Victor Vito: Former Hurricane on the Super Rugby Pacific Grand Final between the Hurricanes and Chiefs

The Hurricanes host the Chiefs in this year's Super Rugby final, ten years on from the franchise's last appearance when the 2016 team won its solitary title.

One of the 2016 champions Victor Vito played his 100th match in their victorious final against the Lions.

He joined Adam Cooper to reminisce on the triumph 10 years ago, and discuss a couple of his former teammates who remain key forces on and off the field for the current Hurricanes team.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
News talksp on the All Sport Breakfast But our final
guest on our special counting down to the Super Rugby
Grand Final tonight here in Wellington is a Hurricanes centurion
who actually brought up his one hundredth match in that
victorious final in twenty sixteen. It was also his very
final game after estellar Hurricanes career as well. Loose forward

(00:21):
Victor Vito is with us on the show this morning.
Morning to your Victor, I'm sure that the success of
the Hurricanes this year and the countdown to tonight's final
has brought back a few memories for you.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah, pretty good being back home. I was obviously away
for a while and been back a few years now,
and to see the Hurricanes slowly brought up to obviously
now being a pretty pretty big force, obviously in the
competition and looking at a home final and obviously man
looking to lift it again has been pretty bringing back
some memories. But at the same time, I just I
think it's much harder as a punter and not being

(00:52):
actually involved, like you've got no control over anything. So
if anything, I'm pretty nervous. Whereas I remember thinking back
ten years ago, you know, we had pretty good confidence
in our systems and everything we had in place, and
I remember everyone us being much more nervous around me
than I was at the time, but that's now me,
So it's funny being on the other foot.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
You guys had that wonderful twenty fifteen, a lot of
expectations right up until that home final after a stellar year,
fell short to the Highlanders, but then came back with
a bit of energy for that twenty sixteen year, when
yet you won the title. Chiefs are in a similar
boat to that, aren't they? Three times they've been to
that final and haven't done that. How does the psychology
of their mentality coming down to Wellington wanting to win

(01:30):
it after that disappointment match up against the Hurricanes who
haven't been in a final for ten years but desperately
still want to win it as well.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Yeah, there's going to be two teams that obviously desperate
to prove a point and obviously they're the two best
teams in the competition. That's the final that it should
have been, and I think there's just you're going to
see it in the Ruckt thing. There's going to be
a lot of a lot of wealthy, a lot of
big collisions, and it's really going to come down to
that team that's willing to put their body on the
line and be more dominant. And I guess, you know,
just looking at those two semi finals, you know, the

(02:01):
Chiefs they've pretty much finalized, you know, finished the result
in their first half against the Crusaders, and then in
the Hurricanes was a bit up in the first half,
but they started running around the second half. So both
both teams are going to be coming into this pretty fresh,
and I guess the Chiefs, you know, it'll be a
bit of redemption for them because, like you say, the
Vine for a few a few times now, we're just
haven't quite been able to nudge it over and they'll

(02:23):
be backing themselves to come into a number on, especially
in their rock area. But the Hurricanes at the same time,
you know, they've got a lot of a lot of
confidence in their systems, and they are at home, they've
got a lot of support, and yeah, it's going to
be quite interesting hearing some moody bells are going on.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
One of your team mates lifting the trophy with you
in twenty sixteen was Brad Shields. He's in this team tonight,
looking to be the first player for the Hurricanes to
win two titles. He surprised he's still there or was
he always just going to be a lifelong servant of
this team.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
I'm not surprised that ought to be fair Like when
I left, you were still young and I've obviously now
I've come back ten years and he's a little bit older.
But you know, there's something about Bradley he's just the
not only is obviously a consumer professional, but he's just
an amazing team man. Like he's always someone that in
any team you're a part of, you've got guys that
just are attacked like the glue, and I guess that's
not just on field, but offield. He's just one of

(03:15):
those lads that you know is just going to put
his body on the line. But also he's one of
those guys that make sure that guys are having catchups
and having coffees to make sure that everything's going well
on and off the field. So definitely not supposed that
he's still there, but man just really wanting him to
be able to just add another one to the to the.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Belt and Corey Jay and your teammate. Then we know
around that time is when he started to take that
crazy interest in working out every defensive plan possible. He's
obviously did that as a player around that time, helped
you guys to the titled in back doing it as
an assistant coach. Now, in goodness me, the defense of
the Hurricanes or the defensive improvements they've had the last
couple of years, I guess certainly credit it as one

(03:52):
of the reasons there at this point. Now, what have
you made of I guess CJ's transition from from a
player to a coach.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Oh, look, I think he's always been a bit of
a code in you know, even without twenty sixteen season,
he was quite heavily involved obviously with Plumb in terms
of transforming our d from something else pretty passive into
pretty much something that became our DNA and sort of
bringing that kind of blitz defense that you started seeing
towards Enner sixteen. I think he was a massive part
of that, And so I was TJ. And just being
able to have the backfield communicate a lot more and

(04:20):
let their inside know about who they're up on, who
they're getting to. It's yeah, he's a bit of a
wizard with that. And obviously going from a player into
a full time coach. He's been able to tweak that
and make things a lot more applicable to the different
positions as well. So look, he's just grown and he's
just become you know, he's just absolutely become a coach
on his own. So I'm sure he's he's going to
be pretty happy with the way the things have been going,

(04:42):
and he'll be looking for a big performance from the boys.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
Great. As you mentioned, Victor, you have been away for
a How nice is it able to come back being
Wellington as the Hurricanes come back and really make a
telp for the title? And I guess it's special for
the whole alumni X players, which the club do make
a real effort to encode and involved in and stay
part of the fun out.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah, well, you know, we've actually got a we've actually
been organizing twenty sixteen. We're in in the next couple
of weeks, so it's been interesting. I've been trying to
get to see that the boys become a couple of
weeks earlier. But it's all good. We'll be catching up again.
And I know that all the alumni have been sending
heaps of messages and I know that they're all going
to be at the game tomorrow, so pretty lucky to
get tickets, to be fair. So that's actually something I'm

(05:23):
still swortting it at the moment. So it's pretty cool
to see while it can get excited about obviously not
just another event, but something around our Hurricanes voice.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
Well geez, if anyone deserves to be there tonight, it
is you and that twenty sixteen cohort, So good luck
with the ticket surge, Victor. Appreciate your time this morning.
Thanks for sharing your memories and your thoughts on tonight's game.
Enjoy it. Thanks for joining us well.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
Good thanks Adam. For more from news Talks, eNB listen
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you wherever you go with our podcast on iHeartRadio.