The Leicester Fainga'anuku experiment seemed to work a treat for the Crusaders at Super Round in his maiden start at openside flanker when they beat the Waratahs 35-20.
But is this a sustainable selection, and will this be able to translate over to the international stage?
Former Crusaders captain Reuben Thorne joined D'Arcy to discuss.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Darcy Wildergrave
from News Talks'd be.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
The Lester Fuka experiment seemed to work a treat for
the Crusaders at Super Round. He was an absolute menace,
wasn't he? All over the park? And his maiden start
at open side when they beat the warra task thirty
five twenty. He's been picked again at open side flank
for Friday's Hurricanes match. Is this a sustainable selection and
(00:37):
will this translate over to the international stage. We'll get
your thoughts on that shortly, but right here, right now,
former All Blacks and Crusaders captain who spent a bit
of time at flanker, Ruben Thorn joins us now to
discuss good evening.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Ruben, does he?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I trust you well, you're probably still bouncing after what
happened over the weekend at the Super Round. I expect
most of krushets still are right.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Yeah, look, it was amazing, he was.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
The stadium just was so good, The experience was so good,
The city was buzzing from it, and.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Yeah it was. It was a really good weekend.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
You've got to come down and we're coming down to
the serious nature Super Rugby continues, but we've found now
that Lester Farnuku has been selected again at open side flanker.
It's an interesting move, but you'd suggest it worked pretty
well last week. What would it gut reaction to a
midfield of floating around like he does, which he's been
doing habitually. This is not unusual for him, But how
(01:39):
do you feel about that transition and what he's achieved
so far?
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Well?
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Look, to be honest, I had my doubts, and you know,
I talked to a few players leading into that last game,
former players and former loose forwards, and we're all like,
is this going to work or not? We just weren't
sure because it is quite a specialist position, requires a
big work create, you know, and all these other things
that someone who's spent their life playing in the backs
(02:05):
just wouldn't be used to. But he made a real
fist of it, and he did a good job, and
he was involved, heavily involved.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
His defense seemed.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
To be pretty accurate, and he certainly made an impact
with the ball in hand, So you'd have to say
overall it worked pretty well.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
You said accurate, and that's probably the most important word
in amongst that because when you are in the back line,
you come into that place, you haven't got a lot
of room to move. So you need to know that
you can be precise in your in your delivery and
plainly not pressured by the men coming straight at him,
and that that dense traffic in the middle around the ruck.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Yeah, well that's right, that's I mean, it's totally different
from playing in the midfield. So there's lots of stuff
he would have had to learn through the week. You know,
there's lots of pressure defensively on an open side. You've
got to know your lines, you've got to know all
sorts of things. So I was I was concerned, But
you know, like I say, I think he actually did
a really good job. It was physical as he always
(03:07):
He didn't seem to miss many tackles or miss any
that I'm aware of, And yeah, he was accurate. So
you'd say, give him another crack and see if he
can back it up.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
You couldn't go the other way. Could you stick a
flanker in the centers or second five and see if
that would work. That wouldn't transition very well at all.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Would it, Reuben. Well, there's lots of loose forwards that
think the are centers.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
So I mean lots of guys would like to try it,
but yeah, I mean again, it's such a different position
with different requirements. You know, you've got to understand the
different nuances of defending in the midfield and all sorts
of different things like that, So it would be a
big challenge, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
You said you were a little unsure about Lester coming
and playing at open side. You talked of nuance and
that's in every position. If you look above an open
side's role, what do you think is the most important
part of what they do and the hardest thing to
fall into pretty much out of nowhere any particular aspect
(04:07):
of your play.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Ruben, Well, it's there was sort of relentless nature of it, particularly.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
When you don't have the ball.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
You're a real key part of that defensive line and
you've got to understand your roles there and everything you're doing.
Same on attach you're generally the first one expected to
be in support at the breakdown. You've got to be
really accurate there because you've got to shift bodies or
get the threats off the ball, and then there's other
things around the scrum and the line out too, which
are quite specific and specialist. So you know, I take
(04:38):
my head off to him for learning all of those
things and really making go of it. So yeah, as
I said earlier, I think he nailed most of it.
