Seymour Collins has come a long way. He’s left his little country town for life in the big city. He’s studying law, enjoying life with his rich city girlfriend Moira, and has just been offered a professional sporting contract.

Enter Tupper (Roy Billing) Seymour’s former rugby coach. Tupper wants him to come home to play in a historic game, the last match ever for the town side-lined by rural decline. Back to Nowheresville? No way. Seymour’s left that life far behind him.

Fate has other ideas. Seymour’s fortunes take an unexpected nose-dive and he returns home to lick his wounds and break the news to his Mum. He specifically asks Moira not to follow him, but she does.

She discovers a town barely alive. Industry has moved on and all that’s left for the locals to believe in is their local sporting heroes.

Tupper seizes the opportunity to get Seymour back on the rugby team, which throws one of his old schoolmates into turmoil. Clean sees a professional contract as the only way out of Ngapukurau…the only chance to make a decent life for him and his family.

Team captain Ken is chasing the same contract, refusing to let a dangerous injury keep him off the field. Another injury could end his sporting career but if he doesn’t take the field he is as good as stuck in Ngapuk forever.

When Seymour takes Ken to the doctor for a check up Clean advances his plans to get Seymour out of the picture by humiliating Moira. In the process he shames another team stalwart, Larry. This sets the scene for a brutal and frenzied finale to Ngapukarau sporting history.

There’s just one chance, one game, one opportunity for glory and three men are chasing it. What transpires on the field will change the course of their lives forever.

The telemovie is based on writer Greg McGee’s groundbreaking New Zealand play FORESKIN’S LAMENT.  Roy played Tupper in the original production in 1981 and has reprised the role 5 times, including in this telemovie. McGee acknowledges him as the “definitive” Tupper.

LINKS:

http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/skin-and-bone-2003