Good thins come to those who wait
Chiefs scrum-half Brad Weber had to bide his time bet ween caps. Now he’s treating his first All Blacks tour as one big adventure
DURING A week off in Queensland before heading out to tour the United States and Europe, several All Blacks played what they would describe as a Ryder Cup-style golf tournament over a few days. The teams were selected much as any playground football match would be, with Jordie and Beauden Barrett as the two captains taking turns to choose. No one wanted to be picked last.
In possession of one of the better handicaps in the group, Brad Weber could relax knowing he was safe from ignominy. In fact, he watched on with glee as Luke Jacobson was one of the last men chosen. And as he considers himself “unflappable” on the course, Weber was prepared for the endless chirps, the ultra-competitiveness from lightning rods like TJ Perenara and the “head noise” emanating from Will Jordan. The beers afterwards were well earned.
If it sounds like a phlegmatic approach to swinging clubs and navigating sticks and stones also speaks to a patient demeanour elsewhere, though, it is one the Waikato Chiefs scrum-half has had to learn to adopt. At least when it comes to his Test-rugby stock. After all, this is a player who made his international debut against Samoa in July 2015 and then wouldn’t wear black again until facing Argentina in the same month four years later, in 2019. He would go on to be part of the World Cup squad in Japan, and has played in the last two Rugby Championships, but the 30-year-old has also never toured Europe. Until now.
“I’m one of the lucky ones in that I don’t have kids or anything tying me to home,” he begins on recently living out of a suitcase. “I’ve got a partner at home and I miss her but there’s no kids, so it’s a little bit easier to get through.
“But we’re only at the halfway mark (after months spent playing the Rugby Championship in Australia) and it’s pretty overwhelming thinking that we’ve got another seven or eight weeks until we head home. I look at it like an adventure and try to enjoy it. Because it’s my first end-of-year tour. I’ve got a lot of firsts to look forward to, I guess, so
I’m trying to think of it that way.”
Before we get back to patience, there is also perspective to be had. Weber’s partner, Shannon Halpin, is an obs and gynae doctor, and he wryly explains
that any moping he does over a loss or a tough day pales in comparison to some of the horrors she’s had to deal with. Asked what kind of partner he is in such scenarios, he chuckles about how that really is in the eye of the beholder, but he strives to bring calmness and even straight-talking to real-world chats.
Has that approach helped or hindered him in his rugby career, does he reckon?
“I’d say initially it probably got me into a bit of trouble,” Weber says. “Maybe I thought I was better than I was and that I should have been picked for teams when I wasn’t being selected.
“Looking back, I wasn’t playing as well and certainly didn’t deserve to make the All Blacks at the time. Then after assessing the way I reacted to that, it helped in that I was at the point where I could say, ‘Right, well, I’ve missed out on the All Blacks for a few years. This is going to be my last decent crack at it. And then if I don’t make it this year then I’m going to go overseas’.
“It brought a bit of relief, where I didn’t worry too much about being selected. I tried to realise that this could potentially be my last year playing in New Zealand, so I should enjoy it and see how far I can push myself and how good I can get. Then, funnily enough – this is in 2019 – I had the best year I’d had up until that point and I ended up getting selected (for the All Blacks) anyway.”
Perhaps it’s like a sprinter, waiting in the blocks. The runner straining every fibre for the full hundred metres is unlikely to go as fast as a comparatively conditioned athlete who can relax into their stride.
“That’s exactly how it happened,” Weber says in response to that idea. “I often started seasons really well, then the All Blacks selection stuff starts coming towards the end of the Super Rugby season, and I start overthinking it all. I’m thinking about my performance too much and then the negative impact comes and I miss out.
“So that year my mindset was that I could have the best year of my life, I could be the best player in Super Rugby that year, and still miss out on All Blacks selection. And that’s fine. I had made my peace with that. It was like a weight off my shoulders and then I just went out, played carefree and played the best I’ve played. So I try to have that mindset every year now.”
You cannot just decide to leave your worries at the door, of course. Weber concedes that he learnt this over an accumulation of time. But refreshingly, the half-back holds his hands up and says he doesn’t know if he is a naturally patient bloke anyway. Athletes don’t have to have all the answers, and he wonders whether he has had to do a similar level of self-reflection in his personal life. He’s certainly had his frustrations through his career. What Weber does know, with iron-clad certainty, is that his second Test cap means much more to him than his first.
