By Alan Irving

Published at 15:56, Wednesday, 26 March 2008

THE best amateur No 7 in the country, having toured the world with Great Britain, might have expected to walk straight into the scrum-half berth when he turned professional. But for Peter Smith it was different, and he knew it.

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When Peter arrived at Whitehaven, where he’s currently Paul Crarey’s right-hand man as well as being Kells’ coach, the wearer of the No 7 shirt was none other than Clayton Friend, the Kiwi international who was still regarded then (in the mid 90s) as one of the world’s best.

“There was no way I was ever going to take Clayton’s place. I knew of his reputation, of course, but I soon realised first hand what a classy and tough player he was.”

So for Peter Smith, this meant a change of role, and it was another famous New Zealander who brought it about: Kurt Sorensen.

“My first couple of games were at stand-off partnering Clayton, then Kurt decided I should have a go at hooker. It paid dividends and gave me a new lease of life in a new position.

“It meant that Clayton Friend had to put the ball into me and, considering I’d never played there in my life before, Clayton gave me some good advice.

“We were playing York and when their hooker kept slinging his feet across the tunnel of the scrum. Clayton kept shouting: ‘Pete, will you sort him out.’ I asked him what he meant, and he replied: ‘Just kick his bleeding legs off.’

“So, in our next game, I told Highfield’s hooker not to strike for my ball or it would be the worst for him, and it must have worked because he moved himself to loose-forward pretty sharpish.

“So that was one lesson I learned off Clayton, but the man was a very special footballer.

“Kurt wasn’t flavour of the month at first, but after the switch, he got on a lot better with me and I was actually playing alongside him in the front row on a few occasions.

“The thing about Kurt was that he had a right old temper on him. In the dressing room and at team meetings, he was very quietly spoken and always telling us to keep calm. Once we got on the field, we were the ones having to tell him to calm down. He was just like a raging bull.

“Once I couldn’t lift my shoulder, Kurt gave me this pad which he said absorbed the impact and, once I pulled it on, I could have tackled a wall.

“Sorensen was a big hard guy himself but I reckon those shoulder pads helped make him the player he was. I was only allowed to borrow one of them!”

“Under Kurt, we got to the quarter-finals of the Challenge Cup, and although Featherstone knocked us out at home, we went on a run of around 12 wins, which I think was a club record at the time.

“We had a very good side, mind you, I don’t know about the dream team – it was also the drink team, the Golden Fleece used to help us out after home games!

“After Kurt left (for Workington), Stan Martin came in from New Zealand and there was a change of culture, more dedication and fitness. Stan brought in some Kiwis like Shane Edwards, Casino Doyle and Bret Kingholm and we also started training on Saturdays for the first time, because Kurt always used to travel back to Widnes on a Friday.”

Smithy’s real nickname was ‘nugget’ – given to him by one of his best friends, Aussie centre Mike Pechey, who had taken away Vince Gribbin’s record for tries in a season for Haven.

Peter’s nuggety play, sheer pace from acting half-back, and ball distribution saw him continue to hold down the No 9 shirt (a hooker with attitude) until the arrival of a batch of young Kiwis, including Aaron Lester.

“Leroy Joe and Gus Maleatoa-Brown also came in, but Aaron had been hooker for the Junior Kiwis, so, as with the scrum-half (and Clayton), I knew my days were probably numbered at No 9.

“I was 32 then but it was really only my pace getting me through games. Aaron was a lot younger and quicker and could also pass both ways. He was another special player, and my job really was to come on and play a cameo role.”

Lester and Smith were on the field together when the end came.

“I remember my last game vividly. It was at home to Swinton and my cruciate ligaments snapped. You could say it was an excruciating cruciate.

“In my amateur career I broke an arm, dislocated a shoulder and broke my jaw, but I’d never known such pain. Aaron was standing a few yards away and he thought I’d broken my leg. He heard a snap and I certainly felt it.

