Rugby veteran Duley reminisces

AuthorRUGBY Jesse Wood
Published date25 November 2021
Publication titleTe Awamutu Courier
Born on Boxing Day 1976, Duley was raised in Matamata and at age 12 moved to the Gold Coast, Australia, with his father and two sisters.

There he attended The Southport School (TSS), a boys only school that is renowned for rugby.

“That’s where I got a taste for rugby and I managed to make the Australian Schoolboys rugby team,” said Duley.

“The Australian Schoolboys trip was unbelievable when we were 18 years old. We went travelling all around Ireland, France and Wales. It was bloody good.”

Duley was part of a formidable locking duo with future Wallabies centurion Nathan Sharpe and they played close to 100 games together for The Southport School and Australian representative sides.

“We had a pretty good lineout as you could imagine.”

After finishing school in 1995 he then went on to play Australian Under-21s rugby.

1996 saw the game of rugby go professional and Duley “followed the professional rugby trip from then on”.

At the age of 21 he headed to England and played a season for second division team Coventry.

Duley then returned to Australia and was part of the Queensland Reds system.

In 2000, he travelled to South America with the Queensland side and even played against the USA.

Duley was even given a crack against the British and Irish Lions for a Queensland select team, although he never made a Super 12 appearance for the Reds.

“They had [Wallabies captain] John Eales, Garrick Morgan, and Nathan Sharpe was just coming up, and I didn’t really see a path there for me at that stage,” said Duley.

“Bay of Plenty had just gone up to the first division and Gordon Tietjens was the coach at that stage. He gave me a call and asked if I wanted to play some first division NPC rugby. I knew how good it was and thought that it would be awesome for my career.”

So, he headed back across the ditch to play the 2001 and 2002 seasons for Bay of Plenty and the Mt Maunganui club, scoring three tries in his 20 appearances for the Steamers.

“Then Ian Foster [Waikato’s coach at the time] came calling and said ‘would you like to come play for Waikato?’.”

Duley took up Foster’s offer and spent 2003-2004 with the Hamilton-based side playing nine matches.

“My mum lives in Matamata still, so she was very proud of me when I played for them. She always wanted me to play for Waikato and when I did she was pretty happy.”

His second match for the province was against Northland, who boasted Fijian international winger Rupeni Caucaunibuca, one of world rugby’s fastest men.

The big lock...

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