It is always a shock when you meet Carl Hayman.
Professional male rugby players all seem to be impossibly huge now but there was a time when some of them looked like mortal men.
Not the bloke with the unusual nickname of "Zharga", though. His giant frame always filled a doorway, and the scruffy beard and imposing forehead only added to the impression he was an imposing behemoth. Trifle with him, you would not.
Underneath was actually a thoughtful soul with a dry humour and powerfully strong levels of loyalty and determination.
Those attributes — along with the massive frame, hardened by a rural upbringing and love of the outdoors — helped him forge one of the great New Zealand rugby careers.
He revolutionised the role of tighthead prop in 81 games for the Highlanders, 68 games for Otago and 46 tests for the All Blacks.
Then, at his peak, he left New Zealand for long stints with the Newcastle club in England, and the Toulon club in France, before retiring with 400-plus games of professional rugby under his belt.
His legacy — as a rugby player, at least — was cemented. The bank account was healthy. He saw the world and had great friends.
But he was literally not right in the head.
Hayman has been diagnosed with early-onset dementia and probable chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the neurodegenerative disease known as CTE that has been linked to physical contact sports, particularly American football.
His story, now told in his memoir, Head On, written with leading New Zealand sportswriter Dylan Cleaver, is sobering as it reveals the toll the big fellow believes the years of playing a physical sport have had on his brain, and what he believes has been the sport’s lackadaisical attitude around brain health.
Hayman has also made headlines for domestic violence charges that led to a suspended prison sentence in France, getting the boot from an assistant coaching role after an alleged altercation with players, and drink-driving just last year.
So there is plenty to talk about.
Carl Joseph Hayman looks much the same, if obviously more mature, 16 years after he last played a game of rugby in Dunedin.
The eyes tend to give things away, though.
They are unexpectedly behind glasses the day he speaks to an Otago Daily Times rugby writer who has also seen some things in the intervening years but has had only metaphorical, not literal, blows to the head.
Hayman is now 43. He is no shambling wreck. He does not slur his words.
But the eyes speak volumes — of pain, and fear, and regret — and he will occasionally, though nowhere near often enough to spoil a thoughtful and important conversation, lose his train of thought and leave a sentence unfinished.
"I’ve been working with some people, and someone explained it this way.
"Everyone’s got a bucket of brains. My bucket is half-full, and it’s got holes in it. So you have to use it wisely."
Home is New Plymouth, near where Hayman spent his formative years before the family moved to a farm on the Taieri Plain.
He runs a fishing business, Chaddy’s Charters, after buying and restoring a 1953 wooden lifeboat known as Rescue III, and has competed in several multisport events.
Partner Kiko Matthews — a remarkable Englishwoman who had brain surgery before rowing across the Atlantic Ocean — and daughter Genevieve Ocean, known as Oshe, have been a major part of Hayman’s support network, though Matthews has recently gone home, and things are "a bit delicate".
Hayman is trying to stay as physically fit as possible. But managing his brain and the fog that can roll in, well, that is a day-to-day thing.
"There are good days and bad days. It’s just something that I sort of have to be quite vigilant about on a daily basis.
"I think my expectations have changed over the last four or five years. What was a good day then isn’t necessarily a good day now.
"A good day for me now is planning what is really essential to get done. It might be just one or two things, and not overdoing it.
"I like to get out for exercise every day. That helps with my wellbeing and mental health. So if it’s a nice day, and we’ve got a boat trip, I’ll be running that. That makes a positive day for me."
Hayman writes in the book about the toll his later years in rugby, particularly in France, took on him.
He loved the place and took great pride in performing his craft well and earning every euro of his not inconsiderable salary. But he also dealt with constant pain, writing of chowing down painkillers "like Skittles", getting a nerve root injection into his neck, and suffering near-constant pain in many parts of his body.
Then comes the terrifying moment — after a post-retirement period of not wanting to know if there was something wrong with him — when he gets his brain fully examined and the shock diagnosis of dementia hits home.
Hayman has since spoken openly about what he has been going through, and the fears he has for his future, and the concern he has for generations of rugby players suffering brain injuries.
"I felt I had two options. Just get on with life, and do the best you can. Or this obligation to other players, and families who are going to be affected by this.
"It’s something that needs to be aired and talked about. Even just since I’ve started talking about it, a number of players from an older generation have reached out and talked about guys they played with who have had dementia issues, and are struggling for support.
"It’s a little bit concerning for our generation. When you look at the number of games played in the professional era, coming from the amateur era — that was sort of six months a year, and now you’ve got guys training and playing for 10 or 11 months a year.
"We’re already seeing a disproportionate number of rugby players with dementia, which is a little bit scary."
