Before Ulster games, in his new role as Ulster captain, David Humphreys would privately cajole Andy Ward. "C'mon Andy, you've got to produce a big one today. When you play well, we play well." How true, for Humphreys knows who the jewel in the Ulster crown is.
Far from weighing on his broad shoulders, Ward seems to like the added responsibility. Not in the least bit cocky, a softly-spoken Kiwi with a discernible Ulster lilt in his accent now, he admits he likes the added onus placed on him at Ulster this season where, no less than at Ballynahinch, he has become the main man.
On most good nights at Ravenhill, the man of the match award might just as easily be titled the `give it to Andy' award. Against Ebbw Vale last month, Ward made telling drives in the build-up to six of their seven tries. For the seventh, well, he just scored that one himself.
The flip side of this is that Ward has become more of a marked man. Ward smiles phlegmatically at the memory of the Munster game in Musgrave Park, where both Alan Quinlan and Eddie Halvey were deployed as dual man-markers. "Everywhere I went, they were there. That wasn't a particularly enjoyable day."
Playing in the junior ranks for two years with Ballynahinch and then the fourth and third divisions, may seem an unsuitable preparation for international rugby, but the additional responsibilities have probably contributed to his late development.
This being only his third full season as an out-and-out openside flanker, Ward readily concedes he's learning more about the position. "But I like all the ball-carrying duties. I like staying on my feet and I enjoy taking the ball on. The game's changing all the time and so is the role of the openside."
Ironically, the special responsibilities of playing with Ballynahinch and Ulster, coupled with the specialised coaching of Harry Williams and Warren Gatland and a full-time contract, have helped him to reach his potential in a manner that wouldn't have been feasible in New Zealand.
There he would have been one of many in the sub-representative tier and would have missed the net. Born in Whangerei, the pretty harbour town in the north of the north island of New Zealand, which is a common starting point for touring international rugby sides, Ward and his family moved to King Country when he was three.
He started playing the game, like most Kiwis, at five-years-old, "in bare feet on frosty mornings". It was very much a remote, rural upbringing, with only about 100 pupils in the local school where he began playing rugby, with Saturday match day a big day out for the local community. "We were always late. The game had started as we'd jump over the fence and then I'd run on."
It's interesting to learn that Ward spent all his formative playing years at scrum-half, where he won a fair of representative call-ups to youths sides. When he reached 18, he had to accept that he had become too big for the position.
On joining Hautapu RFC in Waikato he switched to number eight, and gradually progressed through three years on the provincial `B' side to earn a few games with the Waikato senior side in 1993 and '94. "That was mainly pre-season games, it wasn't NPC games or anything like that."
Competition for back-row places was intense, with All Black flanker Aaron Hopa, Nick Holten and the all-action Waikato standard bearer Duane Monkley all conspiring to keep Ward mostly in the `B' side.
By the summer of 1994 Ward had had enough. "I just wanted to get away from it and see the world. My parents paid for the air fare over. I was only 23 and I thought: `Jeez, what an opportunity. Go for it.' I didn't know what was going to happen."
In the event, he hasn't seen much beyond Ireland. Initial contact was made through Duncan Lysart, the Kiwi then with Bangor, who circularised Ward's name around the Ulster clubs.
"He gave me a ring, and two weeks later I was in Belfast. It was a real spur-of-the-moment thing." All those clubs bar Ballynahinch must be kicking themselves. Then a junior club, Ballynahinch were the only ones who showed an interest, and helped to fund his income with coaching jobs in local school sides before becoming an Ulster-based development officer for the IRFU last year.
"Originally I was only going to come for six months. After the first season, I had to make my mind up what I was going to do. It was already halfway through the New Zealand club season so I decided, bugger it, I'll stay."
Promotion to the AIL eventually followed after his second season in the junior ranks, since when Ballynahinch have won successive promotions from Division Four and Three.
Last season, when he first started playing for Ulster, Willie Anderson made inquiries from London Irish but "nothing was ever put on paper." Even more eye-catching has been his loyalty to Ballynahinch.
There have been chances to move to Division One. "Oh yeah, Ballymena have been screaming at me for the last two or three years, asking me to come up and join them. But I'm happy enough with Ballynahinch. "Admittedly if they hadn't won promotion to Division Two this year then I would probably have had to join a club in a higher division. But I'm happy there. All my friends are there as well. They're progressive. They're looking to go places. That would be their long-term goal. That's important. They're not just happy to stay where they are."
Aside from club loyalties, Ireland was pulling at his heart strings as well. In July of last year he married Wendy, who is due to give birth to their first child almost any day now.
For about a week last March Wendy became one of the best known women in Ireland as Ward's romantic route to the Irish international team was completed when Warren Gatland plucked him out of the third division in his first selection as coach for the game in France.
With his breakthrough into the Ulster team at the start of last season, Ward first started nurturing ambitions of playing for his adopted country. "I thought to myself, what the hell, why not go all the way with this."
His work-rate, physical impact and ball-carrying abilities made a striking impact on team-mates, opponents and man-of-the-match adjudicators alike. Even so, come the New Year, those performances had almost been forgotten, except by Gatland. He says he wasn't actually that surprised by his call-up for the French game.
"I don't think Brian Ashton was ever really interested in home-based players, whereas Gatty was always going to be more likely to give home-based players a chance. Things had gone well for Ulster and Gatty had been coach at Connacht when we played them."
The suddenness of his call-up and the logistics of travelling from New Zealand to France meant his parents were unable to see his Irish debut, but for his first international at Lansdowne Road his club flew his parents over and gave them tickets for the game.
"That was a lovely gesture by the club. Not many clubs would have done that and it's partly why the loyalty goes both ways."
It was a proud and emotive day for Ward and his parents Rod and Chris. "I remember lining up for the national anthem and being able to pick out my mother in the crowd. I could see she was crying and of course that brought a tear to my eye as well," he recalls, not so much wistfully, as with a sheepish grin.
To cap it all, the Welsh left their blind side completely vacant off an Irish line-out maul, for Ward to score a relatively easily-taken try. "I just saw the line and dived. I was so eager to score I didn't realise until I watched it on the video that I could have cut in to make the angle easier."
"By the time I scored the try, everybody within 20 rows had got to know who my parents were and they were still clapping long after other people in the crowd, partly to congratulate my parents."
His work-rate in the Twickenham game especially was immense, almost single-handedly stemming the early English tide with an enormous tackle count and hounding of possession. Ward duly went on to play in both Tests in South Africa and wins his seventh cap today. He already looks a fixture in the side for the World Cup.
Leading try scorer at Ballynahinch last season, his haul of five tries from 12 starts made him Ulster's joint leading try scorer in the interpros and European Cup. Dallaglio-like, nearly everything seems to go through him; used as he is as Ulster's main target runner, through the middle as well as off the fringes. He rarely goes to rucks, and is rarely scrapping on the deck.
In some ways, Ward is the epitome of Gatland's Irish team, where size does matter, and so too the capacity to take the team's game on to new levels. Now 28, Ward looks sure to be a cornerstone of an Irish pack that could be a serious proposition come the World Cup finals with another year under Gatland.
"He's probably one of the best coaches I've worked with. He doesn't tell you what you should be doing and how you should be doing it. He makes it as more of a suggestion, and the two of you work it out. There's a lot of give and take."
No less than Gatland, he's become an adopted son of Ireland. "I don't see myself going back to New Zealand for a long time. I think some day I might like to retire in New Zealand but up until then I'm looking to stay here."
And, with the peak of his career fast approaching, retirement ain't even on the agenda.
