Darren Shand

It's a bit of a missed opportunity.

And some of my time in Queensland where I was trying to achieve some standards and different things that I was being involved in, I didn't quite get to the level I wanted.

And so by the time I got to the All Blacks, I was like, I really want to make that.

Like, I have to make, this is an opportunity.

I can't let this go, you know?

And that was a good and a bad driving force in some ways, because I probably overdid it, which had consequences.

But I think just slowly but surely, I just started to build those layers of belief and value that I belong there, that I could contribute something.

I was very different from everybody else.

I didn't come from rugby or any pedigree, and rugby was almost a black sheep in some ways, because everyone else

They were all passionate about it.

I couldn't, you know, if you said to me, I do want to go powder skiing today or be sitting on the bench, I'd go powder skiing every day.

And that was different, but I didn't think that was wrong because I knew when I was there, I'm going to give you everything I've got and I'll come from a different perspective and that might be good for us too.

I learned a lot in Queenstown because you're living and working in an environment that every day is different and it's real.

We're taking people rafting down the Sharavera or the Kawarau rivers and it's in flood.

Actually, someone could die today and actually someone did die on a trip that I was on.

And so it wasn't just shits and giggles.

It wasn't a Disneyland fun ride that you fork out and pay your hundred bucks.

It was real.

And in those days, it was cowboy.

It was all about, at that stage of Queenstown's life, Shot Over Jet was probably the biggest tourist activity.