Despite the unquestionable experience that comes with the 179 Super Rugby caps to his name, however, Messam is confident that he has as much to gain from joining up with his old province as the side has to gain from his presence.

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Messam, who spent the last season with Toulon and previously represented Toshiba Brave Lupus in Japan, is returning to play for Waikato for the first time since 2015. The Super Rugby centurion departed New Zealand’s shores following the All Blacks’ success at the Rugby World Cup in England but still managed to play one and a half seasons with the Chiefs over the last four years.

While a Chiefs contract isn’t in the picture at this stage, Messam now has the opportunity to add to the 85 caps he earned representing Waikato over the first 13 years of his professional career.

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That’s not the sole motivation why the former All Black is back in the country, however.

“The main reason why I came home was to be a fulltime daddy day-care,” Messam told RugbyPass. “I’ve been part-time off and on with them being back here in NZ and me being in France, so it’s been awesome.

“I struggled at the start, the first few weeks, to get back into the swing of New Zealand life, but it’s been good – it’s awesome to be home and it’s been good for the soul and the heart to be back.”

One of the things that Messam struggled with most in France was not being able to get along to events like cross-country days for his kids, but he’s working extra hard to make up for that now.

“All my Saturdays so far have been sports with my oldest with soccer. He surprised me, he’s bloody good. He absolutely loves football, can tell you everything, every player, what club they come from, what country, where they’re transferring to. He’s fully into it, he loves it, and I’ve enjoyed going down to watch. I’ve got no idea how to play football but I go out there and watch him. It’s been good for the soul.”

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While Messam has been spending time with the children at home, he’s also been dealing with the young ones at work.

Mitre 10 Cup sides are now dominated by upcoming players – some straight out of school – and Messam’s been making the most of training with the likes of the Waikato Under 19 side.

“They’ve been good, they work really hard, they train really hard,” Messam said of his young training mates. “At the start of it, they were pretty shy, wouldn’t really talk to me or look me in the eye. They’d put their head down and say hello but now there’s a bit of banter coming through and they’re getting a bit more comfortable, which is good to see.”

Not many teenagers get the opportunity to play with seasoned professionals – let alone the most capped Super Rugby player in the region – but Messam is getting just as much out of the deal.

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“They’ve been amazing, I’ve really enjoyed training with them,” the 36-year-old said.

“People say all the time that I’ll have a good influence on these young fellas, but these young fellas are having a good influence on me too. They keep me on my toes and are keeping me feeling young.

“The best thing is when you’re my age and you’re at the gym and you’re outworking them and you’re pushing more weights. It’s the same if I’m beating them in the fitness or whatever, I give them a bit of stick that an old man is beating them.”

Despite being in the twilight years of his career and still playing rugby at an age that many players would never dream of continuing until, Messam is still as fit as he’s ever been – thanks to the good values that were instilled in him during his career with the New Zealand national sevens team.

“I pride myself on my work ethic and my effort and that. As you get older, it’s not a challenge, exactly, but it sort of motivates you, still competing with the young fellas. Especially in the gym, and on the footy field, and when we’re doing fitness and that, you’re sort of just like, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll show you – I’ll show you what a 36-year-old can do.’ I might take a few more days to recover from it, but I still push myself.”

It’s not just the working with the youngsters that Messam appreciates – it’s also the men who are working tirelessly to achieve their dreams of playing for Waikato while still holding down work outside of rugby.

“The first week I was back, I went to early morning training, I think it was 6:30 or whatever. Once we’d done our weights and that, some of the boys walked out of the changing sheds in their high viz and their workboots,” Messam said. “That really humbled me straight away. These guys have to go to work after training so I’m just super grateful – I can’t complain at all.

“I’ve worked my ass off to be a full-time professional for my whole career but to see these boys walk out in their high viz and workbooks, I was just like ‘whoah’. It was a really humbling experience.”

With Waikato, Messam is linking back up with head coach Andrew Strawbridge, who has been an assistant with the Chiefs since 2012. He’s also got pretty strong connections with assistant coaches Nathan White and Ross Filipo, who he won NPC and Super Rugby titles with, respectively.

