he pulled out a wicked-looking meat cleaver, pulled a haka-type face, roared he was going to chop his head off
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JC - Napier NZ
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New Zealand Warriors
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28/8/2006
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My Comments are about Kevin Tamati.
I was interested to read Keith Redman's account of life in a Warrington butcher's shop with Kevin because it reminded me of a story I was told about that very same butcher's shop about 18 years ago.
The chap who told me about it hailed from Warrington and was called Ian Kelly. He had worked as a sports reporter on the Warrington daily newspaper when Kevin was playing for the club.
One day, Ian went into the shop to interview Kevin. As soon as Kevin saw Ian he pulled out a wicked-looking meat cleaver, pulled a haka-type face, roared he was going to chop his head off for what he'd written about him in an earlier article, then proceeded to chase Ian all round the shop. Finally, Kevin burst out laughing and, to his relief, Ian realised KT was just pulling his leg.
Someone else also mentioned Kevin playing for Randwick against Western Suburbs in a Wellington club match around 1986. I was also at that match and was right on the sideline.
There was no love lost between the teams, who were vying for the championship. Randwick had quite a few players who were prison wardens or coppers (including Kiwi Sam Stewart) and Suburbs included a number of players who had spent periods behind bars. The talk before the game was that it would be very tasty.
So it proved. It was obvious from the start that Suburbs were out to goad KT into doing something stupid so that he would be sent off.
Every time he carted the ball up he was gang-tackled and collected elbows, knees . . . the lot. KT never retaliated, he just kept smashing into them.
After one particularly good run, he was decked and treated to another series of cheap shots. One of the Suburbs forwards sneered: "Got you good that time". KT just smiled and said: "Yeah but if you look over your shoulder you'll see we just scored".
While most of the Wests forwards had been busy working him over, he'd slipped a brilliant pass away to set up the try. KT was the one who had the last laugh, too. He stayed on the field, one of the Wests players didn't, and Randwick won the match.
Appears in the following pages ....P90_Kevin TAMATI
Date of posting ... 27-May-2006
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