When Adelaide came calling - Part Two

If you missed the first instalment, you can read it here.

However, if you managed to survive part one and are keen to read on, go ahead and enjoy.

When rugby throws a spanner in the works

I’d played 1st XV rugby for two years while at Auckland Grammar School but had decided to take a break from the game once I attended the University of Otago, with the idea of focusing on my studies and cricket.

However, come autumn 2008, I felt I had my study commitments under control and thought I’d have one last crack at the game I began playing competitively at the age of three.

Well, things went much better than expected.

Through mutual friends, I’d got to know Ben Smith during my time in Dunedin.

I thought about what clubs might be short of an inside-back and ‘Benda’s Green Island came to mind.

I text him to see whether I could come along for a run around and he said ‘Yeah, why not?’

I attended a few trainings and played a game for the reserves.

My performance was pretty rusty with some good touches as well as some ordinary ones.

On the whole, I thoroughly enjoyed being back on the field.

The Premier Men’s coach had come along to watch and after that one performance I was selected in the Prems the following week to play first-five-eighth.

I got right into my offence, revelling in the fact that no one knew me and higher quality backs outside me seemed to occupy the minds of most of the defences we came up against.

The show-and-go worked a treat and I laid on the assist for a few tries and touched down a few occasions myself.

I worked hard on my in-play kicking as well as my goal-kicking, which was better some weeks than others.

A real honour

What was a real treat was playing with a great bunch of guys, in particular having the privilege to say I played alongside one of the All Blacks’ most durable and successful outside backs of the modern era, Ben Smith.

His freakish ability to beat the first defender, whether playing at fullback or first-five, made him stand out amongst his peers.

I recall a kick return in the wet against Southern at Miller Park in Green Island.

He received the ball around the 22m line and just weaved his way through the chasing defenders – initially beating the outside backs and then making his way through the forward pack.

He must have beaten seven or eight players on his own with light and deceptive footwork, all on a muddy pitch.

He was remarkable.

The power of the press

For some reason, there was this bloke writing for the Otago Daily Times who thought I was the best thing since sliced bread (scroll down to the bottom of the page within the link to read a match report).

It seemed I could do no wrong.

When I did my job, I was lauded, when I played poorly, I received a notable mention too.

I was enjoying the momentum of consistent match-play and set my sights on a goal of gaining selection for Otago Maori.

I’d never played for a Maori representative team before, yet always had it in my sights given my ancestor Tom Ellison had played for the New Zealand ‘Natives’ on their 1888-89 tour of Great Britain, and more recently, a cousin, Rhys Ellison had played for New Zealand Maori in the early 1990s.

However, in August, after just a dozen games of club rugby for the mighty Green Island Grizzlies, I was named in the Otago ‘B’ squad.

I was shocked.

So many thoughts ran through my mind.

Was I making the right decision pursuing cricket, or should I give rugby a crack?

After a long and considered phone call with my dad, I decided to stick with my original plan to go to Adelaide, be transparent with the selectors about my future endeavours and take each game as it came.

For the record, my performance for Otago ‘B’ stands at one game and one goal from one attempt (a conversion from the side-line too).

After training with the squad for three to four weeks, it became obvious that I couldn’t afford to put the time into preparing for rugby given my dissertation required a lot of attention, let alone training for the upcoming cricket season.

I made the call to the head coach to tell him I was pulling out of the squad to focus on university and cricket.

And, that was the end of my rugby career.

About that dissertation…

Amongst all of the hustle and bustle of rugby trainings, preseason cricket trainings, strength and fitness training and some part-time work, I also managed to complete my dissertation a few weeks ahead of schedule – thanks in no small way to the brilliant guidance of my supervisor, Angela Wanhalla.

That was a huge weight off my shoulders as it was a project I had been working on for the best part of 12 months and I wanted to produce something of significance for my wider whanau to be proud of.

It is titled A history of the Ellison whanau of Otakou in case you have an interest in reading more about the late great Thomas Rangiwahia Ellison and his forebears and can be found within the University of Otago Archives as well as at Archives NZ.

Then, it was time to hop on the plane.

Time to fly

I recall the weekend I left Dunedin vividly.

I flew to Auckland on the Friday to spend the weekend with my parents before heading onto Adelaide on the Monday.

It just so happened that on the Sunday, my favourite team, the New Zealand Warriors were playing the Melbourne Storm in the first round of the NRL finals’ series and managed to make history and do something truly remarkable.

There are few better ways to sign off on than that!

Monday arrived, and I was off on a new adventure with my buddy Jase waiting on the other side for me.

