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Kidney finds context in ruins

Thursday, June 14, 2012

The earthquake-ravaged city of Christchurch has to be seen to be believed.

By Rory Keane
A once thriving centre was brought to its knees when a deadly 6.3 magnitude quake struck the southisland quasi metropolis at 12:51pm on February 22 last year — 185 perished in the disaster.

Since that tragic day, this rugby-mad city has never been the same. A costly rebuild, estimated at €20 billion, has been hampered by political in-fighting while the weary residents have had to tolerate thousands of aftershocks in the months since.

In fact, a strong shake struck the city in the early hours of Tuesday morning which reportedly caused many of the New Zealand players to duck for cover in their hotel rooms.

Yes, Christchurch is a place with many problems.

The Irish rugby team and press were invited to tour the cordoned off “red-zone” in the city’s once-bustling central business district yesterday to view an area that now looks like a war zone.

As the tour buses weaved slowly through the deserted streets of Cashel, Colombo, Armagh and Gloucester, cranes and heavy machinery were busily tearing down once proud structures and high-rise hotels.

The ‘Irishman’ pub and ‘O’Sullivans’ which were once the go-to haunts for the sizeable Irish community are now just hollow structures awaiting demolition.

The tour was clearly a humbling experience for Ireland’s scrum coach Greg Feek, who spoke to the media outside the now stricken Christchurch Cathedral — a once proud institution of the city battered and on its last legs.

Feek represented Canterbury on 55 occasions and won 65 caps for the province’s Super Rugby franchise, the Canterbury Crusaders.

“When you’re going down Colombo street or Manchester street around there, you start to think ‘hang on’ there was a little old haunt there or something like that,” he explained.

“Whenever I brought people to town, I always brought them around this area.

“You struggle to recognise things here now.

“The old café we used to own down the road is now a car park like a lot of the things. I sold a house here a few years ago, but obviously there’s still family and friends that are still here, some of them have struggled but most of them are not too bad.”

Feek, who now resides in Dublin as part of the Leinster coaching set-up, was optimistic about the future of Christchurch despite the traumas.

“They’re putting together a little shopping mall with containers (in the Central Business District) and you hope that some sort of normality will return,” he said. “For me, Christchurch is special because of the people in it, and you always come back for that. You just hope that the city can get going again.”

Declan Kidney and his Irish players have had a difficult week on the paddock, but the Irish head coach felt yesterday’s trip put things into context, and he brought some much-needed humour to an otherwise sad occasion.

“We played New Zealand last Saturday night… we got an aftershock from that ourselves,” Kidney quipped, which drew plenty of laughter from the Kiwi media.

“We were obviously disappointed last Saturday night in a rugby context but this puts it all into true context. That was just a game, this is real life.”

The experience definitely had a seismic impact on the Irish team as they wandered around the desolate square in hard hats and high-vis vests.

When asked to describe the mood on the team bus as they travelled through the dilapidated streets of this concrete graveyard, Kidney tapped into the spirit of the occasion with aplomb. “I think anybody who knows a rugby team knows what it takes to keep a bus load [of players] quiet,” he stated. “I think that’s the best way that I can sum it up. It’s a very difficult thing to put into words.”

© Irish Examiner Ltd. All rights reserved

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