“I just lay in the dressing room for a while, then it dawned on me that I would never play again – and I didn’t.”

Peter Smith is so steeped in rugby league that it’s difficult to believe his first love was soccer.

He was so good at it in fact that, as a schoolboy, he was having trials with Leeds United, Fulham, Preston North End and Rotherham United, not to mention playing for Great Britain Catholic Schools’ under-18 team when he was just 14.

“I was at Leeds when Jimmy Adamson was the manager, playing in the First Division. Brian Flynn was also there and England international Tony Currie – I’ll always remember wearing Tony’s tracksuit.

“I was only 5’5, playing down the middle but fast and wanted to be like Kevin Keegan or anybody of my size.

“It was Peter Foley who got me down to Rotherham but, with changes of management at the club and all the travelling, it came to nothing.

“If I’d been older I could have had an apprenticeship with Fulham but I enjoyed playing with the local teams at Calder Club and Haig Social.

“There were great characters like Walter Hailes, Alfie Chambers, Joe McCluskey, John Wignall and Barry Ackerely.”

As he puts it, Peter just fell into rugby league at Kells, having played union at St Benedict’s School with Vince Gribbin in the class above.

The cocky pocket battleship took to league right away, and before long, he was picked for The Young Lions – Barla Great Britain under-19s and sparking against the French.

Any trips across the Channel then? – “No, my brother (Michael) went to New Zealand, but the furthest I got was to Barrow. I scored on my debut there but we still got beat by France.”

The real highlights were to follow at open age level – two Great Britain tours to the Pacific Islands in the space of four years, 1990 and ‘94, playing Tests against the Cook Islands, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga.

Must have been hellish playing in that heat? – “Yeah, we had to play in big thick cotton jerseys.

“On the first tour, we asked Gordon Robb (manager) if we could cut the sleeves off, and although Gordon said we couldn’t, some of the boys did it anyway otherwise they would have melted.

“Those Pacific Islanders were big lads who didn’t take any prisoners, and they used to hit you late.

“One of them chased me right on to the running track, and I just had to protect myself when he came on top of me. I bust him up but, give the lad his due, he came to see me off at the airport and I signed his plaster for him!

“On the ‘94 tour, there was this guy called The Warrior. I’d just come on as a sub when John Brocklebank (Egremont) dummied and dummied. If John had given me the ball right away, I might have got through a gap and been all right, but he delayed it and The Warrior sort of wipes me out. I jumped up and I swear if Brocky had been there, I would have wiped him out as well,” laughed Smithy.

“All hell broke loose and I’d only been on the field for a minute. After that, I was telling the rest of the lads about the importance of giving the ball early and quick.”

Some strange customs out there as well? – “Too true, one of our lads Brian Hyslop (from Lowca) got fined a pig. These four guys fetched a massive roasted pig on two huge poles. It was all very primitive and we were told to get to the front of the queue because it wasn’t properly cooked so we could get the best bits. I was one of the first up.”

If Smithy wasn’t the biggest character on the ‘94 tour then it must have been another local lad, Richard Todd.

“Toddie and me had some great laughs. We actually met up with the Welsh rugby union team and I struck up a good friendship with Scott Quinnell, the British Lions legend who was also a star at Wigan.

“We all had a good drink at the British High Consulate in Tonga and, when we came to have out pictures taken, Scott stood on the bottom steps and I was on the top, but he was still taller than me.

“Next time I met him was in Blackpool. It was an end of season drink for us Whitehaven players, and the Wigan boys were next door. At five in the morning, the great Quinnell says: ‘Hey Smithy, every time I see you you’re always smashed – which sounds better in Welsh!

“Next time I met Scott, he was packing down in the front row against me at Central Park. I said the same thing back at him and all he said was: ‘All right, Whitehaven marra. We’ll have another beer or two after the game.’

“It was good crack and a few drinks.”

