‘It’s not going to be easy’, Perenara warns of travel challenges
All Blacks halfback TJ Perenara has opened up about the “challenges” of potentially leaving his young family for more than two months to play in Australia.
All Blacks players will have to leave their families behind for up to 10 weeks, including quarantine periods, to play in the Rugby Championship, set to be played in New South Wales after the All Blacks’ first two tests of the year against the Wallabies in New Zealand next month.
A third Bledisloe test will also be played in Queensland ahead of the four-team tournament.
Speaking after Wellington’s convincing 39-21 victory over Auckland on Sunday, a frank Perenara said it would be difficult to leave his wife and newborn daughter, as well as his Mitre 10 Cup side, to play for the All Blacks.
“Leaving will be hard for a number of reasons,” Perenara said.
“Getting amongst te kapa o¯ raiona (roughly translated as ‘the group of lions’) for the last couple of weeks has been awesome.
“Built some great friendships within the environment and then also leavingmywife and baby for the next little while will be hard.”
Perenara and his wife Greer welcomed their first baby, a daughter, last month. Several other All Blacks also face the prospect of leaving young families to play across the Tasman.
“It will have its challenges,” Perenara added. “It’s not an easy situation for anyone regardless if you have families or not.
“But leaving my wife
and my young daughter will be a difficult situation, although I amexcited about the opportunity to be in the All Blacks environment.
“It’s always an honour and a privilege to be selected in that team and be in that environment with the best players in the world.”
Perenara’s All Blacks teammate Richie Mo’unga, who also welcomed his first child last month, has already hit out at a suggestion from onemedia outlet that some All Blacks were considering pulling out of this year’s Rugby Championship for family reasons.
Beauden Barrett, who is expecting his first child with wife Hannah, also addressed the issue but wasn’t definitive about his availability either, saying there’s still “a lot of water to go under the bridge” around the Rugby Championship.
As All Blacks said goodbye to their
Mitre 10 Cup sides to prepare for the Bledisloe Cup this week after gathering in Whakatane, Perenara said getting back into the team environment will be a good chance to have discussions about leaving their young families for a long period.
“Now that we go into All Blacks camps it’s a really good period to have those discussions as a family, those discussions as a team within the All Blacks environment to develop those skills to make sure that all the boys who have been in a similar situation have the tools and the support systems around us to make sure the transition or that period of time is as easy as possible,” he said.
“It’s not going to be easy, it’s simple as that, but make sure it’s as easy as possible.
“That’s what I think — this next little while is going to be really important to build those strategies.” — NZ Herald