Buck opens up on cancer scare
All Blacks legend and cancer survivor Wayne ‘Buck’ Shelford hopes Match Fit will encourage men to look after their health. Melenie Parkes reports.
Wayne ‘Buck’ Shelford says when he heard about local series Match Fit and its message of supporting men’s health through sport he “wanted to do it straight away”.
The show follows former professional rugby stars as they try to get in shape over eight weeks in preparation for a grand final game.
Along with Sir Graham Henry, Shelford is there to coach the team but also to encourage a much bigger team – the men of New Zealand – to take a more proactive approach to their health. It’s a subject that’s really important, and personal, to the All Blacks legend.
“One of the reasons why I got on board with this kaupapa was because I was just turning 50 when I was diagnosed with cancer.
“Your first few days of actually being diagnosed, you’re not quite sure what’s going on. And once you find out what’s going on, you tend to think, ‘I’ve got to look after myself a little bit better and I want to be around a bit longer’.
“A lot of us don’t realise when we’re young, but when we’re in our 50s and our children start having children, we realise how important it is to be around for our mokos and our great mokos.”
It’s been 13 years since Shelford recovered from non-Hodgkins lymphoma, but he is aware it could return at any time.
“My oncologist said it will come back, we just don’t know how it will come back. It will still be in your system somewhere, it’s just not growing at the moment,” Shelford says.
A visit to the doctor is something that many men in New Zealand avoid, but Shelford says that needs to change.
“My oncologist said it will come back, we just don’t know how it will come back.”
– Wayne Shelford
With its focus on men’s health, he hopes Match Fit will encourage more blokes to do what so many have put off for too long. “Our men have got to start talking about their health, especially testicular cancer and prostate cancer, more often and making sure they get that checked. “Your health is all you have when you get old. That’s all you need to have when you get old.” But there are other aspects of health too that many men are neglecting and the series takes a holistic look at well-being through the prism of sport. In Match Fit, the aim is to get the players back into shape, both physically and mentally. Mental health issues are something that many people experience in their lifetime, but sportspeople face some unique challenges. Shelford says that former professional sportsmen sometimes struggle to transition into normal life once their careers finish. “They’ve got to have a whole mental life change as well. Everything changes in their life,” he says. “One of the big things we’re finding is a lot of players struggling to integrate back into mainstream society.
“When you come to the end of a fantastic rugby career, what are you going to do afterwards? Especially if you’ve come through a system which has groomed you from high school.
“At the end of the day, we should be trying to get these guys into qualifications that they can come straight back into the workforce with at any stage.”
Some of the Match Fit players have struggled to get their weight down and their fitness up, but Shelford says their competitive spirit remains strong.
“They were all All Blacks at one stage and, if you look at them, you actually can still see that they’ve still got that rugby ability when you actually get out on the field. But they’re 20 kilos heavier than they were when they were playing.
“But the whole idea is that they never forget the way they played rugby. They can’t forget that. The body is just a little bit slower.
“Even I want to be out on the field but, nah, I’m a little bit older than these guys so, no, leave it to the young ones.”
And while the men of Match Fit have some important messages to share, they do so with a healthy dose of humour.
“There’s a lot of laughs out there,” says Shelford. “There’s a lot of fun, a lot of banter beforehand, but as soon as they get on the field, they just switch on – true All Blacks.”
In a sense, Alan and Cathy Donaldson have come full circle on their farming journey.
Two of their three children are carrying on the family legacy. But the kids are putting their own spin on their farming careers and the Donaldsons wouldn’t have it any other way.
“We started making money out of shearing sheep and now we’ve got my daughter growing sheep that don’t even produce wool,” laughs Alan.
The Donaldsons’ daughter Jessica breeds Wiltshire sheep, a breed that sheds its fleece. The irony of former shearers owning sheep with no wool doesn’t escape Alan, but then he and wife Cathy have always been willing to move with the times.
The couple bought their first farm in Taumaranui with their shearing proceeds and started farming sheep and cattle. As their family grew they realised that son Tom and Jessica also had an interest in farming and they bought more land.
“We just worked out that we need to create space for them and ourselves if we all want to be part of the industry,” says Alan.
While he and Cathy enjoy having their children – and now their grandchildren – joining them on their four farm blocks, Alan says the choice was always theirs to make. Their eldest son works as a mechanical engineer in Auckland.
They encouraged the kids to work on other farms to ensure it was the right decision for them.
“We just made sure they came back on their own terms and wanted to be part of it,” says Alan.
Tom, Jessica and their respective spouses manage their own blocks, but it is a co-operative effort.
“We all share our resources and we help each other out,” Alan says, adding that a little sibling rivalry creates some “good healthy competition in the workplace”.
While the family have long farmed beef – including an Angus cattle stud – and sheep on their properties they also understand that the farming world is evolving.
“We’re always open-minded to change or (go in) a new direction if we need to take it, including environmentally. With any weather patterns that are changing we try to look at different ways of farming around it and moving forward.
“There’s no point in complaining about a drought every year or a cold winter every year. You’ve got to do something about it.
