Sam Anderson-Heather on his experience with the New Zealand Provincial Barbarians

As players, we went head on into an unknown environment completely different to what we are accustomed to, with all the press conferences and media attention, and I was interested as to how I would respond. I can now say, from a personal development point of view, it was an absolutely epic experience, and one that will stick in the memory for life.

One of the biggest things in rugby in this day and age with professionalism, is that there are so many other factors aside from rugby that contribute to a day in the life of a rugby player. Coaches are under pressure to preform, players are under pressure to perform, it’s your livelihood, you are always thinking about the next contract, the next game, and all these big black clouds that hang over you as a professional sportsman. But that week was different. We were together for one week and no one thought we would go close beating the Lions. There was no next week to worry about, no worry about whether you were going to get selected in the starting line up or not. It was literally one night to go out and play rugby with no strings attached. No pressure, no expectations and I think the boys played a different style of rugby because of this. As a professional rugby player, you are never in that position, you are never so ‘free’ I guess. Maybe the guys at the top might feel like that because they are the best at what they do and they don’t really have the same worries. But for everyone else, you are always in that constant struggle and it was just refreshing to play rugby for what it is, just run out there and try and beat your opposite. I think it was more representative of grassroots rugby in NZ, where you go out there, you play for the love of it and everyone gets stuck in.

The feedback so far has been awesome, it has been a feel good story that everyone can relate to, and it’s surreal to be a part of. From speaking to people after the game, it is clear they were blown away by how the boys went out there with what looked like a mind-set of having nothing to lose, which is how we prepared. Obviously, preparation started months ago in terms of management, so when we turned up there was a very systematic approach to our time together. The coaches were driving everything to get us all on the same page and get all the content into us so we knew what we were going to do. On the Thursday, the reins were handed over to the players as the coaches wanted to reinforce the message that at the end of the day, we were the ones playing the game and it was a one off game, a chance to just go out and play rugby and that had to come from us as players. It was our chance to go out there and show what we were made of.

One pretty awesome memory I have is after the game my opposition hooker, Rory Best, came into the changing rooms and sat with me for an hour. It got to the point where everyone had showered and our team manager had got up to wrap up the night and we were still sitting there. Rory Best, with 104 international caps for Ireland but in that moment, we were just two blokes yarning and having a beer, Rory Best, a farmer from Ireland and, me, a humble battler from Dunedin.