Page 40 - Hereford Magazine 2022

With a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in agriculture and three from Andrew Russo, and two nice bulls from Koanui.
in hand, a graduate role with the National Bank coincided More recently, we’ve bought a few bulls from Craigmore as
with the second year of Crusader development and he then well,” he says.
accepted a move to Matamata. He joined Te Awamutu, and in “We will slowly keep upping registered numbers, based on
2005 made the Waikato NPC team. They faced Taranaki in the the quality, and gradually change from commercial to stud.
first game. Our end goal is also to buy the farm, so financially, it will be a
“The front row was Gordon Slater and Tony Penn, with juggle between the two; it’s more of a slow burn.”
Andrew Hore at hooker. It was daunting, but amazing to get to Seventy of the best bulls are kept at a 30ha runoff about 20
that level and test yourself against those sorts of guys,” he says. minutes away, where they’re farmed by Kim and Viv, who live
He made the Chiefs squad in 2006 and his debut off the on an adjacent 30ha block.
bench was against the Highlanders. The stud sold 81 15-month bulls in 2021 – mostly
“I ended up marking Carl Hayman and Clarke Dermody, with unregistered – by private treaty. They’re looking to branch into
Anton Oliver at hooker, so that was another baptism of fire.” the heifer market with their low-birth-weight bulls.
Sam says he was in a good position going into the first year “I retained one of my own this year to use over my heifers,
of the Air NZ Cup with Waikato. he’s a really nice bull, a Techno son. We’re quite impressed
“We had trained pretty hard, as a team we were quite with him, so we’ll see how he goes.”
formidable, physically, and had quite a few All Blacks, who in
those days were allowed to play NPC. We won that year, but Teamwork at Smedley
although I made the starting line-up in the first half of the
season, I featured less in the second half, so made a reluctant Sam was quick to name-drop some of his former teammates,
move to the Blues to try to get more game time.” and Hawke’s Bay farmer Rob Evans is no different.
An excellent Super Rugby season followed with another Unfortunately, the pair’s injury woes follow the same path
strong team stacked with All Blacks, but in an extremely too, with both accepting it was time to retire from rugby and
competitive season they lost the semi-final to set up an all- return to farming.
South African final. Rob was a second-year cadet at Smedley Station when he
Sam was the only draft player in the Blues that year – helped New Zealand to victory in the Under-19 Rugby World
everyone else played within the Blues franchise area – so he Cup in Wales in 1999. Now he manages 12 staff and 26 cadets
sought a transfer to North Harbour. Everything was going at the Central Hawke’s Bay training farm.
well, then disaster struck. Rugby remains a big part of his life after playing almost 50
“I tore the major ligament off the bone underneath my right games as lock for the Hawke’s Bay Magpies and also for the
foot. I tried to battle through for a few weeks, playing a couple New Zealand Divisional XV.
of games, but I was in the most pain I had ever been in. That “Professional rugby was just starting to come in … The New
was quite horrendous.” Zealand Under-19 team was stacked with names like Richie
After time off, he pulled on the North Harbour jersey again. McCaw, Mils Muliaina, Tony Woodcock, Jerry Collins… Riki
“The foot was okay. Not perfect but good enough to get back Flutey and Aaron Major went into coaching roles, and [Seilala]
into footy. I was strong, but not in the condition I should have Mapusua is coaching Samoa.”
been. It was a mixed year.” Injuries plagued the rest of Rob’s rugby career and stopped
He went back to his club side, the Dargaville Western Sharks, him achieving higher honours. He broke his leg playing in
for a few months, played a season in Germany as a player- Fiji in 2004 and was out of the game for all of 2005. “In 2006
coach, and then returned to take the reins of the farm in 2011, I played three games and broke my thumb, so I was out for
just before he turned 30.
After a couple of seasons playing locally again, he injured
the other foot.
“It wasn’t a career-ending injury; physically I could have
played for ages, but because it was just me and the old man on
the farm, I couldn’t afford to have that time out if I got injured.”
He joined the club committee instead, and has been
chairman for the past four years, overseeing a soft merger with
a small neighbouring club, Kaihu Valley, with the merged team
winning the premier competition for the first time in 20 years.
Sam comes from good rugby stock, with dad Kim having
played for North Auckland during its early 1970s Ranfurly
Shield era, alongside the famous Going brothers.
Farming is also in the blood.
Kim and Sam’s mother Viv took over the farm and Kaipara
Herefords in 1982. It had been started by Sam’s grandfather Smedley Station manager Rob Evans (centre) and cadets Sam
Hugh in the late 1940s and moved to Schick Road on the Cavanagh (left) and Josh Baker, with some of the Hereford cow
Pouto Peninsula in 1966. The stud grew to almost 100 herd at Parks Peak. First-year cadet Sam played for the Southland
registered cows, run alongside the principal herd, but was Boys’ High School 1st XV and second-year cadet Josh is a former
deregistered before Sam came home. He is slowly building up Mt Albert Grammar 1st XV player and then 2nd XV captain. As a
numbers again, with 30 of the 350 now registered. second-five, Sam’s favourite player is Ryan Crotty, while lock Josh
“I bought 16 two-year-old in-calf heifers from Colin Corney looks up to Brodie Retallick.

38 HEREFORD MAGAZINE Year 2022