As he watches his daughter Keira run around the living room and help decorate the Christmas tree, the TV remote held firmly to her ear like a phone as she happily chats away, Piri Weepu is relaxing for the first time in months.
It’s been a year of huge highs and massive lows for the passionate All Black scrum-half, who in the past year has welcomed a new daughter but missed her birth, endured the passing of his dear grandfather and overcome a potentially career-ending broken leg to become one of New Zealand’s heroes after the All Blacks’ stunning Rugby World Cup win.
“A lot happened pretty quickly this year, but it’s good to be home with my girls and family,” says Piri (28). “The good bit about breaking my leg was that I was home a lot earlier in the year than I’d normally be, so I got to spend a lot more time with Keira and my family.”
But being away for the Rugby World Cup when his grandfather passed away was pretty tough for the dedicated family man, who will leave his parents’ home in Wellington for the first time in January, when he moves to Auckland to play with the Blues.
“oy grandfather had been sick for a while, so it wasn’t unexpected, but I’m glad my dad didn’t tell me about him passing until after the quarter-final. He knows I’m very emotional when it comes to my family. I’d have wanted to stop what I was doing and go home.”
once again it was because of Piri’s rugby commitments that he was away for the birth of his second daughter Taylor on July 21 – although it wasn’t the reason he missed the dramatic moment itself. “I was asleep!” admits Piri, who shares parenting of the two girls with their mother, Candice Russell, in their home town of Wellington.
“We’d just played our first test against Fiji in Dunedin and I had my first great night’s sleep in ages – and woke up to see I’d missed loads of calls from Candice. I rang her straightaway and she said, ‘Your daughter’s here!’
Being fair though, I wouldn’t have got there in time – because while Candice was in labour for 24 hours with Keira, Taylor arrived in just an hour!”
Piri didn’t get to meet Taylor for almost a week after her birth. “I feel a bit sorry for her, because she only made it to one rugby game, while Keira came to loads. I know she won’t remember, but she won’t be in the photos, so one day she’ll be gutted.”
However, he’s made up for lost time since the end of the Rugby World Cup by staying in Wellington with the girls while most of his fellow All Blacks took off on holiday.
“I’d rather stay with my girls, take them to daycare and watch them grow up. I like to claim I taught Keira to walk, although that’s not going down too well with her mum!” he says. “And I’m really looking forward to Christmas with the girls – I’ve got Taylor loads of toys as she doesn’t have as many as Keira, and Keira’s getting a kids’ iPad, which is awesome. She’s a busy thing and it has loads of things for kids. She’ll love it, I hope.”
He should know – because not only is Keira the spitting image of her dad, but she’s got a personality to match.
“She’s very like me – I could never sit still when I was young – and she’s always on the go. I get told she looks like me all the time, poor kid – luckily she’s gorgeous though. Can’t say the same for her old man!” he laughs. “I reckon she’ll love Christmas – she got the hang of trick or treating pretty quickly on Halloween. She knocked on doors and if there was no answer within five seconds she was out of there – but if someone answered the door, she’d politely take just one lolly, pop it in her bag and get straight on to the next house!’
With his two gorgeous daughters, a contract to play rugby next year and his place in the legendary Rugby World Cup-winning team cemented in history, Piri is happy that as 2011 comes to a close, he can finally lay to rest some of the demons that have haunted him.
“I’m an emotional person by nature and this year was tough. There was a lot of stress, so I’ve had to find a technique that keeps me in check,” he admits.
“I do feel low at times, but I’ve learned that hiding away and bottling it up doesn’t make anything better. I’ve got a couple of mates who I always have a great time with if I see them and if I’m out having fun, I worry less. Then I can focus on what I need to focus on and work on what I can control, not stress about what I can’t.”
As usual, Piri will be spending Christmas Day with his extended family, with food and presents the main priority of the day. “When I was a kid, I loved presents. I used to count how many I had under the tree to make sure I had as many as my brother Billy,” he smiles.
“It always used to be the bigger the present, the more expensive it was, so the smaller the present, the more you got! Because he’s seven years older than me though, the presents were often a bit different – I remember one year we both got remote-control cars, but while Billy’s zoomed all over the house, mine was attached to a cord and I had to follow it around.”
Christmas dinner will be a traditional hangi and salads with desserts to follow – unless someone gets to them first.
“oy uncle and auntie always bring a homemade cheesecake, but it has to come out last after everything else has been eaten, or it all goes,” he laughs. “With a big family, you learn quickly – if you don’t get in there fast, you miss out!”
And as he sits on the floor teaching Keira to unwrap presents while baby Taylor beams up at her adoring dad, stress is clearly far from his mind.
“It’s going to be a good Christmas,” he muses. “I’ll be with family and the people I love. I’d like something to do with diving or a tropical holiday for Christmas, if anyone’s thinking about getting me a present. But I already got what I wanted – two gorgeous daughters and the World Cup. I don’t need anything else.”