48 Preseason

Preseason sits quietly between seasons, between intentions and outcomes. The rugby posts stand tall and familiar, yet the field beneath them tells a different story. This is not a winter ground, not yet marked by mud, breath, and boots. Instead, it is a hay paddock in summer, the grass long and golden, heavy with seed, waiting patiently for the hay contractors to arrive. The posts are ready, but the game is not.

Like Field of Dreams, this painting is rooted in a rural New Zealand childhood, where rugby did not belong to stadiums or crowds but to farms, paddocks, and improvised spaces. In Field of Dreams, the posts rise from frosted grass, early morning cold clinging to the ground as ambition takes shape. Preseason is its seasonal counterpart. The frost has gone. The light is warmer. The grass has grown unchecked. The dream remains, but it is resting.

The rugby posts act as a constant, a simple timber-and-crossbar structure that transforms any piece of land into a field of possibility. They do not care what season it is, or whether the grass is mown, grazed, or cut for hay. They stand as a promise. In Preseason, that promise feels distant yet inevitable. The posts overlook a field that, for now, belongs to farming rather than sport. The land’s priorities come first. Rugby will wait its turn.

Colour plays a quiet but deliberate role here. The summer grass shifts through greens and golds, thick and alive, contrasted against the pale timber of the posts and the deeper greens of the surrounding trees. The sky is calm, expansive, suggesting long afternoons and slow days. There is no urgency in this scene. Everything is paused, suspended in readiness.

The hay paddock is a reminder that this field has another purpose. Before it becomes a place of training runs and goal-kicking practice, it must first be harvested, cut down, and cleared. Something is humbling in that order. Sport, for all its dreams and aspirations, comes second to the rhythms of rural life. This was understood instinctively when growing up. You did not question it. You adapted. You waited.

Preseason is also about anticipation. The season has not started, but it is close enough to imagine. The posts, already in place, suggest optimism. Someone has prepared the field in advance, believing that soon the grass will be shorter, the ground firmer, and the paddock transformed once more. The absence of players makes their presence felt more strongly. You can almost see them running drills, lining up kicks, chasing a ball that isn’t there yet.

Where Field of Dreams speaks of aspiration in the cold light of early morning, Preseason speaks of patience under a summer sun. Together, they form a quiet cycle. Dreams do not begin on game day. They begin earlier, in moments like this, when the field is still a farm paddock, the grass still standing, and the posts wait, silently confident, for what is to come.

Oil on fine portrait linen: 125 x 95 cm; 49.21 x 37.4 in (Sold)