It has been 20 years since professional rugby kicked off in the southern hemisphere. We continue our series speaking to players who featured in New Zealand teams from the inaugural 1996 Super 12 Rugby competition.
The man who scored the first points in professional rugby is about to embark on a personal crusade to prepare Samoa to enter Super Rugby.
Alama Ieremia is about to begin his first full year working as director of coaching for Samoa and coach of the country's national rugby side.
"Would I like to see Samoa in Super Rugby? Absolutely. Would I like to see a Pacific Island team in there? Absolutely.
"Will it happen? The reality is that the way commercial things are run, it's going to make it difficult. However it's not going to stop me from pursuing a case for it."
Ieremia wants to put all the "off-field stuff" which has dogged Samoan rugby aside this year and develop it into a brand that could slot into Super Rugby.
"That is a decision for other people to make but when they look at us and say, are you ready? It's my job to make sure we are ready for that calling.
"You will see the benefit of Super Rugby for tier-two nations, where we [Samoa] are, with Argentina, Japan and Romania getting better and better.
"It's one of our goals, to get into a professional competition, to raise our level."
Ieremia looks relaxed at his family home in Whitby, near Wellington, after spending December is Samoa shoring up his new coaching role.
He's aware it's coming up on 20 years since he put on his boots to play in the first match of the professional rugby era, something he believes has prepared him well for the new coaching role in Samoa.
He was running at centre when he crossed the line for the Wellington Hurricanes to secure the first try of the inaugural Super 12 Rugby competition.
It was Friday evening, March 1, 1996 and perfect conditions at the Palmerston North Showgrounds when the Hurricanes ran on to face the Auckland Blues.
"It was one of the moments, there was a gap that opened up in front of me and I took off. I remember just scoring the try and getting back up, I was still pumped and it [try] really didn't sink in until later."
The excitement and the adrenaline was pumping. He was keen to "smash anything" that came his way, including Blues prop Olo Brown.
"I remember Olo Brown coming on the side of the ruck and I was about five or six people away. I decided to go in and absolutely smoke him.
"He didn't see me coming from the blind side and I hit him with a big tackle ... but I actually miss-miscued it and felt it in my shoulder. I heard the crowd go, woooo, and I was on the ground but didn't want to show my pain.
"I got up and my right shoulder was hanging down, and I was pretending it was ok. We had a break and I moved it a bit and it was ok."
Ieremia was paired in the midfield with Marty Berry and their opposite numbers for the Blues were Lee Stensness and Eroni Clarke.
Both teams had outstanding back-three combinations. Roger Randle (left wing), Tana Umanga (right wing) and Christian Cullen (fullback) started for the Hurricanes, marking their opposites who were Jonah Lomu, Greg Cooper and Waisake Sotutu. Cooper was knocked out during the match, Sotutu went to fullback, and Joeli Vidiri made his debut on the right wing.
The Blues went on to win that first Super 12 encounter 36-28 and at the end of the season, won the grandfinal.
"Unfortunately we lost that game but you could tell we gave it everything and you could feel this was going to be a special competition. We had just come off two months of training and it was great to get the competition underway."
Ieremia describes the inaugural Hurricanes outfit as a "make-up team of all sorts" because it included players from around the club's central to lower North Island catchment who were all new to each other. There were even a few brought in from Auckland, he remembers.
"I suppose even before the first game, getting together that team was exciting. We were a team of players being brought together from around different places and we used that as motivation to launch into the competition.
"We were based in Palmerston North ... the team grew together and so by the time the first game came around we were really amped."
Hurricanes coach Frank Oliver made his team watch a NFL motivational video before the Blues match, which showed "all the big hits".
"That was the last thing we saw before going into the game. Running out on to the field, it was a beautiful night in Palmerston North. The sun was just setting. The atmosphere was great, their were flags, and the whole community had come out. It was the first game [of Super Rugby] and it was a privilege to be part of it."
Ieremia had already played international rugby before Super 12 appeared and the professional era started.
He played for Samoa from 1992 to 1993 and then featured 30 times for the All Blacks from 1994 to 2000, including the 1995 and 1999 World Cup tournaments. He left New Zealand shores to play rugby in Japan in 2000.
He initially moved from Samoa to Wellington to study at university and play rugby in the 1990s. Like other players of the time, he held down a job, working at the National Bank as a teller, in 1995.
"Before professional rugby, people had jobs and you had to train in the early hours of the morning before you went to work and then after 5pm."
In those days sports science was "not there yet" and it was all about the "hard graft at training". The idea of planning a player's recovery in between games and competitions was "non existent".
"Back then you had to take time off work sometimes if you were playing in the NPC or for the All Blacks or Samoa, which was the case for me. You needed an employer that was understanding and I suppose National Bank looked after me."
The following year, in 1996, rugby turned pro although it took the next few years to grow out of the amateur way of coaching, playing and administering rugby.
"I suppose the first thing I remember when it came to professional rugby is that you didn't have to go to work, that's number one. The fact you [players] were together for a lot of time, 7am right through to the evening and in the early years it was quite exciting for us.
"We were a new brand, the Hurricanes, and it was great to be part of that buzz. Our coach Frank was a hard task-master and I remember although it was professional, we still had old-school values of coaching. Compare that to now and the game has moved on, it's high tech now.
"Looking back it's great to see how it all evolved, especially for me, now coaching at an elite level. If it wasn't for the lessons back then, we would not have the product we have today."
Super Rugby now has players that are "faster and more powerful". Strength and conditioning, sports science and technology are vital elements of a player's development and performance.
"The training and recovery is massive now, it's the ability to train hard and put your body through a lot of physical stress, and sometimes mental stress, and the capacity to recover."
Game play around the ruck had also changed making the area more contestable which had made for a more "flowing game".
Ieremia returned to New Zealand in 2008 to work as assistant-coach at the Wellington Lions. In 2009 he was the first former Hurricanes player to return as part of the management, taking up the reins as an assistant/technical advisor. From 2011-2014 he was the Hurricanes' assistant coach before moving on to become involved in coaching with Samoa.
Coaching is now at the heart of his career and he's seen plenty of changes in styles.
"In the old days coaches would tell you what to do but now we're heading towards getting buy-in from players, to understand why we do things and how you do it.
"Players don't have the work ethic [or experience] of coming from a normal job, they come straight out of school and many franchises have professional guidance for players."
Ieremia believes Super Rugby's development in New Zealand has contributed to the All Blacks' consecutive World Cup titles.
"We're now at the stage where we have the physical, emotional and even spiritual side of things come together in professional rugby, that's at the forefront of the game now."
Super Rugby this year will see three new teams injected into the competition, from Japan, Argentina and South Africa. There will be 18 teams in total and the new-look format kicks of fon Friday, February 26.
So is the format now too complicated and too big?
"It's an interesting situation. Initially I thought it is getting pretty big. Being out of the [Super Rugby] coaching bubble you get a chance to look at it from the outside and this year there looks to be saturation with a lot of rugby.
"Breaking up the competition is a good idea to save travel and for it to be a better spectacle. We'll have to wait an see. Maybe I'll give you an answer to that in May."