There are two phrases you almost inevitably hear when Ethan de Groot’s name is mentioned.
One is ‘‘burly Southlander’’. Yes, the Highlanders prop is a big man and, yes, he is a proud son of Gore and a Stags man to the core.
The other is ‘‘the only All Black in the Highlanders’’. And that one is getting a bit old.
There was a time when de Groot could assemble for international duties with Aaron Smith and Shannon Frizell, but their departures have left the big bookend flying solo, for now, as the Highlanders’ only test player.
‘‘It would just be nice not having to travel up to Auckland and always on my own,’’ de Groot smiled.
‘‘I think there’s a few guys down here, guys like Fabian [Holland], and a couple of other young fellas that I reckon have got the goods to potentially push to be an All Black one day.
‘‘But 100%, we need All Blacks in our team. It’s almost like you don’t know what you don’t know.
‘‘That next level of training . . . we just need a few guys in key positions in the All Blacks to bring back the standards.
‘‘Don’t get me wrong, we have high standards in the Highlanders, but just that next level of training I feel would definitely boost our group in certain areas. So 100%, we’d love to have some more All Blacks in the Highlanders.’’
While he is the star player in the team, de Groot will not be the captain of the Highlanders this season.
That came as a bit of a surprise to those who presumed it was time for the 29-test prop to take over from the departed Billy Harmon.
Returning coach Jamie Joseph highlighted a desire to give de Groot a chance to simply focus on his own game, and the intense demands of the All Blacks, both on and off the field, when he named Hugh Renton and Timoci (Jim) Tavatavanawai as co-captains.
‘‘I’ve got to get behind those two and I feel like they’re the right guys for the job,’’ de Groot said.
‘‘They needed leadership early in the preseason, especially with a young group and new guys, so I think for me I just need to worry about myself in terms of that.
‘‘I’ll always lead with my actions and how I turn up and how I talk at training, but I felt like . . . it’s just another thing on top of the pile that I do.
‘‘I’ll give anything for the team and last year it probably took its toll on me, in terms of just performance. I was doing so much extra for the team and I was probably putting the team first a lot of the time over myself.
‘‘This year it’s just about, you know, leading myself and I’ll back up Hugh and Jim. Yeah, not being selfish but just owning my own stuff.’’
Professional rugby tends to be an all-consuming business.
Happily, de Groot was able to grab some time last month for something even more important than an All Blacks test.
He married Claudia Hutton, his partner of over six years, in a spectacular ceremony in Queenstown attended by plenty of familiar rugby faces and a bunch of family and friends delighted for their gentle giant.
‘‘It was an awesome day. Everything ran smoothly and the weather turned it on. It was fun.’’
And was that a tear in the eye of the staunch All Black we could see on a social media video clip?
‘‘Yeah, nah, something ... there must have been a bit of dust in the wind that caught me when I saw her coming down the aisle.
‘‘I didn’t think I would cry but, Jeez, I couldn’t help myself.’’
The de Groots did not have time for a honeymoon but will try to look at something at the end of the year.
They have moved into a new home in Dunedin with about 10 acres and the prop, no stranger to a handpiece, enjoyed shearing his small flock of sheep recently.
Interestingly, given he had wedding commitments and possibly a mind churning with the frustrations of the All Blacks tour, de Groot felt he had
never trained so hard as he did this summer.
He felt he got ‘‘sloppy’’ when he returned from his first All Blacks break three years ago and did too much the next year and battled a bunch of niggles while playing for the Highlanders.
‘‘It’s a bit of a learning curve and I think I’ve got it nailed this year. I feel like I’ve got my body in pretty good shape for the season.’’
He might live in Dunedin now but good luck taking the Southland out of de Groot.
He is relishing the opportunity to play at home in the preseason game at Rugby Park, Invercargill, against the Crusaders this afternoon.
‘‘Our fans down there don’t get to see us play often. I think the last time was two or three years ago when we had the Force down there.
‘‘I’m excited to head down south. And the beauty is, although the Crusaders have got their 15 All Blacks or whatever, we’ve managed to get one over them the last two times we’ve played them.
‘‘I think for us, although we’ve only got one All Black, we know our game inside out at the moment and I think the boys are in a real good spot, especially around our conditioning.
‘‘It’s been probably the toughest preseason I’ve seen. The boys are very fit, so we just need to put that into place when we head down south and play a new brand of footy that Jamie Joe’s brought in.
‘‘If you look at last year, we were the preseason heroes. We don’t want to be preseason heroes.
‘‘Our season starts round one against the Waratahs. Don’t get me wrong, we want to win preseason — we want to win every game we play — but it’s how we play in the season.
‘‘Hopefully we can iron out a few things and head over to Sydney next week and then that’s when the real show starts.’’