“We’re very open minded to any changes, even in our farming programme,” says Alan.
Which is why when Tom and his wife Louise proposed opening a glamping site on the block of land they manage, the Donaldsons could see the promise of such a venture.
“Definitely with tourism with the Whanganui River, we’ve encouraged it. Taumaranui, little town that it is, it’s obviously struggled some years ago.
“I’ve noticed with tourism coming into town it has actually brightened the place up and it’s got a lot more foot traffic now, and people obviously spending money in town, which is great for a little, small community.”
Tom says when they bought the farm block they instantly recognised its potential as a tourism destination with its proximity to Ruapehu and the Whanganui river and its spectacular views.
“There’s about a kilometre of river frontage you can walk up and down. Little sandy beaches all the way and little hidden spots, all private.” Guests can fish, swim, canoe, kayak or just take in the scenery. They can even jet boat to nearby attractions, including a lavender farm and the Blue Duck Station cafe, which also recently featured on Country Calendar.
Glamping, a portmanteau of glamorous and camping, is a way of enjoying nature without having to forego too many of life’s little luxuries.
“There’s a shower and a toilet, everything is within the tent itself. You don’t have to go outside to go for a shower. It’s not a separate building, the tent holds everything.”
The Donaldsons sourced their glamping tent from South Africa and Tom says it’s the only one of its kind in the country.
“It’s what they call a stretch tent. The shape and the look of it is different.”
The couple opened Te Awa Glamping just before lockdown.
“We pretty much opened and then we had to shut down again, obviously for lockdown.
“And then we opened for a little while after lockdown, had a few people through and then we closed again for the winter, for a couple months over winter, and we’ve only just reopened again,” says Tom.
They don’t plan on adding any more glamping tents to that specific site as they want to retain the atmosphere of seclusion and privacy.
“We do want to keep that feeling of you’re on your own out there, which is really special.”
A great way to relax and unwind at Te Awa Glamping.
Rugby league was built on rivalries. The game originated as a split from rugby union in 1895, leading to a bitter feud between the two codes that some people consider continues today.
In the 1990s, in the so-called “Super League War”, media titans Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer fought for control of the game in Australia and New Zealand, a move that almost destroyed rugby league.
In the NRL, there’s no love lost between the Rabbitohs and Roosters, and any clash between the Warriors and Broncos has extra spice associated with it.
But the biggest rivalry in rugby league, without doubt, is the annual State of Origin series between New South Wales and Queensland. The idea was simple. Whichever state you played your first graded game of footy in, was who you played for.
Starting from a one-off clash in 1980, it is now considered one of the world’s great sporting events. Hard as it is to believe, given its popularity, the concept was a Queensland idea rejected repeatedly by New South Wales.
Fuelled by this long-time snubbing by the Blues, the underdog Maroons from the Aussie Sunshine State dominated the matches for the first six years.
However, New South Wales finally broke through for its first series win in 1985, a year the players and coaches admit they finally understood the passion associated with the interstate concept.
Overall, 117 matches have been played, with the Maroons winning 62, the Blues 53, with two games drawn. Queensland has also won the most series, winning 21 of the 38 played so far.
with his size and strength. Meninga also shone as Queensland coach, winning almost 70 per cent of his games.
Cameron Smith The Melbourne Storm captain wasn’t even born when the first Origin game was played but Smith holds several records, including most games (42), most games won (24), most series wins (11). He retired from the Maroons in 2017, after another series win.
Mal Meninga and Cameron Smith
Laurie Daley Daley was made captain of New South Wales in 1992 and
Andrew Johns was part of an era where the Blues dominated the Maroons. He led his state to three series wins in a row and was the first Blues skipper to win a deciding game in Brisbane. He excelled in all his 23 appearances.
Andrew Johns “Joey” Johns played 23 games for New South Wales across 10 years and was a key player in the Blues’ wins in 1996-97. In 2005, in one of Origin’s great performances, he came back from two injury disrupted years to win another title.
While its primary purpose is to advance unsolved investigations, sometimes Cold Case inadvertently becomes a kind of time capsule, capturing a moment in our culture.
A historic case in the third season of the local series takes viewers back to Auckland in the late 80s.
“It’s an interesting look,” says producer Carolyn Harper. “It’s a slice in time of what people’s opinions and attitudes were.”
The episode follows the disappearance of Joanne ‘Joe’ Chatfield, a 17 year old who went missing after a gig at Auckland University. Harper says that Chatfield mixed in the punk scene and wore her hair spiked and dyed.
“I think that time back in the late 80s, that didn’t engender a lot of public sympathy for her. And all the appeals for her were made from the point of view of, ‘Joe, can you please call us?’.
“So it really set up the narrative back in 1988 that she was just a runaway teenager. But, of course, something far more sinister happened to her.”
Harper says the Auckland University area and its surrounds was “quite different than it is now” and there were serial offenders and predators in the vicinity.
“And to talk about that we get on board retired Detective Inspector Graham Bell from Police Ten 7 because that was when he first came to Auckland and was operating at that time. So he has a very good knowledge of what was happening in Auckland.”