Peter’s illustrious amateur career had a couple of big disappointments, losing the National open-age Cup final with Kells, two under-19s finals in successive seasons (‘84 and ‘85) and one open age in 1988.

“Right after the open age final, I was flying off to Australia for a six-week holiday. I was captain but had to come off early with a bad leg.

“I’d put my flight back an hour or so but Crosfields beat us and I was straight in the back of the car heading for Manchester airport. If we’d won the cup, I’d have got my hands on it first then dashed off for the plane.”

The other regret was missing Kells’ cup clash with mighty Leeds at the Recreation Ground.

“A couple of months before the game I broke my arm and the plaster came off the day of the match. I’d love to have played though.”

But Peter has no regrets about turning professional late on at the age of 27 – “you can’t beat going round the world twice” – and, even when his playing career was over, there was to be no escape from The Recre.

Coaching followed with Smith as assistant to a succession of Haven team bosses – Kevin Tamati, Paul Cullen, Steve McCormack Dave Rotheram and now Paul Crarey.

“I liked Kevin. He took a lot of stick from supporters but me and Joe Stewart saw a different side to him.

“Paul Cullen was a different kettle of fish, he brought a lot more professionalism and cut out the drink culture. Paul used to drive all the way up from Warrington on a Sunday morning. His car was laden with sledges, weights and harnesses for us to run the guys up and down on the pit field at Kells. He brought in an attitude that is still here today.”

What about the two Grand Final defeats under Steve Mac?

“Well, we should have won the first against Leigh. If we had, it might have been the death knell for us if we had gone up to Super League, but you don’t think about that at the time, you just wanted to win.

“As for the second, it was just a nonentity as Castleford hammered us. We thought we were going to do it, we prepared well but just didn’t spark on the day. I still can’t put my finger on what went wrong.”

And last season’s Northern Rail Cup final nightmare at Blackpool? – “We had a good warm-up beforehand but, honestly, I think our preparation could have been better this time.”

Why wasn’t it? – “Well Widnes trained on the pitch (Bloomfield Road), while we trained on a college field at Preston.”

Should that have made any difference? – “It was probably a mental thing, it’s in the back of your mind that Widnes had the chance to train on the pitch where the final would be played, so why couldn’t we?

“They seemed to have an edge on us from the start but, at the same time, it wasn’t Dave (Rotheram) who dropped the ball and missed all those tackles.”

Paul Crarey? – “He’s brought something different, including a helluva lot of team spirit. There’s a massive change about how we play the game, getting support behind the ball, a game plan similar to Stan Martin’s really.”

Not only is Smithy a great West Cumbrian RL character but also a keen student of the game.

“I write everything down from all the coaches I’ve learned from, a bit like Shaun Edwards I suppose. Shaun is the same age as me and I actually played with him at under-16 level in North West Counties trials – he’s a winner.”

Is Paul Crarey good cop, and you bad cop? – “No, I think I am the good cop but, with the Welsh rugby union setup with Shaun and Warren Gatland, I think it’s bad cop, bad cop.

“You can’t always be cool, calm and collected. You need a reaction from the guys sometimes and a bit of the hairdryer treatment can still come in handy.

“Kurt used to make us watch The Last of the Mohicans – it was all about togetherness and spilling a bit of blood for one another.”

Coaching Kells has also been a big thing in his life for the last six years.

“We have the basis of a good team now. There’s a lot of history and heritage up at Kells and my job is to get that back again and win more silverware.”

Any ambition to be Haven No 1 yourself one day? – “At the moment, I am the link between the players and the head coach, you need to be a bit of a psychologist really.

“I don’t know whether I would get the best out of the players through being too familiar but I have learned something from every other coach I’ve been with so never say never.

“I do know the best way to get the best out of people is the way you treat them in any walk of life.”

Another dressing room attribute could well be humour – Peter Smith has it in spades.

Published by http://www.whitehaven-news.co.uk