Meet the ultimate Warrior
If there is one thing Simon Mannering won’t miss about professional rugby league, it’s the spotlight. Despite being on the eve of 300 NRL games, the first Warrior to do so and potentially about to play his last game at a ground he has called home for the last 14 seasons, the shy kid from Motueka wishes everyone didn’t make such a fuss about it all.
In the opinion of his fellow players, Mannering is considered the ultimate Warrior. The club’s greatest ever.
He’s described by his peers as someone you love to play with, and by his counterparts as someone you hate to play against; a benchmark of grit and consistency for more than a decade in the toughest rugby league competition in the world.
But to fully understand the man behind New Zealand league’s most decorated career, you have to understand where he has come from and the humble beginnings that helped mould him.
THE EARLY YEARS
Simon Mannering was born on August 28, 1986, in Napier before the family moved to Motueka.
Mannering and his two siblings attended St Peter Chanel School and it was there they first fell in love with sport – rugby union was Simon’s first love.
Father Bill Warwick was the parish priest at St Peter Chanel when the Mannerings first arrived in town. He remembers them as ‘‘warm and welcoming’’, and the family home was always overflowing with local kids running around in the backyard.
Most Saturday mornings, Warwick would head to the local park on Manoy St to watch Simon and brother Marcus play the 15-man code.
‘‘He [Simon] always had very quick feet as a young fella. He could run and was never shy on the tackle, that I remember,’’ Warwick said.
Over the years, Warwick and the Mannering family became close.
He said from a young age Simon was level-headed – though like all kids he wasn’t entirely against getting up to a bit of mischief.
‘‘I remember in 1997, the school was extending the pool,’’ Warwick said with a grin.
‘‘When it came time to open the pool we had a bit of grand opening ceremony.
‘‘We weren’t in there five minutes before Simon and Marcus pushed me into the pool, fully clothed, and started trying to dunk me under as everyone else laughed and jeered.
‘‘Simon was always a bit more quiet than his brother, but both enjoyed a good laugh.’’
Warwick said Mannering was a product of his environment ‘‘through and through’’, and believed it was at Nelson College where the shy kid found his feet.
FIRST XV RUGBY
Before he became a league legend, Mannering was destined for greatness in the 15-man code and learnt his trade at Nelson College under the tutelage – both on and off the field – of Peter Grigg.
Grigg has been teaching at Nelson since 1996 and watched as Mannering came up through the grades before making the school’s first XV.
Though Grigg said he had seen plenty of more talented players come through the system, few could rival Mannering’s attitude. ‘‘Always head down working. More so than most I have ever seen, which is probably why he has gone on to have such success.’’
It was in 2003 when Mannering first tried the 13-man code.
Grigg’s side had finished eighth in its competition, so he put together a league team to ‘‘get some extra work in’’ following a disappointing campaign.
He assumed he’d get his hands back on his players for the next season, refreshed and ready to go. But Mannering never returned.
After just three games it was clear league was his sport and Mannering was named in the New Zealand Schoolboys team before being invited to Wellington to play under-18s.
In a matter of months he was playing top-level league in Wellington for the Orcas before being signed to a part-time deal by the Warriors.
THE NRL
Mannering made his first grade debut on June 26, 2005.
In typical Mannering fashion, he didn’t even tell his mother he would be making his debut as he didn’t want to make ‘‘a big fuss about it’’, he said.
It was a Sunday afternoon. The night before had left conditions wet under foot, the eastern stand was even struck by lightning, but the sun broke through just before kickoff.