And with more time in the seat and more time
at training, I expect him he's only going to get
better at it.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
So yeah, interesting, no disrespect to the opposition, but if
there was maybe a stronger loose ford treer who was
up against maybe he was playing up against the Hurricanes
or the Chiefs.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
What do you have been as effective? Do you believe?
Do you think it was slightly easy for him? And
now I'm down and like I'm hosing on the warrtors.
I don't mean to, but you know what I'm saying,
there was he was he tested enough?
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Do you believe old look that that's a pretty good
loose wards trios. I've got the Charlie Gamble's a very
good loose forward and I've got some they certainly win
an easy team. But yeah, you know, every different looseward
group presents a slightly different challenge.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
So I think people will be maybe.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
More aware of him now in that role, and maybe
you look at ways that they can shut him down
because he's such a big threat when he gets his
hands on the ball and being in that open side position,
you are generally very close to the ball all the time,
so teams will be analyzing that and looking for ways
of where they can maybe close them down with it.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Your vision has to be different too. Are you playing
in the center role? It centers you have an ability
to react very quickly to what's happening out wide, deep,
so on and so forth, a buttery to put the
kick through. Not the same with an open side flanker.
Everything's almost shrunk with reaction time. And he handled that
well too.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Yeah, I think he did.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
You know, a good open side is generally someone who
anticipates things really well and just reads the game. So
you'd have to say that he's a very sort of
natural fit there because he's instinctive the way he goes
about his work. And yeah, I think for most of us,
probably the biggest surprise was how well he handled the
defensive roles, which he seemed an al so yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Hard to get around over top of him. He's a
big lad.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
Yeah, look, he's very powerful, we know that, but it
is a big adjustment. You know, even getting over the
ball in the breakdown. He's shown he's capable of doing
that when he's been in the back line, but to
do it as an open side flanker when you're first
on the ball, first at the breakdown more often, and
he did it for eighty minutes, so you know, heads
off to him.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Discipline side as well, something that's always got to be
considered when you're playing rugby because ref's a pretty quick trigger.
When you're in an unfamiliar position, it would be easy
enough to fall to the wrong side of the law.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Right, Yeah, but you know from what I don't know
lest at a personal level, but everybody I know who
talks about and says he puts a lot of work
intos into the craft of rugby. So he will have
trained that and understood it. He'll know the laws and
with more time at openside, I think he'll learn maybe
how to push them a little bit. But certainly in
(07:32):
that first game he was very accurate and he came
in from the right side. He's strong over the book
because as you say, he's a powerful guy.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
He made a real good first of it.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
It's a dawn of a hybrid error. Is it a
fair enough thing to say. Are we increasingly looking at
players with the ability to straddle the pack and the
back line? Is this a possibility that will accelerate you
believe the way the game is developing, Ruben.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Well, potentially.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
I mean we've seen the South Africans play around a
little bit with that. But you know, the thing we're
seeing in the game is that the backs, a lot
of the backs are as big as the forwards now
or close to it.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
And that never used to be the case.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
You know, several years ago there was always a size differential,
but it certainly closed that gap a lot. And Lester
there's a really good example of that. You know, it's
one hundred and eight kilograms. You know, he's tall, he's athletic,
he's got all the attributes to be a fantastic loose forward.
So and we see more and more of those players
playing the backs on the wing or in the midfield.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
So yeah, absolutely, so let's move it up a level.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
It's a different story super rugby. With all due respect,
you start playing at an international level, you stick Lester
Finger and Nuku in the open side role up against
the South Africans, for example, is he going to take
to it as well as he has at a super level.
Is that a possibility? Can you move that idea up
(08:55):
to the very top level international rugby?
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Well, it's a possibility. I think time will tell. I mean,
we need to see a bit more of them. This
was one game and I thought he did it really well.
