When Conor Croke took the decision to head off to Australia, little did he foresee how his life would develop and that one day he would be lauded by New Zealand Rugby.
Conor, from Portlaoise, left Dublin airport in January 2009, bound for Australia.
Like so many young Irish men at the time his began his life in Australia in Queensland working on farms in order to receive a visa to stay on in the country.
Working on a cotton farm and sugar cane farm in the appropriately named Emerald and later Mackay, Conor earned more than his visa.
While working up the east coast, Conor met Malesa (Mal) White from Tirau, a small town in the centre of New Zealand’s North Island.
Later Conor and Mal made the decision to head to New Zealand with their three children – Fionn, Cillian and Niamh and settled in Tirau.
Having played with Portlaoise Rugby Club, it wasn’t long before Conor sought of the nearest rugby club to Tirau and that was Putāruru, ten kilometres south.
With his two sons playing with the club’s juvenile sides, it wasn’t long before Conor became immersed in the club.
He is the current Junior President and previously served a Club Captain. He also represents the club at Waikato Rugby.
Back in November Conor was informed by New Zealand Rugby (NZR) that he had been nominated for the Volunteer of the Year award for his work with Putāruru Rugby Club.
There had been nominations from across the country and these were then whittled down to a final three.
“Conor Croke not only mows the fields and sets up flags for game day, but he also implemented a programme for teenage players without school teams to come together under the Putāruru banner,” an NZR representative said.
It was the latter which really caught the attention of the rugby authorities.
“Three years ago our club had about 80 junior kids,” Conor Said.
“Our schools struggled to field teenage teams, numbers were too low. We have two high schools in our community, and another in Rotorua so our kids are spread all over a number of different schools.
“We started to think about what we could do to create a pathway for these kids because we were getting 16, 17 year-olds coming into our senior team – some of them slightly out of their depth and others who just didn’t feel confident to hit the senior grades in their teens.
“We looked at a pathway, spoke to Waikato Rugby to see if it was possible to get a club to facilitate the high school teams. We then put a presentation to the high schools to see it that would work.
“The discussion with Waikato Rugby was ‘why not instead of why’ and they facilitated us last year to get an U/18s team into the competition.”
All this came to a climax for Conor in mid-November.
Each Thursday evening they play touch rugby in Putāruru and as usual Conor and his family headed off.
By coincidence Conor’s parents, Sheila and Denis, were over in New Zealand on holidays.
Conor was also of the understanding that Sky Sport were coming to interview him as one of the final three nominees for the volunteer award.
However, as the camera man approached with Putāruru RFC legend, Mark Hotham, Conor completely on the hop when Mark produced the Charles Monro trophy from behind his back.
Not only were they there to interview Conor but to interview as the winner of the award.
Soon after the celebrations began, with the awards show was televised on Sky Sport – renowned for their internationally popular rugby show, The Breakdown’.
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