Kerr reignites his career with Drua
BADEN Kerr was in the business of seeking signatures on sales and purchase agreements when former All Blacks skills coach Mick Byrne asked for his scribble on a different kind of contract.
The deal, said Byrne, was to join Fijian Drua for their adventure in Super Rugby Pacific. Neither the 32-year-old Kerr, or Byrne, could have dared predict they would be in for such a wild ride.
First five-eighth Kerr was member of the Blues squad in 2013 and 2014, and played in England and Japan before returning to New Zealand to begin the transition from professional rugby player to life in the ‘‘real world’’.
That meant working as a real estate agent, based in Pukekohe, and last winter he played for Karaka in the local competition, helping the club to win their first title.
Then came the call from Bryne, an assistant coach at the Blues during Kerr’s time with the Auckland-based franchise.
‘‘I was sort of coming into the real world in terms of work, when I heard through an agent that a couple of teams were looking for No 10s,’’ Kerr said. ‘‘There is always that little bit of hope, and you keep fit. But I was at the stage . . . where it is really hard to have one foot in and one out.’’
Getting on the park to play footy for Drua, it turned out, was only part of the experience. ‘‘It has been one of those years in which you look back and go ‘that year was insane’,’’ Kerr, the only non-Fijian in the squad, said.
Covid-19 has played a big part. Most Drua players haven’t seen their families since the squad gathered in Australia in early November, and when the floods ripped through the region they were staying in, they had to up sticks on several occasions, at short notice.
Drua were supposed to be based at Lennox Head in northern New South Wales but the reality is they have become the great travellers of Super Rugby Pacific. With Suva offlimits for the first half of the season because of Covid, they will play the Highlanders in their first home-soil game next weekend, and have had ‘‘home’’ games in Sydney, Brisbane and the Queensland Coast.
‘‘It is a brand new team, with so much travel. People could say ‘why aren’t you competing (better)’ but if you saw what’s going on in camp you would be astonished at how well they are . . . doing.’’
Kerr, who made 45 appearances for Counties Manukau between 2010 and 2020, has no firm goals beyond this season. He’s made three appearances for Drua but is nursing a knee injury. The plan is to get back on the field during the coming weeks.
Becoming accustomed to the routine of professional rugby was one thing. Getting his head around what was expected of him, was another.
A conversation with Byrne, who worked under All Blacks coach Sir Steve Hansen for 11 years, erased his anxieties.
‘‘It was quite overwhelming but I guess the best thing for me was how Mick pitched it – what he required of me. He didn’t need me to wind back the clock and have a whole lot of pace and do things I wasn’t necessarily capable of. That put my mind at ease.’’
Then there’s the ‘‘magic’’ embedded into the Fijian style of rugby.
Although they have won just one of their eight games in Australia, Drua have been unlucky not to record more wins.
‘‘You have these special players who have that childlike mentality to the game, and just want to play,’’ Kerr said.