Whitebaiters often like the pastime for its solitude so it was little wonder Stephen Donald ignored his phone, but it took a forthright message from Mils Muliaina for the first five-eighths to pay more attention to who was calling.
"Ted [All Blacks' coach Graham Henry] had missed me a couple of times and I finally got a call from Milsy who said, 'start answering your phone, you idiot','' Donald recounted. "That was the sort of message I needed.''
It was the sort of dispatch the 27-year-old had hoped to have received in August when the 30-man World Cup squad was announced. He might even have had hopes of receiving a call from Henry last week when Dan Carter succumbed to a groin injury but it now looks like he will be pitched into Sunday's World Cup semifinal against Australia as first-five cover behind Aaron Cruden.
It is a dramatic change of scenery for someone who has spent large chunks of the past month fishing and whitebaiting on the banks of the Waikato river as he contemplates a three-year deal with Bath. He's watched a lot of the World Cup but he will get a much closer view on Sunday.
"Obviously you never give up the dream but [I'm] fairly surprised [to be here],'' Donald said. "I have enjoyed watching the World Cup and now I've been given a crack, I'm extremely excited to be a part of it.
"I wrapped up with the Waikato boys and have done some fishing, some whitebaiting and the last couple of weeks I started looking at going to Bath. I started to treat it as a mini pre-season so I have been training a bit the last couple of weeks.''
Hosea Gear has been changing more nappies than running kit over the past fortnight as he comes to grips with being a dad to twins. The wing has also been called into the All Blacks' squad in place of injured fullback Muliaina, who will miss the rest of the tournament with a fractured shoulder.
Gear's chances or playing are slimmer than Donald's with Cory Jane, Richard Kahui and Sonny Bill Williams ahead of him in the pecking order but there were many who felt he should have been in the squad in the first place.
"I'm quite overhwelmed,'' Gear said. "The first thing that came to mind was the pain Milsy was feeling. Obviously having your dream and everything taken away from you, I had felt that. It's what I felt straight away. Now being back in the frame, I'm really looking forward to getting an opportunity.
"Being called into a World Cup squad ... it's something myself and my family hold quite high. It is one of the pinnacles of your rugby career. But nothing can compare to being a dad.''
Donald's experience will help him cope with the white-hot atmosphere of a World Cup and he said it would take only a couple of days to get back up to speed with the calls and structures. But there are few players who polarise public opinion quite like the veteran of 21 tests.
He has never appeared to let it get to him and was relaxed in front of a bulging contingent of local and international media today.
Assistant coach Wayne Smith said they would stick with Piri Weepu at halfback, where he produced a man-of-the-match performance against Argentina on Sunday, meaning Donald will be in the matchday 22.
Smith, who admitted they had now exhausted their stocks of first five-eighths in the wider training squad, had little doubt the Waikato pivot would be ready if called on.
"You have to remember two weeks ago Aaron Cruden was falling off a skateboard and then after 33 minutes on Sunday was in the quarter-final of the World Cup,'' Smith said.
This weekend it might be the turn of the whitebaiter.
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