Squire finally catches a break
It took Liam Squire a year to learn how to play like an All Black, writes Mark Hinton
IT’S little wonder Liam Squire doesn’t sweat the small stuff. Before he’d even been offered his first professional rugby contract he had worked on a dairy farm, a sheep and beef holding, and then at an aluminium foundry. He’d also broken his back in the name of his sport. Literally.
Now here he is, a fully established All Blacks starting forward (sort of) and one of his coach’s favourite players (even if he consistently mispronounces his name) because of the immense physicality, huge commitment and unerring consistency he brings to the test match arena. Squire loves it, with lashings of a healthy perspective.
Not so long ago, running out into full stadiums around the world in the famous black jersey of his country was about the furthest thing you could imagine from this 26-year-old’s mind. In fact, just playing rugby again seemed a fast evaporating prospect.
Squire is now, all things being equal, the first-choice All Blacks No 6, even if an untimely illness forced him to cede that honour for the first two tests of this November tour to Vaea Fifita. Temporary setback, and water off the duck’s back to a fellow who understands true adversity.
The bruising Highlanders and Tasman Makos loose forward will likely return to the starting spot for the season finale against Wales in Cardiff next weekend, providing nothing untoward took place in his turn off the bench against Scotland overnight. Steve Hansen confirmed he would have worn the No 6 jersey against France, but for being laid low by a virus, and from there his selection in the midweek clash in Lyon always made a run-on spot for the Scots a long shot.
It’s all neither here nor there for Squire who, when we chat at their swanky Edinburgh hotel on test eve, is clearly in an exceedingly positive frame of mind. This pig-hunting, tacklebusting loose forward is an uncomplicated bloke who plays an uncomplicated brand of rugby.
He has also learned the hard way to appreciate what he has and not get too carried away with what might lurk around the next corner.
It’s an approach that served him well when, back in 2010, playing club rugby in the Manawatu (he was brought up in Tokomaru, 20 minutes south of Palmerston North) he suffered a fractured spine that left him in a precarious position, to say the least.
Because he was ‘‘just a club player’’ and not in anyone’s academy system, it took some time for his injury to be properly diagnosed. He even attempted a comeback after rest, before breaking down immediately and discovering he had hairline fractures on both sides of his L4 vertebrae.
It was a similar injury to the one that ended the career of Michael Hobbs, and at one stage Squire wasn’t sure whether he would ever play rugby again. ‘‘It took a good three to four months to figure it out ... and I did think this could be it,’’ he recalls.
But eventually he found himself in front of the same surgeon who dealt with cricketer Jacob Oram’s back issues, and they plotted a path forward. ‘‘I was moving the next year to Nelson to play club footy, and it didn’t take long to decide on surgery. Just to know it was going to start to heal, rather than wait and I could still have needed surgery six months later.’’
Two years later he hit another road bump, fracturinged an ankle playing Tasman club rugby, and spending the best part of a year out dealing with that.
‘‘That was a stuffup,’’ he recalls with a rueful grin. ‘‘I spent four months with a pin across my foot, tried to get back for ITM Cup early, but snapped the pin in half. We didn’t realise at the time, but two months later I went to get the pin out, woke up and they told me