John 'Axe' Akurangi's long journey back

BY NEIL REID

Rugby cult hero John "Axe" Akurangi has spoken for the first time about the cannabis conviction he says cost him $1 million.

Akurangi has rebuilt his life across the Tasman since his front-page grabbing drug shame. He is even about to be a TV star, playing a bouncer on TV show Underbelly.

But in the wake of a life-threatening heart attack, the former Super Rugby and Maori front-rower has told of his darkest hour – being fined $1750 after pleading guilty to cultivating cannabis and possession of cannabis.

The charges were laid after Akurangi was caught up in an unrelated police drugs sting.

The case hit the headlines the day a Japanese rugby club boss arrived in New Zealand to discuss a coaching contract they had arranged with him.

"I had only just signed a $1 million contract in Japan, which I lost immediately," Akurangi told Sunday News.

"It sent my whole world into a spiral. And it has taken me all this time to get myself back into a stage where I can progress forward." Akurangi had a glittering rugby background – playing prop and hooker in the Super 12 for the Blues, Crusaders and Chiefs, plus playing professionally in the UK for glamour side Leicester Tigers.

But his March, 2002 drugs conviction saw the Japanese club officials tear up his full-time coaching deal one day before he was set to head to that country.

"It put the nail in the coffin [of my coaching career]," Akurangi said.

"It was a head coaching contract; the start of me moving into coaching full-time." He said the conviction also saw many in rugby shut the door on him.

Akurangi's house was raided by Auckland police drug squad officers in late February, 2002.

He had been in Japan confirming his coaching contract in the days before the bust.

Akurangi said he had flown back into New Zealand early in the morning of the raid, to discover mates who had looked after his Royal Oak house had made an "absolute mess". "There were little bits of joints that they had smoked still in my ashtray," he said.

"I looked at it and said, `I haven't been for a surf in a week and a half. Let's clean this up when we get back'," Akurangi, 39, said from his new home town of Sydney.

"So we went to Piha, caught up with a few friends and ended up going for a feed. While we were sitting in [the shopping centre] the phone rang and it was the police at my place.

"My friend said he would drive by and see what was going on before I got there. He drove by and said, `Mate, there are six cars, 20 people and dogs running around the place – be careful when you get home'.

"I was five minutes behind him. I went and faced the music. I rocked in and didn't really know what they were looking for." Akurangi – who admitted to Sunday News he did smoke cannabis at the time – said he was handed a warrant by officers, who were searching for methamphetamines.

"I said, `Well for a start you can see I don't do that, there are none here. I smoke marijuana – that is as much as I do'," he said.

"Anyway, [one of] the guys who was there looking around said, `Sorry, I can see you smoke weed, but we have this butter [containing cannabis resin] here, which is instant manufacturing and instant imprisonment'.

"I looked at it, I shook my head, my head dropped and I knew I was f----- from there." Akurangi said he later learned he had been unwittingly caught up in a major drug investigation.

Members of the drug squad had been trying to crack a large P ring.

"From what I have been told, I had some friends come down from up north to go to the Big Day Out in January of that year," he said.

"They all met over at one of their friend's factory units. I was working late and didn't get there until about 10pm, when the gates were all shut.

"So I ended up parking out the front of this gate, jumping over this fence and going around the back into the [back] factory unit.

"Unbeknown to me, the cops were monitoring the front place as it was a methamphetamine lab.

"They followed me home, [and later, at the time of the raid] came around to my place thinking that I was all part and parcel of this thing. It was just wrong place, wrong time." Police found 270 grams of partly dried cannabis at Akurangi's house. He told police it was for his own use.

His rugby coaching dream in tatters, Akurangi moved to Sydney in 2004 and is now a business consultant.

He is about to get big exposure again in New Zealand, this time with a cameo on Underbelly 3: The Golden Mile.

He plays the role of Hercules Tony, a bouncer at one of Kings Cross' notorious nightclubs.

"We shot that last year in August and September," said Akurangi.

"They asked me to be part of it, to be Hercules Tony.

"They basically open the show with me. The first show is a movie-length premiere."

But Akurangi is unlikely to combine his small screen talent and sporting pedigree.

"They have been trying to get me into [rugby] commentating and presenting for the last few years," he said. "Rugby has been great for me, but I am not playing any more so I like my anonymity."

- © Fairfax NZ News