Wandering star: West Coast Cowboy completing long ride
When Griffin Neame was a teenager, he endured a six-hour round trip just to play his chosen sport.
Neame faced a 250km drive to his game, then hopped back in his dad’s car for the trek home afterwards.
For most Kiwis, the scenic alpine drive from Greymouth to Christchurch is a trip to be savoured at least once in your life. For the West Coaster, it became a test of endurance, as he made the same journey every Monday throughout the season.
Neame, who will play his third test for the Kiwis today at 5pm in the Pacific Championships final in Hamilton against the Kangaroos, has taken to the long road to success.
Every player who represents their country has tales of persistence and endeavour. Few can match Neame.
When he was 16, the age-group competition in Greymouth folded.
“It was pretty hard,” Neame told the Weekend Herald. “There was nothing, nowhere to play. It had slowly died away, there was only one team that would play a game every now and again against each other.”
Neame was in limbo but he was never going to give up. He had long dreamed of being a professional footballer, so had to find a way. But it was far from easy, with the “endless drives” to turn out for Halswell Hornets in Christchurch.
“You get sick of looking at the same stuff — three hours is a long drive,” said Neame. “And then to drive three hours after you’ve played; I just had to make sure I was doing the best I could and making the most of every game I played. I couldn’t go all that way to play an ordinary game. And Dad was pretty good. He would try to give me some tips; we had three hours to talk about stuff.”
As an added complication, the club matches were played on Monday evenings. Neame would leave school just after lunch, while his father would finish work early. Being sedentary for that long was far from ideal preparation.
“I’d have to get there a bit earlier and walk around, just to loosen the legs up. I wouldn’t say you got used to it but it got easier.”
Kickoff was at 6pm or 7pm — “it was cold and muddy, under lights, pretty tough” — which meant a return to Greymouth at 11pm, before school the next day. Neame did his own training and strength work during the week and his team would run him through the plays in the changing room before the matches.
There were considerable sacrifices but Neame was willing to pay the price. He had been league-mad since he was a boy, watching his father Chris turn out for the West Coast and South Island representative teams.
“Greymouth is a small town, there’s not too much else to do apart from play sport,” says Neame with a laugh. “We’d play league in the clubrooms from when I was a little fella.”
After being spotted at a regional game against Auckland, Neame was picked up by the Cowboys as a 15-year-old. That meant coming to Auckland once a year for camps before shifting to Townsville in 2019 aged 18.
The Covid pandemic interrupted his progress through the lower grades but he eventually made his NRL debut in August 2021, then became a regular last year as they reached the preliminary final (23 matches).
Neame’s presence in the black and white V continues a strong tradition. In the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, the West Coast was a heartland of the sport, producing many famous names, such as George Menzies, Jock Butterfield, Bill McLennan, Frank Mulcare and Tony Coll.
More recent representatives have included Quentin Pongia, Brent Stuart and Whetu Taewa, though the demise of mining and other industries has affected the pipeline.
“Coming from Greymouth, you hear about all the Kiwis that used to be from there, though there’s not much league down there at the moment.
“It’s special to be in the Kiwis, especially to be in the same team as some of the names here.”
Neame made his debut in the 50-0 win over Samoa before a second-half stint in Melbourne last weekend. Today’s match will be extra special, with his parents and grandparents making the trip north for the game, while the rest of his family “will be glued to the screen”.