Darren Shand

This just made it easy, you know, like it was,

nothing was hard we weren't particularly well off but we were well off if that makes sense you know dad was a man of the faith so that was important to him and I think he brought us up with those values particularly you know Christianity and how you treat people walking beside people I think that's where that probably came from he never missed Sunday Mass you know that was some

In fact, the day he died, sorry, not the day he died, earlier that week when the doctor came and said, look, this is nothing we can do now.

He just said, it's all good.

The Holy Spirit's with me.

And that was him to a T, you know.

He said it with a smile on his face.

That was...

It was very special.

Actually, that sort of brought me a lot of comfort in that moment, you know, as much as it was hard the next few days watching him pass.

But by the time I got to the funeral, I was actually in celebration mode.

What a great man, you know.

I miss him dearly.

Yeah, it was really hard.

I mean, I loved all sport.

I think I played for my school in every sport going.

As I finished high school, cricket and hockey were the, I was in the first 11 at school from year nine.

You can say third form, it's okay.

We all know third form.

I was a third form in the first 11, and I was playing rugby at that stage too, and then hockey at the same time, and I got a break with hockey, so I started playing men's hockey at 14, I think, and club hockey in Hawke's Bay, and had a guy in the club who just took me under his wing.