But can he back it up? Can he do that consistently,
consistently week on week And we'll just have to wait
and see. You know.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
One part of me thinks he is only going to.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Get better at it, but the other part of me
is just saying, well, let's just wait and see, you know,
because it is a different challenge for him, and can
he just back it up?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
And just finally leaving Reuben Thorn always great to talk
COVID mate, Thanks very much for your time. If there
was an area you think at that next level that
he may struggle at, based on what you've seen and
what you know of that position, where would it be.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
I think he'd handle the physical nature of it because
he's a big, strong, physical player. It's just the reaction
time and just being really instinctive with that role because
there's just more pressure, there's more things are just a
bit quicker, a bit faster, but more there's a bit
more squeeze on your thinking, so that would be the
big adjustment for him. But you know, he's taken a
(10:05):
really good step and that game, so yeah, let's just
wait and see what happens.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Fantastic ruben Thorn, always a pleasure. Thanks very much for
your time, mate, you look after yourself, say safe, go well.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Thanks dus Jez.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
For more from Sports Talk, listen live to News Talks
it'd be from seven pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Darcy Wildergrave
from News Talks'd be.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
The Lester Fuka experiment seemed to work a treat for
the Crusaders at Super Round. He was an absolute menace,
wasn't he? All over the park? And his maiden start
at open side when they beat the warra task thirty
five twenty. He's been picked again at open side flank
for Friday's Hurricanes match. Is this a sustainable selection and
(00:37):
will this translate over to the international stage. We'll get
your thoughts on that shortly, but right here, right now,
former All Blacks and Crusaders captain who spent a bit
of time at flanker, Ruben Thorn joins us now to
discuss good evening.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Ruben, does he?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I trust you well, you're probably still bouncing after what
happened over the weekend at the Super Round. I expect
most of krushets still are right.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Yeah, look, it was amazing, he was.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
The stadium just was so good, The experience was so good,
The city was buzzing from it, and.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Yeah it was. It was a really good weekend.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
You've got to come down and we're coming down to
the serious nature Super Rugby continues, but we've found now
that Lester Farnuku has been selected again at open side flanker.
It's an interesting move, but you'd suggest it worked pretty
well last week. What would it gut reaction to a
midfield of floating around like he does, which he's been
doing habitually. This is not unusual for him, But how
(01:39):
do you feel about that transition and what he's achieved
so far?
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Well?
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Look, to be honest, I had my doubts, and you know,
I talked to a few players leading into that last game,
former players and former loose forwards, and we're all like,
is this going to work or not? We just weren't
sure because it is quite a specialist position, requires a
big work create, you know, and all these other things
that someone who's spent their life playing in the backs
(02:05):
just wouldn't be used to. But he made a real
fist of it, and he did a good job, and
he was involved, heavily involved.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
His defense seemed.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
To be pretty accurate, and he certainly made an impact
with the ball in hand, So you'd have to say
overall it worked pretty well.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
You said accurate, and that's probably the most important word
in amongst that because when you are in the back line,
you come into that place, you haven't got a lot
of room to move. So you need to know that
you can be precise in your in your delivery and
plainly not pressured by the men coming straight at him,
and that that dense traffic in the middle around the ruck.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Yeah, well that's right, that's I mean, it's totally different
from playing in the midfield. So there's lots of stuff
he would have had to learn through the week. You know,
there's lots of pressure defensively on an open side. You've
got to know your lines, you've got to know all
sorts of things. So I was I was concerned, But
you know, like I say, I think he actually did
a really good job. It was physical as he always
(03:07):
He didn't seem to miss many tackles or miss any
that I'm aware of, And yeah, he was accurate. So
you'd say, give him another crack and see if he
can back it up.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
You couldn't go the other way. Could you stick a
flanker in the centers or second five and see if
that would work. That wouldn't transition very well at all.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Would it, Reuben. Well, there's lots of loose forwards that
think the are centers.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
So I mean lots of guys would like to try it,
but yeah, I mean again, it's such a different position
with different requirements. You know, you've got to understand the
different nuances of defending in the midfield and all sorts
of different things like that, So it would be a
big challenge, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
You said you were a little unsure about Lester coming
and playing at open side. You talked of nuance and
that's in every position. If you look above an open
side's role, what do you think is the most important
part of what they do and the hardest thing to
fall into pretty much out of nowhere any particular aspect
(04:07):
of your play.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Ruben, Well, it's there was sort of relentless nature of it, particularly.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
When you don't have the ball.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
You're a real key part of that defensive line and
you've got to understand your roles there and everything you're doing.
