Kieran Read

Rugby went from the thing I love and played kind of for fun to, oh man, shit, you could...

Robbie Deans walks past, Crusaders coach, and how would you like to be a Crusader?

And I was just like, well, yeah, that'd be pretty cool.

Richie Rubin and that, you know, these guys that you've seen on TV.

Yeah.

And suddenly you're kind of sharing a changing room with them.

It was scary, man, getting the jersey for the first time and you're kind of staring at it going, you know, how real is this?

And coaches saw potential there.

yeah and as a leader in me somewhere which i i didn't really know or feel like i had in me but yeah i think it for any leader it's like don't chase the leader you want to be or you think you should be it's you know be who you are

What an intro.

It's a hell of an intro.

Thank you.

It always kind of puts me in my place when I hear that.

I kind of try and stay away from those stats sometimes, but no, it is pretty cool to have.

It's like, oh, you know, it was a special time, you know, to represent my country and play so many times for the Crusaders.

But I guess it's, you know, like for me now, I guess you're just a dad when you turn up to the sports field and you just want to enjoy yourself.

And I guess anyone,

who's out there you just want to be that normal Kiwi who turns up and supports their team and I think that's you know it's a pretty good value to have you know within people especially probably when you are in that high stakes high pressure environment you just got to keep your feet on the ground and not get too high and caught up in it I guess

Yeah, I think it was probably naturally that way.

But definitely as I grew into a bit of leadership stuff, I made a conscious effort to try and