But it sounds like a cracking weekend ahead.
The champion 1998 Otago team are having a get-together to mark 25 years since they brushed aside the competition to win the National Provincial Championship.
Most of the crew are attending.
Tony Brown has popped back from Japan, and Jeff Wilson, Josh Kronfeld and Taine Randell have all confirmed their attendance.
Meeuws is really looking forward to catching up with Carl Hoeft and Isitolo Maka, who are based overseas.
"It is going to be a really good reunion and it is nice to get most of them back so we can reminiscence about the old days," he said.
The festivities will start with that "informal meeting" tomorrow night. On Saturday, the class of ’98 will watch the Otago Spirit and Otago games at Forsyth Barr Stadium, and the evening has been left open for, well, "a few lemonades".
The late ’90s were arguably the halcyon days of the NPC. More than 40,000 packed into Carisbrook to watch Otago dispatch Waikato 49-20 in the final.
"I remember the season quite well," Meeuws said.
"We were a bunch of young guys with an average age of around 22. We all loved our footy and we just got some momentum going."
Sure did.
Otago opened their campaign with a 41-23 win over Canterbury and edged Taranaki 27-21.
But the 47-25 win over Counties-Manukau was bookended by a 36-12 loss to Waikato and a 41-19 loss to Auckland.
Otago then switched into invincible mode and blitzed Northland (84-10), Wellington (82-10), Southland (60-10) and North Harbour (39-8) to reach the playoffs.
Brendan Laney scored four tries in the 61-12 win over Taranaki in the semifinal and nabbed another two in the final against Waikato.
"We got a couple of tough wins we thought we wouldn’t get and the confidence grew," Meeuws said.
"And the backline was just amazing and our forward pack was humming. We just kept building and winning."
Otago would have brought up 50 in the final but left the last conversion to the departing John Leslie as a nice gesture and he missed.
Leslie, by the way, might be a no-show this weekend. He teamed up with Meeuws to coach Southern in the Dunedin premier grade. But he left towards the end of the season to assume the head coaching role with Northland.
The Taniwha play Southland in Invercargill on Sunday, so Leslie’s participation in the reunion might be limited.
Carl Hayman is skipping the reunion to focus on his health. The 43-year-old former All Black has dementia and laid bare his struggles in his book Head On which was published last month.
"He is doing all right. He is putting his health first and won’t be down this weekend.
"But the boys are supporting him in their own ways. I know a few boys have reached out to him."