After years of agonising over whether he would end up a one-cap wonder, adapting and toiling and seeking help and welcoming advice and playing as hard as he could, there was incredible relief. Thank you goes out to beautiful Buenos Aires.
“I’d just had enough. I was sticking up for people I loved”
Weber often wonders which players have had a longer stint between their first and second caps (answers on an email please!). But he knows that he has needed to keep adding to his game since that second cap. He has always had the speed around the field, he says, but he also knows that consistency in the skill requirements of elite scrum-half play – targeted passing and box-kicking onto a postage stamp of grass – is the constant work-on. He is aware he has a fast pass, but he explains that one game of good stuff could be followed by “a few worm-burners or passes over the head” the next week. It’s something that current New Zealand boss Ian Foster has been in his ear about in the past.
Asked what his personal goals are from a first European tour, Weber admits he’s not committed much thinking time to the subject, but then adds: “I really want to contribute to wins in big games this year. That’s probably been a goal because obviously with the quality of nines that we’ve got in New Zealand, playing Tests has been hard to come by.
“So this year I’ve really wanted to be a part of the big Tests and play a genuine role in securing a win or getting us across the line. Playing the Aussie (Bledisloe) games and the two South African Tests has been pretty cool this year. And looking forward to this tour, Wales, France and Ireland are three big Tests I’d love to be a part of.”
Weber has been in Dublin before, when visiting his partner’s family, and in fact toured the whole of Ireland over a fortnight in November 2019. He saw Kerry, spent a few nights in Dingle,
stayed with Rhys Marshall (who was with Munster at the time) and took in Munster versus Racing 92 – “Finn Russell carved up, which was cool to watch!” He laughs as he recalls visiting pal Bundee Aki in Galway and seeing just how beloved the centre is locally, even getting the royal treatment at one café.
If there is one other thing that Weber is brilliantly straight-talking about, it’s on the issue of inclusion. At the height of the Israel Folau furore, when the former Wallabies full-back aired his homophobic views, Weber came out in support of the LGBTQ+ community, saying: “(I’m) kinda sick of us players staying quiet on some of this stuff. I can’t stand that I have to play this game that I love with people, like Folau, who say what he’s saying.”
Reflecting on that moment now, Weber says: “Because I’ve grown up with an auntie that is gay and my cousin is gay as well, they were just my family. So for me, thinking some thought that way about people in that community, it just blew my mind. And then when it kept going, I just had enough. It was more that I was sticking up for people I loved, that are being treated that way. And then I guess digging more into it now I have realised that it’s still a huge, huge problem. And also that people in the LGBTQ community have a far higher rate of suicide than everyone else, so they are real susceptible as a community.
“It’s something that’s pretty close to home because I’ve got family but I’m also trying to do more work with it now, trying to find ways to help change people’s perspectives on people that are in that community. Because they are human and that’s just who they are. So there’s a couple of companies (I work with). The WaterBoy in particular is a company and a charity based in the Waikato region that do some really good work.
“Religion is a sensitive topic to delve into. But one of the biggest things that stops (LGBTQ) people from playing sport and engaging is the language that we use, and particularly in schools. Stuff like using derogatory terms, describing things as ‘gay’ or calling people ‘f***’. If I look back to my time at school, it was so normal back then. But now knowing the effects that sort of language has on people, particularly young people who are struggling with their sexuality, it’s actually massive and that’s a big reason why people hide their sexuality or struggle with their mental health.
“The WaterBoy go in and try to change the way we use language, because that’s where it all starts.
“People can’t change the way they are. Being gay isn’t a choice for people. So if you use terms that are derogatory, that can have an effect on people’s mental health. If you can be a bit more conscious about the language you use, and the potential harm it can do, that can make a huge difference. If you just make this subtle change – and I think it starts at school – we can get kids on board, then that’ll change the next generation.”
Weber wants as many kids as possible to feel welcome playing sport. He believes in the part sport could play in bringing people from different cultures, backgrounds and belief systems together, if we’d let it. And, Weber ponders aloud, how many potential superstars have been driven away from the world of sport right from the get-go because the atmosphere or the words used felt harsh and unwelcoming?
It’s a serious note to hit, and between all the breaks for brevity and assertions he can be unyielding, it’s clear he cares. Unflappable? Perhaps. But Weber is at his best when he lets things fly.