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School of Hard Knocks
Sunday News
David Long
February 2008
Hidden away on the outskirts of Palmerston North, away from any gazing eyes and other signs of human life, Murray Mexted has created something very special.
The International Rugby Academy of New Zealand (IRANZ) continues to deliver a unique rugby environment to highly promising players and coaches from here and around the world.
Mexted is known by people in their 40s and older as a no-nonsense No 8 who helped redefine the position and by those under 40 for his unique commentary style for Sky TV.
But for a number of coaches and players, he'll be known as the person who helped them get a career in rugby as the founder and Managing Director of Iranz.
Last month, Sunday News spent two days watching the high performance players and coaches courses running in unison as they took part in their intensive programmes. Players eat, sleep and breathe rugby from the moment they wake at 6am to when they go to bed.
The beauty of having playing and coaching courses running concurrently is that the coaches are able to immediately put what they've learnt into practise. The highlight of the three weeks for the players on the high performance course is when they get to spend two days working alongside a rugby legend.
The week Sunday News visited Iranz Richard Loe, Bruce Hemara, Ian Jones, Arran Pene, Scott Robertson, Jon Preston, Grant Fox, Dave Rennie, Alama Ieremia, Jeff Wilson and Christian Cullen all took players for position-specific training while Graham Henry and Wayne Smith also took sessions during the course.
In the past Nick Mallett, Steve Hansen, Eddie Jones, Sir Brian Lochore, Nick Farr-Jones, John Eales, Laurie Mains, Sean Fitzpatrick, Martin Johnson, Tim Horan and David Campese, among many others, have been to Iranz to pass on their knowledge.
So the first question to ask Mexted during a lunch break between lessons is how has he managed to bring all these legends to Palmerston North?
“Most sportsmen who have achieved at a high level like to pass on what they know,” Mexted said.
“Because they know it can empower a young coach or player.
“A classic example of this is Grant Fox. When I started doing this I rang him and said would you do the first-five eighth position for me?”
“He said ‘Mex, I'll give you three years, after that you're on your own’. That was seven years ago and he's still doing them and he's doing it because he enjoys it and also realises he's contributing towards giving a guy a chance.”
However, when Sunday News spoke to Fox he said the reason he always comes back is because when he first made it into the All Blacks, Mexted took him under his wing and that's something he has never forgotten.
As well as Fox, Mexted says it's a huge thrill for the players to spend time with some of rugby's all-time greats.
“We've had Christian Cullen and Jeff Wilson taking the wings and fullbacks and you've only got to look at the eyes of the players in that mini-group, they're just turned on by the whole thing,” he said.
“It was the same with Graham Henry. They're hanging on his every word and part of any sportsman performing is inspiration.”
“Nick Farr-Jones tells a great story here at the academy about the time he was inspired by Pele at Sydney University when he was eight years old.”
“He said the penny dropped then and he wanted to be as good as he could in his sport, which was rugby.”
“We see that here and feel it and it's a very satisfying thing, you can't buy that.”
The three biggest success stories to come out of Iranz are Jason Eaton, Springbok Francois Steyn and England's Nick Abendanon who was in their World Cup squad.
Mexted says the feeling he gets from seeing an ex student from IRANZ run out in national colours is immense.
“It's absolutely fantastic, it's the most satisfying thing I've ever done,” he said.
“I didn't need to do this, but it's been a labour of love in some respects.”
“But it's been the most satisfying thing I've ever done and now that everything's up and running and going well I can look at it in a relaxed manner and just enjoy the satisfaction of what were providing for these guys.”
“I get emails from some of these young guys after they've left asking me if I'm in the zone today?”
“Because I talk about mental toughness and getting in the zone and we reiterate it so many times that they think it's quite funny.”
“They're just pulling my leg but I appreciate those sorts of things.”
It costs $7,500 to go on the three-week high performance players' course and $6,500 for the two-week high performance coaches' course.”
Mexted has taken flak for opening up IRANZ to players from overseas, with some arguing that he shouldn't be helping out players who could one day come up against the All Blacks.”
Mexted says it's a financial reality that they have to open their doors to keep the academy up and running.”
“I was criticised for that when I first started this. But this wouldn't survive by itself on New Zealanders,” he said.
“There aren't enough clients and we couldn't fund it because this is a user-pays business.”
“That's all fundamental, but what's more important is that you've got to have competition, it's got to be a real live thing.”
“Competition between different countries is really stimulating. We have two players in each position, one New Zealander and one foreign player, so they keep competing against each other.”
“Also we've got coaches here from different countries and it's a massive think tank on rugby, you get viewpoints from all round so we can all learn.”
“Graham Henry said what he liked about this place was that its at a high level, it's stimulating and there's lots of schools of rugby here.”
“He enjoyed his time, which is bloody satisfying for us, because if he's enjoying his time and can find it interesting along with seeing young coaches who genuinely want to be good coaches.”
The next logical step for Mexted is to set up similar academies overseas.
In the past he's been reluctant to branch out too quickly, but says the time for expansion could be soon and he's already had several offers.
“It's called the International Rugby Academy, so the obvious move is going global if we want to,” he said.
“We've had invitations from five major rugby countries to set up the same thing there.”
“We've been invited to do this in Australia, South Africa, England, USA and Dubai.”
“But we haven't done that and the reason why is that I wanted to be firmly established, recognised and accepted as a quality service provider of high performance development for the rugby industry globally.”
“I've got my eyes firmly on the ball and were achieving that. But now we're at the stage where were ready to expand and I've just got to work through that and decide what I want to do.”
“Do I want to spend more time away from New Zealand and develop more overseas kids than New Zealand kids? I just don't know.”
“At the moment 50 percent of our boys are from New Zealand, the other 50 percent come from other countries, so this is the place that's getting the benefit.”
“And we need it, we need to keep an edge because with 100,000 players, if were going to stay up the top of the tree we need to have an edge on development programmes and we have with this.”
Usually the players and coaches fees are paid by their clubs.
In the current financial climate of New Zealand rugby, provinces in the red may be asking if it's a worthwhile investing money into a player like this.
But Mexted says for a small union identifying a young talent and putting them through IRANZ, is more cost effective than spending more money across a number of players inside their own academy.
“Smaller unions could never be able to put together this level of expertise,” he said.
“But this level is available to them here, all they have to do is have their own programmes to identify who their most promising players and coaches are, who they want to develop and keep, then send them here and well do the business on them.”
“It's the leaders who the rest of the players in a team follow and each rugby team has three or four leaders who have a bit of x-factor and it brings the level of all the others up.”
“So I think this offers a lifeline to those unions.”