“I’ve been really impressed by those two,” Messam said of his former teammates. “They’re awesome coaches and even though they’re my mates, they’ve still got that level of professionalism that can still tell me where to go or what to do and still be my mate afterwards.

“I’ve been really impressed by both of them and how they’ve been able to transition from playing into coaching.”

While Messam won’t be able to achieve centurion status for Waikato this season, he’ll likely end 2020 just a few caps short. That’s not something that really motivates the former Chiefs captain, however.

“Since I’ve announced that I was coming back to play, everyone’s brought that up,” Messam said. “I don’t really think about that, I’m sort of coming to that time in my career where I don’t play for stats or numbers or anything like that. It’s more the positive impact I can have in an environment or a culture that really drives me.

“We’ll see how this season goes first. I’ve got to just recover from trainings at the moment so we’ll see how we go after the end of the season. I’ll sit down and re-assess and see how things are going.”

That doesn’t mean Messam won’t make a return to the red, black and yellow stripes next year, however.

“I’ll always work hard but I’ll always look after myself, my body. If the mind is right, the heart’s right, then why not?”

While the rugby landscape is quickly changing due to the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, Messam isn’t too concerned with the future and happy to see how things go in the coming months before making a decision on next year.

“Just with everything that’s going on, it’s pretty difficult to get your head around things and where things are at and again, the first priority for me is daddy day-care, which has just been absolutely awesome and good for the soul,” he said.

“I’m taking every day as it comes and we’ll see how things go.”

Whatever the future holds, any Waikato side will be better for having Liam Messam on their books – that will become increasingly apparent when the Mooloos kick off their season against Wellington on September 12.

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Jon 3 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

35 Go to comments
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john 6 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

But here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.

28 Go to comments
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Adrian 8 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

Thanks Nick The loss of players to OS, injury and retirement is certainly not helping the Crusaders. Ditto the coach. IMO Penny is there to hold the fort and cop the flak until new players and a new coach come through,…and that's understood and accepted by Penny and the Crusaders hierarchy. I think though that what is happening with the Crusaders is an indicator of what is happening with the other NZ SRP teams…..and the other SRP teams for that matter. Not enough money. The money has come via the SR competition and it’s not there anymore. It's in France, Japan and England. Unless or until something is done to make SR more SELLABLE to the NZ/Australia Rugby market AND the world rugby market the $s to keep both the very best players and the next rung down won't be there. They will play away from NZ more and more. I think though that NZ will continue to produce the players and the coaches of sufficient strength for NZ to have the capacity to stay at the top. Whether they do stay at the top as an international team will depend upon whether the money flowing to SRP is somehow restored, or NZ teams play in the Japan comp, or NZ opts to pick from anywhere. As a follower of many sports I’d have to say that the organisation and promotion of Super Rugby has been for the last 20 years closest to the worst I’ve ever seen. This hasn't necessarily been caused by NZ, but it’s happened. Perhaps it can be fixed, perhaps not. The Crusaders are I think a symptom of this, not the cause

28 Go to comments
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Trevor 10 hours ago
Will forgotten Wallabies fit the Joe Schmidt model?

Thanks Brett.. At last a positive article on the potential of Wallaby candidates, great to read. Schmidt’s record as an international rugby coach speaks for itself, I’m somewhat confident he will turn the Wallaby’s fortunes around …. on the field. It will be up to others to steady the ship off the paddock. But is there a flaw in my optimism? We have known all along that Australia has the players to be very competitive with their international rivals. We know that because everyone keeps telling us. So why the poor results? A question that requires a definitive answer before the turn around can occur. Joe Schmidt signed on for 2 years, time to encompass the Lions tour of 2025. By all accounts he puts family first and that’s fair enough, but I would wager that his 2 year contract will be extended if the next 18 months or so shows the statement “Australia has the players” proves to be correct. The new coach does not have a lot of time to meld together an outfit that will be competitive in the Rugby Championship - it will be interesting to see what happens. It will be interesting to see what happens with Giteau law, the new Wallaby coach has already verbalised that he would to prefer to select from those who play their rugby in Australia. His first test in charge is in July just over 3 months away .. not a long time. I for one wish him well .. heaven knows Australia needs some positive vibes.

21 Go to comments
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