Settling in

Jase had room in his rental property available for me and all I needed was some belongings to fill the space.

There was only one thing for it – IKEA sorted me out.

I met up with my new team at Glenelg District Cricket Club, and they made an immediate impression on me; all very welcoming and excited about the season ahead.

How am I going to pay the bills?

Next on my hit list was sourcing employment.

I had applied for a few jobs, but an advert for Sports Marketers caught my eye.

After sending them my CV, I had a phone call from a guy who asked me to come in for a chat.

I went in to meet the owner and learned that they were taking on new staff to sell $10 raffle tickets on behalf of sporting clubs.

I would earn $2 for each ticket I sold and had the added incentive of a bonus structure where if I sold 40 tickets in a day, I would get a $30 bonus.

If I sold 50 tickets in a day, I would receive a $40 bonus and so on.

If you think it sounds tough – it absolutely was!

You all know those people who you see on the street, in malls or knocking on the door of your business trying to sell you something?

Yep that was me.

And, for the first two weeks, I was terrible.

During that first two weeks, I think my best effort was selling 17 tickets, which earned me the grand total of $34.

I was as close as you can get to giving up when it finally clicked for me.

I stopped trying to ‘sell’ the tickets and just had a bit of fun.

I got into a rhythm and before I knew it, I had sold 60 raffle tickets for the day – netting me $170.

That was more like it.

And that was me four days a week for six months (thankfully I got to break the week up by doing some live scoring and commentary for Cricinfo for the Australian domestic season).

I learned so much from the experience of pounding the pavement to earn every cent; hard work is rewarding when you continually pick yourself up off the floor.

In that line of work, you come across some really interesting people and some people who not only want to say no but act as if you’re trying to steal the clothes off their back.

Maintaining a consistent attitude is the key to success.

If you’re not at your best, you might miss that customer who is prepared to drop $1000 for their beloved club.

Now that would be a decent day’s work!

While I wouldn’t encourage anyone else to take on a job like it, I also don’t think I could have learned the number of lessons I did from any other role.

It was challenging but you learned to control the ‘controllables’ – you can’t control what type of mood someone else is in, how much money they have or what type of horrible experience they’ve had with someone selling raffle tickets in the past, but you can control how you handle each person.

Ultimately, you’re selling yourself.

Make them comfortable with you and you never know what kind of doors you can open.

Hang on, what about the cricket?

As if the job didn’t teach me enough on its own, then there was the cricket.

In my first match, I nicked off second ball to a Redbacks’ squad member and he told me in no uncertain terms that I should get back on the plane home to New Zealand.

That was the introduction I needed.

It set the tone for what was to come that summer.

If I was to succeed, I needed to dig deeper mentally than I ever had before, man up and get fully invested within the contest against the bowler and be prepared to be uncomfortable for long periods.

Thankfully, I made a winning contribution in just my second match for ‘The Bays’ with 39 not out chasing 104 to win against Chadd Sayers’ Woodville.

It was great to get some time in the middle – it took us 37.1 overs to chase the total down, despite only losing two wickets - but I got to bat with the bloke they called ‘The corpse with pads’, club legend Tommy Plant.

Otherwise known as ‘The Cougar’, Tommy remains a club man more than 10 years on and holds the record for the most runs scored by a Glenelg player which is now up over the 7000-mark.

That was a real treat.

He instantly gained my respect when Jase told me he’d made a hundred against Murali and co in a star-studded touring Sri Lankan team.

A maiden fifty

I passed fifty in my fifth innings, making 88 against Prospect in a 109-run victory.

I recall that day sharing in two significant partnerships – the first worth 70 for the third wicket with a 17-year-old prodigy by the name of Alex Carey who had a big future in Aussie Rules in store, and the second of 138 with our player coach, David Scholz, husband of ex-Australian and the Waikato/Bay of Plenty Magic netballer Peta Scholz.

There’s no better place to bond with and get to know your new teammates than in the middle like that.

Flying home for an exam

The following week, it was time to nip back across the Tasman Sea to complete my final exam.

I had the small matter of an internal flight to Melbourne, before heading on to Auckland and finally Dunedin.

Over the previous couple of weeks, I’d been reading through all my notes for my final paper, which I really enjoyed, and I felt well prepared as I boarded the plane.

However, what I hadn’t prepared so well for was my second flight – to New Zealand.

International flights require a passport.

If only I had remembered to pack it.

But wait, there’s more

Sorry to keep you waiting, but if you’d like to know how it all ends, you’re welcome to come back next week for the final instalment.