He's been a colourful character since his All Blacks debut in 2012 but with his last rugby hoorah on the horizon, Dane Coles has opened up on the legacy he wants to remembered for and what a fairytale finish looks like to him with 1News Sport's Kimberlee Downs.
When athletes talk about the personal legacy they want to leave, it’s often defined by achievements and plaudits - winning the most, or scoring the most or being the fastest, the strongest, the greatest.
But if Dane Coles could choose his legacy, it would be different.
He wants to have been trusted.
"Someone who just turned up, trained hard, played hard, was a good teammate," he told me at the team’s camp in Germany, where he’s preparing for his last rugby hurrah in France.
"I think the trust thing… that’s what I look for in other players, to look you in the eye and trust you to do your job, so if the lads can look back and trust in me… Then I’ll be pretty happy."
It’s a fitting trait from a media perspective, because there Coles is reliable too - whether it’s to give genuine reactions [the recent "Shag, what’re you up to?" a classic example] or be the one willing to front media on the hard times.
There’s never been any sense of pretence with the 36-year-old, who from his Test debut in 2012 helped redefine what a front-rower could do - who can forget some of his escapades at the peak of his powers, sprinting like a winger to score?
And even chatting in Germany, in a week where the team’s noticeably on edge, that doesn’t change.
“I’m not a man that kind of believes in, is predicting fairytales and stuff like that," he declared.
We’re talking about how he wants to go out and obviously the goal is a World Cup win.
But.
“It’s going to take a lot of hard work and that’s all I can focus on, is one week at a time and doing my best for the team.
“If that’s my fairytale then I can look back and be happy about that.”
At 36, Coles is the oldest member of this year’s World Cup squad and he was good enough to give a wry chuckle when I refer to him as the kaumātua [elder] of the team.
He’s been around long enough to win one [2015], lose one [2019], and fear he'll never get to play one again [2023].
The fact that he’s getting this last hurrah is one of the things he’s most proud of, along with his All Blacks debut, the 2015 World Cup win, and Bledisloe Cups year in and year out.
Those are what he’ll talk about, "when I’m at home having a beer talking to my mates and my kids about how good I thought I was," he laughed.
I pointed out to him that with 87 Test caps to his name, I think it’s safe to say he’s been pretty good.
He just smiled in response.
He doesn’t want to get too emotional, not yet, but he knows he’ll miss the brotherhood of his teams, the celebratory drinks in the sheds, that feeling that his side is up for the challenge before they hit the field.
They’re the moments he’ll treasure.
And he’s hoping there are a couple more still to come, as the kid from Paraparaumu, and Pōneke Club, heads into the final chapter of his own sort of fairytale in Paris.
SHARE ME