Hayman has joined a growing group of former players taking class action against World Rugby for failing to protect players from sustaining brain injury due to repeated concussions.
He said it was obvious the future of rugby would be clouded by more cases of players battling dementia.
And he was adamant the solutions were simple.
"For me, there are some things that need to be looked at. Education is probably a big one in terms of players understanding the risks. I sort of feel at the moment that no-one is willing to acknowledge that this is an issue within rugby.
"We need to have some real conversations about what a season should look like. And not from people who are biased in any way.
"There will always be a risk. But how can we minimise that for the players?
"You see the number of tests that the All Blacks play has grown slowly. Do squads need to get bigger? Should the season be shortened?
"It’s a real opportunity for rugby. At the moment, we’ve got saturation. It’s rugby all year round. And it might be a nice time for the sport to put players first, and have some exciting and short competitions, instead of having rugby for rugby’s sake."
Hayman also wants to see a much better support network established for rugby players suffering dementia and other neurological issues.
He enjoys regular chats with Australian-based former English flanker Michael Lipman, who has also published a book about the struggles of being a young man dealing with dementia.
"What I’ve experienced is that it doesn’t just affect me — it affects the people around me just as much. I’ve found it really useful connecting with other people going through similar things."
Hayman’s memoir is a confronting read.
As well as the challenges of his brain injury, there are sobering passages about the assault on his then-wife, Natalie, with whom he shares three children, his alcoholism, the breakdown of his relationship with mate and fellow Highlanders prop Jamie Mackintosh, the rough end to his employment as a coach at French club Pau, and the death of his mother and subsequent charge of drink-driving.
Throughout is a sense of both regret and bitterness over what the game of rugby took from him, as much as it gave.
Hayman has mixed feelings about a sport that was his life for so long.
"Rugby gave me a lot. I had some great experiences. I got to see the world and made great friends.
"But in terms of health, I do ask myself the question: was it all worth it?
"When I was young, I thought I was indestructible. And to some extent, I kind of was.
"If I knew then what I knew now, I might not even have gone overseas. I might have said, ‘yep, I’ve had a nice career but it’s time to stop and move on to something else’."
Hayman thinks it is valid to question whether rugby in its current state has a long future.
He is a huge man but he has noticed that the sport’s elite athletes are even bigger and stronger since he retired eight years ago, and fears what that could mean for the health of the players.
"The bodies are bigger and stronger, and the collisions are harder and faster, but your brain is still your brain.
"More strength and more power means it is easier for your brain to get rattled. That’s just the reality.
"I think there is a future for the game. But I’m a bit concerned when I see all these law changes.
"I’d like to see the game remain the game, but with things put in place around monitoring how many collisions players go into, and what we deem to be an acceptable risk.
"We see things around tackling at a certain height. But I don’t know. That’s interesting, that we start changing the rules.
"Where is that going? I’d rather we just had robust monitoring of head knocks, and look at other things, before we start tampering with the game itself.
Head On also addresses the prop’s near-constant relationship with alcohol and the links between booze and rugby.
Drinking for social lubrication turned into bingeing for medication. But Hayman said attitudes had changed.
"I remember having this conversation with Andrew Hore. We were saying that when we came through, the non-drinkers were the minority. But when he finished with the All Blacks, he would look around the bus and wonder who wanted to go to the pub.
"I think our generation were professional players still living with amateur traits. They were alive and well.
"I remember turning up to Southern to play my first club season and one of the coaches saying we train hard, we drink hard, and we win hard games of rugby.
"That was the amateur era, I guess. And we’ve seen a pretty long list of guys from that era who might have struggled with their relationship with alcohol."
Hayman also offers his thoughts on the 2003 Highlanders season that ended in near-mutiny, and reveals his long-standing anger with New Zealand Rugby over how he was treated when he was considering coming home amid misguided talk of having a farm bought for him.
But the conversation has been long enough — the eyes tell me that. The big man needs to get out on the boat.
— Head On: Rugby, Dementia and the Hidden Cost of Success (Harper Collins) is in stores now.
Carl Hayman on ...
Dunedin
"I miss a lot of things, and I do miss Dunedin. St Clair Beach. The forest and bush around the city, and a good feed of blue cod."
Old mates
"I keep in touch with Neil Brew a lot. Old Brewser. A good mate of mine, and a good surfing buddy. And people like Tom Willis and Warren Moffat, my old schoolmates from King’s."
The future
"It’s a little bit unknown. It’s quite daunting. I have four relatively young kids. It’s pretty scary, to be honest. I just have to do the best I can every day, and try to live a purposeful life without over-complicating things. It’s not all doom and gloom."
