Jerry Collins will be remembered as a rugby player for his copper-coloured hair and bone-thundering hits – and the smile he wore on his face through it all.
For Collins, who died in a car accident in France on Friday, playing rugby wasn't about the fame, money or accolades, it was for the sheer pleasure of it. Sure, he'd smash into a tackle harder than most, but then he'd pop out of a pile of bodies with a huge grin across his face.
READ MORE: Former All Black Collins killed in car crash
Jerry Collins poses for a photo at a hotel in Auckland in 2006. He played 48 tests for the All Blacks.
That was Jerry, a man who spent his short 34 years of life always looking to enjoy himself. Even at the height of his fame in the All Blacks, he would play a game for his beloved Norths Rugby Club in Wellington without his Super Rugby or All Blacks coaches knowing anything about it.
Born in Samoa, Collins moved to New Zealand at a young age and attended St Pat's College in Wellington. It was there where his rugby talent was first exposed, going on to represent the NZ Secondary Schools.
In 1999, he was named player of the tournament at the Under-19 Junior World Championships, and in the same year made his provincial debut for Wellington.
Hurricane, All Black and Wellington player Jerry Collins announces his retirement from New Zealand rugby in 2008.
He suffered a broken leg while playing for his province, and that delayed his Super Rugby debut until 2001. But he made an immediate impact at that level, too.
So much so that he played the first of his 48 tests for the All Blacks that year, against Argentina in Christchurch, and would also captain his country on three occasions.
Collins started his All Blacks career playing at No 8, but when his good friend Rodney So'oialo also came into contention, he switched positions to blindside flanker, where he was equally as successful.
Collins played in the 2003 and 2007 Rugby World Cups and throughout his time in the team he was a favourite of the media because he refused to talk in anything other than plain language.
If the All Blacks played rubbish, he'd say so.
"I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body," he once told journalists, before cracking up after realising what he'd said.
He was famously caught short before the All Blacks played a Bledisloe Cup test in Christchurch in 2006 after the television cameras caught him kneeling down and spending a penny on the side of the field.
Other players would have got into big trouble for urinating in front of 40,000 people, but not Jerry.
Collins' All Blacks career came to an abrupt end at the age of 27 when he sought an early release from his New Zealand Rugby contract, and he left the country after the Hurricanes' 2008 season.
His final game for the Hurricanes was in the semifinal that year against the Crusaders, where he took the last conversion, the traditional tribute for a departing player.
"With me, I'd like to think that what you saw is what you got," he said afterwards.
"I always tried to put as much as I could into every match.
"I wanted to leave at the right time and after thinking about things over the past week, and then getting through Saturday night's match, that time is now."
Collins lived a nomadic existence after leaving New Zealand and was never far away from controversy.
He spent a year in Toulon, France, playing 22 games, but had to deal with a female stalker, who claimed to the police that he had assaulted her after she fell trying to sneak into his house.
Collins went to the Ospreys in 2009 after one season in France and it was perhaps there that he played the last great rugby of his career where he was adored by the Welsh fans.
Two years later he went to Japan to play for Yamaha. In March 2013, he was arrested in a department store in Hamamatsu after being spotted carrying a 17cm long knife. He would later say he carried the knife in self-defence after a 'misunderstanding' with gang members.
It all went quiet for Collins after that and he spent time working for a security firm at a mine in Canada and played a few games of rugby league in his spare time.
But there was to be one further chapter in his rugby career when he was offered a contract by French second division club Narbonne to be their "medical joker".
Collins was never going to turn down the chance to play rugby again – especially as the joker. He was brought in to help them stave off relegation. His last game was against Dax on May 3 – and Narbonne's win kept them in the league.
Jerry would have loved that.
- Stuff
