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What do you do when faced with a white wipeout?
Well, your correspondent took the chance of being a guest at one of Ayr's legendary pre-match lunches, something often offered but never before accepted due to work commitments.
But there was no match for there to be a 'pre-match' lunch for I hear you say.
When did at ever stop them at Millbrae? Just because Dundee HSFP were not showing up didn't mean that the show elsewhere didn't go on.
And go on it did in front of over a hundred and forty thirsty souls with the incorrigible Norrie Lymburn as master of ceremonies, Denis Johnston and Robbie Duncan the mirth makers in chief and the Pinewood Restaurant providing a splendid meal.
This is what Ayr are about, one of the principal ways in which they raise the funds necessary to provide the back up which is so essential to a side who are not only champions of Scotland but carry the Scottish club banner in the British and Irish Cup. The enterprise of the club which I witnessed close up this week is what has made Ayr the envy of club rugby in Scotland and indeed were some of the enthusiasm and sheer chutzpah which goes into the fundraising efforts mirrored at higher levels of the game, it would do rugby in Scotland no harm.
The lay off for the players since the match against Edinburgh Accies on December 12th was a concern voiced by a few observers, a point I put to Mark Stewart, the hugely experienced center who has brought an real authority to Ayr's back play since he arrived at the start of the season.
"We have been keeping up our training routines" he confirmed "twice a day with weights sessions in the morning and cardiac sessions-treadmill running and the like- in the afternoons and we have just come back from a really good session at Belmont Academy gym. Nothing quite makes you 'rugby-fit' though unless you are playing regularly and the only consolation is that all the other teams are in the same position and we know that we have a pretty good training structure to see us thorough this spell."
Looking out at the snowy waste that was Millbrae, I asked was this kind of winter he would experience back in New Zealand?
"We don't get this in New Plymouth!" was the reply "In fact I have never really experienced snow before except when we have been in the mountains so this is a totally new experience for me. It is a bit ironic because back in New Zealand the temperatures are around 25 degrees and that is when I realise that my passion for surfing and water skiing might have to be replaced by snowboarding!"
"Mind you, we did go to Lochgoilhead the other week and the scenery up in the hills was absolutely spectacular so it has all added to the experience of being in Scotland."
So how has that Scottish experience been so far?
"It has been marvellous-from a playing point of view, it had been really exciting and Ayr are a great club to be involved with. The social side and the playing side are brilliant, I was made to feel welcome straight away, the club look after players really well and I have not heard anyone who has a bad word to say about Ayr. I have travelled a bit and I say can for sure that wherever you are, its not the place but the people who matter."
The Taranaki center, who played almost forty times for the province, has found the standard in Scottish Hydro Premier 1 to be conisitently high, "a few notches above the level of New Plymouth while not approaching the standard of the Air New Zealand Cup-the old NPC-and the challenge of sides wanting to knock of the Scottish champions is one we face in each game and it makes playing away from home in particular something we have to front up for all the time."
"Taranaki are not one of the big guns provincially in comparison to Canterbury or Auckland and we had to develop a team culture and I can see something very similar at Millbrae and that spirit is one of the reasons the team does well because they have a great team culture which enables some of the promising new players coming through to slot into the side and be accepted into what the team is about. Teams who don't have that find it very difficult to handle a side who have a real belief in themselves."
Stewart has rapidly assumed a role as 'senior player', helping in defining team policy and tactics along with coaches Kenny Murray and Peter Laverie, team manager Ronnie McKinnon, captain Damien Kelly and Glen Tippett and this is another area where his experience has been invaluable.
"I hope that I can bring something to the club both on and off the field and when Skippy was out for the match at Boroughmuir, it was a real honour to captain the side. It is things like that which have made coming here such an enjoyable experience and then I look at the coaching that we have been involved in as Skippy's soldiers, watching six and seven up to seventeen year old kids in schools as well as in the club developing and having fun is really rewarding."
The future? "This is a great place to be and a great club to play for so we will see what the future holds."
A top quality player, a very smart guy and all round class act, Mark Stewart is a major asset to Ayr in their bid for further honours and should there be another weekend wipeout, I will certainly know where to head for copy to fill an empty column.
Ayr are scheduled to travel to the Greenyards on Saturday. At the time of writing Melrose is still under about six inches of snow so no predictions apart from the certainty that if it goes ahead, this will be one of the real tough ones on the road.
Finally Ayr coach Kenny Murray became a proud father last week, wife Kirsteen and daughter Kara are doing fine and congratulations come from all at Millbrae.
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