Mean streets the perfect training for Wayne’s new world

WP7589 is reporting for duty. The new Wales coach, Wayne Pivac, the ex-Auckland copper who had a ‘mean left hook’ and carried a .38 pistol on the New Zealand streets in the 1980s, is unlikely to feel the pressure his old day job brought at the Principality Stadium against Italy.

‘Once you go into someone’s home and have to tell someone their loved one has passed away unexpectedly and then you sit down with a rugby player and have a conversation about the fact they haven’t been picked, those sorts of situations I don’t find as difficult as other coaches,’ said Pivac, 57.

In his youth Pivac was every inch the archetypal 80s copper. ‘He had the ol’ policeman’s ’tache like everyone else!’ laughed his good friend Paul Feeney, who now coaches the Kenyan Sevens but has stood on touchlines with Pivac in Takapuna, Auckland, Fiji and Cardiff.

‘In the 1980s being a policeman was a tough job. It wasn’t as politically correct as it is today…

‘You had to think on your feet. That’s helped him in his coaching career.’

Between the ages of 19 and 34 Pivac would police the streets of Auckland’s North Shore, spending the last few years in the Criminal Investigations Unit.

Shorn of his uniform, Pivac took names on the rugby field, as a lock or back-rower for his closest club Takapuna, then North Harbour and the Northland provincial team.

‘He used to play either er No 6, 7 or 8 — all three positions ions — but at North Harbour ur the coach Peter Thorburn played him at lock,’ added Feeney.

‘He wasn’t the world’s biggest second-row but had a pretty good left hook on him!’

It was with the New Zealand services team that the fun was to be had. had Pivac played with Steve Hansen. Mike Cron, who became the feared All Blacks ‘scrum doctor’, was the selector.

At 27, Pivac suffered a bad knee injury when playing touch. His playing career, in which he had shared the field with All Black great Sean Fitzpatrick, was over.

The first cobble on the yellowbrick road to the Wales job was laid in Takapuna, over the Harbour Bridge north of Auckland, where his father George coached.

Fast-forward 30 years and Wayne the coach was destined for success. A title for Takapuna came in 1994, and then three Auckland championships in five years followed for Pivac at North Harbour.

What struck those that know him was not just his excellent tactics or ‘out-the-square’ selections, but his manmanagement — clearly coming from serving on the thin blue line. ‘You learn in the police to come on soft initially, listen to people, then gradually you can progress that to whatever extent you want,’ explained Feeney. ‘You end up locking people up. ‘Wayne has a similar attitude in his coaching — take a pretty easy approach, and if you need to bring that to the next stage you can, but you don’t start off at the heights.’

Pivac himself credits the police for sharpening his eye and he did not miss much when it came to talent-spotting. ‘Keven Mealamu was a young flanker in Auckland and Wayne converted him into a hooker — he went we on to win 132 1 caps for the All A Blacks,’ said Feeney.

Graham Henry invited Pivac P to become his h assistant at Auckland Au in 1998. When W Pivac arrived, arrive though, Henry had ha taken the Wales job so suddenly the youngster was in charge. It was a theme that would repeat itself at Llanelli.

By 2003 he was ‘Steinlager Coach of the Year’ with three NPC titles in his cupboard.

Then, with Feeney, he coached Fiji for three years, a job which took him to his future home, the Principality Stadium.

In Wales’ 2005 125th anniversary match the Fijians missed a drop-goal and lost 11-10 in the rain. But the shorter-form team were world champions. Returning to the Islands — having beaten New Zealand in Hong Kong — Pivac needed all his policeman’s nous to negotiate the chaos.

‘There were 10,000 people at the airport!’ recalls Feeney. ‘It was amazing scenes. The next day with our families we bussed down to Suva. It should only be a threehour trip but it took 16!

‘We went to seven chiefs’ villages, would go round corners and there’d be 500 people standing in the road to stop the bus to give you kerosene, cloth and matting as gifts.’

After Pivac’s marriage fell apart a couple of years later he returned home and by 2012 he was back with Auckland, where Hadleigh Parkes was his centre and captain.

‘He was my first Auckland Sevens coach, then took me to the XVs side and we had about two seasons together,’ recalled the Kiwi-born Welsh midfielder.

‘You have to be accountable with him. He is level-headed but a big advocate of celebrating success. Work hard in the week, then when you put a team to the sword and win you should enjoy it with your mates.

‘And if things didn’t go well, the next team needs to pay.’

It was in 2013 that both Parkes’s and Pivac’s lives changed drastically. Scarlets coach Simon Easterby flew to New Zealand for a weekend to see Pivac. He wanted him as an assistant and Pivac agreed. By the time he arrived, Easterby was coaching Ireland and Pivac was in charge — it had happened again.

Pivac soon brought Parkes over to join him and with their swashbuckling style the Scarlets won the Pro12 before Pivac became the chosen one to replace Warren Gatland.

A lot has changed in Wayne’s world but he retains the same values drummed into him when he was the bobby with the ’tache. ‘In the police I saw the real life result of bad performance. It had a knock-on effect on the community — I dealt with some of that at 3am on a Sunday. It goes with the territory.

‘That’s part of the excitement of it — you can make a difference to people’s lives for a period of time, albeit a couple of days or a week.

‘It’s not something we’ll shy away from.’