Off the farm
Marshall now taming Tigers
Former Chiefs hooker Rhys Marshall has gone from herding sheep on horseback in Hawke’s Bay to playing in Europe’s top rugby competition.
The 25-year-old ex-taranaki rake scored a try and pulled off a trysaving turnover as Irish province Munster thrashed the Leicester Tigers 33-10 in the European Champions Cup clash in Limerick on Saturday (Sunday NZ Time).
Yet, a few years ago, Marshall was working 12-hour days on a sheep farm in New Zealand.
‘‘I grew up on a 500-acre property just north of New Plymouth,’’ he told The42, an Irish sports site. ‘‘After school, rugby wasn’t measuring up and I decided farming was my number one priority.
‘‘I probably wasn’t big enough or strong enough to get the selection decisions at that age so I went over to Hawke’s Bay over the other side of the island and worked on a 5500-hectare station as a shepherd. Five days a week, 12 hour days.’’
He spent his working day on horseback, helping look after 28,000 ewes and lambs and learned how to shear sheep, break horses and train dogs.
But he still found time to play club rugby and said his time in the Bay were ‘‘the best years of my life’’.
‘‘Playing rugby with your mates and having a couple of beers afterwards. I loved every moment of that and I’m not sure what the boys are like when they come through the traditional rugby academies but I’d say my passion for the sport lifted by playing at that level and for a club with your mates.’’
Marshall told The42 he was glad he ‘‘went the other way and pursued farming’’ because he learnt valuable life skills through ‘‘a bit of hard work, mucking around with the boys’’.
‘‘You get to a point on the farm when you rely on the blokes you work with and it’s no different to rugby, you rely on the men you run out with.
‘‘The more work you put in [at rugby], the more you get out of it and that work ethic comes from the farm.’’
Marshall’s career took off in 2012 when he made the New Zealand under-20 squad.
He played 41 games for Taranaki and 28 for the Chiefs before joining Munster in 2016.
Marshall, who is competing for game-time at Munster with Irish test hooker Niall Scannell, is studying extramurally to complete an agricultural degree in New Zealand.