Harper and her team are hopeful that the passage of time could work to the advantage of police in helping to solve the mystery of Chatfield’s disappearance.
“She was at an experimental music gig, I think there were only about 100 people at this particular gig. A lot of those people were young, they possibly were drinking at this gig or possibly taking drugs, but they were actually under age. So they didn’t really want to engage with police. I think there was
probably a bit of reticence to talk to them. Whereas now those people are probably in their 40s, they could well be parents themselves.
“And so, in this case, time passing might be, or hopefully will be, a friend for police.”
Of the more recent cases profiled in the new season, Harper says the most well known is Jordan Voudouris, who was shot and killed behind his pizza restaurant in Paeroa in 2012.
Harper says that the nature of Voudouris’ death led to much speculation at the time.
“I think in the episode police say at one point in time, they were looking at 30 persons of interest. And still today, there are persons of interest that they can’t rule out of their investigation.
“But in this particular episode, we look at various people within that group of persons of interest and we also reveal details of a new person of interest that hasn’t really been considered up until now. And that includes some CCTV images.” Technology is constantly advancing and evolving and Harper says confidence is high that the weapon used to kill Voudouris will be determined eventually, hopefully leading to his murderer. “We talked to a ballistics expert about identifying the weapon and how that is completely possible, in his opinion, because the police already have a lot of ballistic information. They will one day be able to identify the one weapon to the exclusion of all others.”
In March of this year, a global event brought the people of the world together. It was a fever all right, but not of the Covid-19 variety.
Millions took to their couches for eight straight hours to binge watch the Netflix documentary series Tiger King, whiling away time in self-isolation to follow the exploits of an unusual zookeeper.
The story of Joe Exotic, a man who ran an exotic animal sanctuary with questionable practices, would have been a fascinating tale on its own. But add in a rivalry with an equally eccentric sanctuary owner and many bizarre events and you had ratings gold.
Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem And Madness was watched by more than 45 million people and became one of Netflix’s most popular releases of all time. OneofJoeExotic’sstaff,‘Saff’ Saffery, now appears in a follow-up documentary on Animal Planet. Surviving Joe Exotic takes a look at the aftermath of the series and also what became of several of the animals that were formerly at GW Zoo in Oklahoma. Viewers will remember Saffery as the level-headed keeper who lost part of an arm after being attacked by a tiger. The attack is one of the most shocking moments in Tiger King, perhaps made even more surreal by Saffery’s stoicism in the face of being bitten by a big cat. Rather than having potentially risky reconstructive surgery, Saffery opted for amputation
of his left forearm and quickly returned to work.
“I knew that it was important to get back, to not make as big of a deal of it as possible,” says Saffery. “Because at the end of the day the only life that was at stake there was the animal’s, and I had at that point committed about four years to these animals, so I just felt it was my duty.
“It was the one thing, the least, I could do for them.”
Since Tiger King debuted, the Hawaiian-born army veteran says his life has “completely turned upside down”.
“There’s no way that I could have ever even imagined that it would be as big as it got. And that we would get the attention, especially me, you know, I’m not Joe Exotic at all.
“Thankfully, though, for me it’s been very positive and very welcoming and warming.”
He describes his time at GW Zoo as, “One of the greatest experiences of my life. There was never any animosity with me or any of the people involved in that zoo or my experience there.”
That includes his former employer, now incarcerated for trying to orchestrate the murder of his constant foe, Carol Baskin.
Saffery says of Joe Exotic, “I’ve never seen a more determined individual in my whole life and I probably never will.”
In Surviving Joe Exotic, viewers see what the lives of some of the animals from GW Zoo are like now. Many animals have behavioural issues and health problems because of the conditions they were kept in. It’s emotional to see these big cats experience a gentler way of life.
For Saffery, it was meaningful too.
“I can’t tell you how excited I was to be able to see that journey for them. I knew every single one of those animals.
“It’s definitely exciting for me and kind of full circle, which is lovely.”
But it’s also bittersweet. With the benefit of hindsight, Saffery knows his passion and commitment to the big cats doesn’t mitigate what were serious problems at GW Zoo.
Saffery says it’s difficult to accept what happened at GW Zoo because he knows better. “I’m not a dumb individual, I’m a smart person. I have common sense. I know right from wrong. It’s not an easy one to swallow.
“Now that I’m out of that industry, and I’m able to look at it with a more open perspective, I see the wrongdoing, I see the bad in it.
“And that’s why the only time I’m going to mess with these animals again is if it’s to their genuine benefit, and not mine.”
As a father of three, there are naturally questions about why Dad is so popular. But his kids haven’t been told much about Tiger King other than it’s a documentary about their father’s former workplace.
“Now they know why everyone recognises me in Walmart, but none of them have seen it. It’s not appropriate for their age.”
Working with big cats isn’t in Saffery’s immediate future but his life-long passion for these apex predators – tigers in particular – means he hopes to work with them again. Next time, however, he wants to go about things the right way.
“These animals are so incredible for your soul, as a person,” says Saffery. “They just love you and it makes you want to be better.”
Joe Exotic