Marty Banks: I was nervous transferring to the Southland Stags
“Initially I thought the people would be horrible, they were horrible when you weren’t playing for the Stags."
Marty Banks suggests a survey of Stags fans at Rugby Park in Invercargill is probably needed to find a formula for the NPC’s survival throughout the country.
The veteran first five-eighth has spoken glowing of the passion shown by Southland Stags supporters. He has also revealed the frustration amongst the playing group that they haven’t been able to repay those supporters with wins in recent years.
Banks, who previously played all his NPC rugby with the Tasman Mako, told The Roaring Pen podcast he was nervous about joining the Stags in 2021.
He had no intentions of ever playing NPC rugby for anyone but Tasman. Banks had initially set himself the goal of playing 50 games for the Mako. He has played 40 games.
However, a call from then-Stags head coach Dale MacLeod - who coached Banks for four years at Sydenham in Christchurch - prompted some thinking.
Banks said he wanted to repay MacLeod for what he had done for him early in his career and agreed to the Stags move.
Three years on he has no regrets about the move. That’s despite battling for wins and personally having to deal with a nasty injury.
Banks had been on the other side of the vocal Stags supporters while playing for Tasman and was nervous about what sort of reception he would get wearing a maroon jersey.
“Initially I thought the people would be horrible, they were horrible when you weren’t playing for the Stags,” he joked.
“The fans are great, but for 80 minutes if you are not on the right side of the fence they can be horrible people. I’d experienced the other side of the fence.
“Coming down I was thinking there would be a bit of pressure on me to come down and make an impact, I knew that would come with a bit of pressure and I was sure they would stick the boot in.
“But as soon as I came down and met some people down here, I realised it wasn’t going to be that hard of a transition. The general public as a whole, whether you’re having a beer or at the cafe, they are just good people.”
“You don’t meet any bad eggs down here.”
Banks said there was plenty of frustration within the playing group that they have not rewarded the Stags fans in recent seasons. Although he said they are working hard to turn a corner and he was confident it would happen.
He said Southland has a fanbase that “literally lives and breathes” on the back of one win in the past two seasons.
“The boys talk about it; imagine if we could just win two or three in a row how crazy this would be. The drive and want is in the team, it is just the winning culture, we’ve just got to get over the hump.”
When asked about his thoughts on the future of the NPC Banks said it would be a bad outcome for rugby in New Zealand to one-day lose the NPC.
The former Super Rugby champion acknowledged there needed to be work done to find ways to attract bigger crowds throughout the country.
“How do you do that? You probably need to go and do a survey at Rugby Park every week and ask why they turn up every week and what drives them to turn up. It’s probably not the beer prices across the competition.
“Southland has got it right and they need to focus on that.”
Banks has missed the bulk of the 2023 season because of a groin injury. He had surgery five months ago and attempted to return early in the NPC season but the problem has continued to cause problems.
Banks - who turned 34 on Tuesday - revealed on The Roaring Pen podcast just what he played through during last year’s NPC.
That eagerness to play probably caused some more damage.
“It was round one last year I felt a little bit of a niggle in my right groin and after about round two I could barely walk and was still playing about 80 minutes each week.
“It was a bit of a mental part where I just had to knuckle down. GD [Greg Dyer] was injured about round three so it was either me play or Tin Tin [James Wilson] chuck the boots on, and I don’t think Tin Tin was too keen on that.
“I knew I was sore because laying in bed I couldn’t even lift the sheets up in bed. Because I hadn’t had a long-term injury, I probably didn’t appreciate the damage I was doing to my groin.”
Banks thought he would just have a month off and be back in time for Super Rugby preseason with the Highlanders and he would be good to go.
Although he admitted he was naive to the damage he had done. It meant he missed the entire Super Rugby season.
The first five-eighth is unlikely to appear for the remainder of the 2023 NPC season, although he hasn’t ruled out a possible appearance in the final two games.
Meanwhile, the Southland Stags’ next outing is against Hawke’s Bay at Rugby Park in Invercargill on Saturday.
Kick-off is 2.05pm.