Kurow is cashing in on one of its favourite sons, All Black captain Richie McCaw.
A community group has been set up to encourage Rugby World Cup tourists to stop and has produced a poster almost 1.6m high and 900mm wide tracing McCaw's association with the town and his early rugby career with the Kurow Rugby Club.
This week it will also be creating a rugby scene using giant hay bales in a similar fashion to the town's "Hay Family" tableau, which appears every summer holidays.
A member of the group, Bob Watherston, said yesterday the aim was to promote the town as "Richie McCaw country" to welcome visitors for the World Cup.
Each shop would be given a giant laminated poster which would have a named photograph of the under-13 Kurow Rugby Club team of which a young McCaw was a member, a big photo of McCaw as an All Black and a photograph of him with Kurow as the backdrop.
Individual shops were also being encouraged to "dress themselves up" for the cup.
McCaw was raised in the Hakataramea Valley, went to school there and played his early rugby for the Kurow club.
