Goodbye and farewell, old mate | Rotorua Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Rotorua

For 27 years Paul Tupai has bled for his team-mates. Daily Post sports editor CRAIG TIRIANA catches up with the man nicknamed "Toops" as he prepares to move to Europe for at least two more years of the same.

It's easy to bandy around words like loyalty and commitment.

It's far harder to pull off the actions associated with the words.

But that's not the case for Paul "Toops" Tupai, the Rotorua born-and-bred Steamer who played his last game in his treasured blue and gold jumper this year when the Bay signed off the 2005 NPC rugby season by beating Northland 51-3.

The 31-year-old utility forward left his mark.

Coming off the bench for the final 20 minutes, he scored a bullocking try and kicked his only conversion in 115 caps.

Tupai's representative career started when he was 19, and stretched the Bay's amateur second division and first division professional times.

He finished eighth on the all-time list of Bay of Plenty appearances, confirming his durability, dependability and commitment to a union, which runs through his veins and pumps his willing heart.

Bay of Plenty rugby was, and is, simple for Tupai - it's about living and dying for the cause.

There are no backward steps and there is only one way to be.

"You've got to be loyal, loyalty takes you a long way. At the end of the day, if you start chasing things for money or personally, you've lost that loyalty ... My loyalty to someone is more than anything you can buy," a gravelly voiced Tupai says, as he's readying to leave for England and a two-and-a-half year stint at Northampton.

Tupai hopes to be on the field for the Saints on New Year's Day and he's happy to head overseas, having given unwavering service to Bay of Plenty.

It's something not all of his former teammates had given in Tupai's eyes.

"That's something I've felt hard for the Bay [of Plenty] - people who just come here to use us as that stepping stone and then they leave ...

"I found that hard and was happy to finish with the Bay - I don't know whether they wanted me - but I had had enough," he said.

If Tupai sounds strongly opposed to rugby's modern-day professional mercenaries, he has vented his frustration on more than one former teammate turning out for a different province - punishment for rugby treason on behalf of the jersey.

"I've always been a Bay man and the colours will always run in my blood and it's a jersey that I'll treasure for the rest of my life. I just didn't like it how guys came in and wore the jersey, threw it on the floor and walked back out.

"To them it was just another team and they were just here because they were looking for money. They didn't really have the same Bay attachment.

"There's guys in the Bay who will live and die for the Bay, guys like Willy Clark and Damon Kaui. It will always run in their blood.

"They're staunch Bay, like the Joe Tauiwis, Warwick Morehus ... I think that's something that will slowly go out the door over time.

"My great hope for 100 games is Tanerau Latimer. He said to me one night, 'I'll get my hundred games for you Toops'."

When Tupai gets to Northampton it will be the latest twist in a career he launched as a barefooted four-year-old in Mamaku and continued at Western Heights High School, Bay of Plenty age groups and the Ngongotaha and Rangiuru clubs.

He's only played for two clubs. Ngongotaha gave him his start in the game and he went to Rangiuru to play with his great mates Kaui - the most talented footballer Tupai says he played with - and Clarke.

Tupai has earned a reputation over the years as being a player who puts everything on the line for his team.

Rangiuru coach Bob Moorehead has seen it many times.

"He's the ultimate team man. I've never seen someone so keen on laying his body on the line for his club and his province. He'd let himself be run over by a bus if he thought it would help his teammates in some way."

It's no secret Tupai is one of the toughest and most unbending footballers. But he has sailed close to the wind, earning appearances before the Bay of Plenty and New Zealand judicial panels and suffering some playless days while he was learning his craft.

When you ask Tupai which team he's liked beating the most, without a blink his answer is Waikato.

Tupai wears the enforcer badge like an old-style Western sheriff, his role to ensure law and order in his patch, and he's dished out and received rugby's version of street justice with honour.

He's had to tone it down, as rugby has sought to clean up the murky goings on at ruck and maul time.

"I knew I had to tone it down when the union said I'd have to start paying for my own flights [to Wellington] and lawyer," he laughs.

One of Tupai's biggest supporters - and critics - is his mother Mary.

"She always tells me to control my aggression." Tupai's father Eddie offers a different spin. "That's the way boy," he would tell his son.

Tupai reckons he picked up his physical style in Rotorua, playing in the region's club rugby, which he still describes as the hardest football he's encountered.

"It's faster at NPC, but the most physical games I've played were Ngongotaha against Waikite," he remembers.

Tupai said those encounters were what made him the player he is.

He's in his element when the going gets tough and singles out former club rival Waikite's Charles Te Kowhai as one of the hardest opponents.

Former Bay of Plenty prop Barry Uerata gets the nod as the player most likely to put fear into the opposition.

"Everyone used to be looking out for him."

Tupai had two years with Ngongotaha when he left Western Heights High School. They won the Baywide twice under Joe Tuhakaraina's tutelage and Tupai met his greatest rugby influence, the late New Zealand Sevens and Bay representative Joe Tauiwi.

"He taught me a lot - to be humble, don't forget where you come from and not to read too much in the papers."

When it comes to career highlights, there have been many for Tupai.

Among them was the privilege of raising the Ranfurly Shield up after his 100th game for the Bay during the 2004 NPC. Beating Nelson Bays to get out of Division two was another. The latest was running out at Rotorua International Stadium - his favourite ground - in front of a full house to open this year's Lions tour.

Manu Samoa has provided an unexpected twilight, with six tests, including one at a packed Twickenham.

There have also been a few low points, the worst coming when Auckland scored a last second try to retain the Ranfurly Shield in the late 1990s. A more recent disappointment was seeing first five Glen Jackson and assistant coach Joe Schmidt leave the Bay.

"We [Bay of Plenty Rugby Union] should've have mortgaged the house to keep them," he says.

Although Tupai is headed for England with his family, wife Nadine and children Leah and Connor, he will be back.

Rotorua is home and he's keen to put something back into the community that's helped and supported him during his impressive career.

He doesn't see coaching as his forte, but believes he's learned plenty over the years to be a pretty good manager.

"I'd be a players' manager, for the players, someone they could confide in without worrying I'd be telling someone else."

Tupai is a supporter of Baywide club rugby.

He believes the union needs to strengthen the base by assisting club structures that would encourage representative players to be shared around, rather than ending up in a couple of superclubs as happens now.

And they have to hold on to good grass-roots people.

"It's hard to believe they would let a good club man like [former Bay rugby operations manager] Toni Marriner go. He's someone who knew grass-roots rugby in the Bay."

Just like Toops.