Same on attach you're generally the first one expected to
be in support at the breakdown. You've got to be
really accurate there because you've got to shift bodies or
get the threats off the ball, and then there's other
things around the scrum and the line out too, which
are quite specific and specialist. So you know, I take
(04:38):
my head off to him for learning all of those
things and really making go of it. So yeah, as
I said earlier, I think he nailed most of it.
And with more time in the seat and more time
at training, I expect him he's only going to get
better at it.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
So yeah, interesting, no disrespect to the opposition, but if
there was maybe a stronger loose ford treer who was
up against maybe he was playing up against the Hurricanes
or the Chiefs.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
What do you have been as effective? Do you believe?
Do you think it was slightly easy for him? And
now I'm down and like I'm hosing on the warrtors.
I don't mean to, but you know what I'm saying,
there was he was he tested enough?
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Do you believe old look that that's a pretty good
loose wards trios. I've got the Charlie Gamble's a very
good loose forward and I've got some they certainly win
an easy team. But yeah, you know, every different looseward
group presents a slightly different challenge.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
So I think people will be maybe.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
More aware of him now in that role, and maybe
you look at ways that they can shut him down
because he's such a big threat when he gets his
hands on the ball and being in that open side position,
you are generally very close to the ball all the time,
so teams will be analyzing that and looking for ways
of where they can maybe close them down with it.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Your vision has to be different too. Are you playing
in the center role? It centers you have an ability
to react very quickly to what's happening out wide, deep,
so on and so forth, a buttery to put the
kick through. Not the same with an open side flanker.
Everything's almost shrunk with reaction time. And he handled that
well too.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Yeah, I think he did.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
You know, a good open side is generally someone who
anticipates things really well and just reads the game. So
you'd have to say that he's a very sort of
natural fit there because he's instinctive the way he goes
about his work. And yeah, I think for most of us,
probably the biggest surprise was how well he handled the
defensive roles, which he seemed an al so yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Hard to get around over top of him. He's a
big lad.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
Yeah, look, he's very powerful, we know that, but it
is a big adjustment. You know, even getting over the
ball in the breakdown. He's shown he's capable of doing
that when he's been in the back line, but to
do it as an open side flanker when you're first
on the ball, first at the breakdown more often, and
he did it for eighty minutes, so you know, heads
off to him.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Discipline side as well, something that's always got to be
considered when you're playing rugby because ref's a pretty quick trigger.
When you're in an unfamiliar position, it would be easy
enough to fall to the wrong side of the law.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Right, Yeah, but you know from what I don't know
lest at a personal level, but everybody I know who
talks about and says he puts a lot of work
intos into the craft of rugby. So he will have
trained that and understood it. He'll know the laws and
with more time at openside, I think he'll learn maybe
how to push them a little bit. But certainly in
(07:32):
that first game he was very accurate and he came
in from the right side. He's strong over the book
because as you say, he's a powerful guy.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
He made a real good first of it.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
It's a dawn of a hybrid error. Is it a
fair enough thing to say. Are we increasingly looking at
players with the ability to straddle the pack and the
back line? Is this a possibility that will accelerate you
believe the way the game is developing, Ruben.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Well, potentially.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
I mean we've seen the South Africans play around a
little bit with that. But you know, the thing we're
seeing in the game is that the backs, a lot
of the backs are as big as the forwards now
or close to it.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
And that never used to be the case.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
You know, several years ago there was always a size differential,
but it certainly closed that gap a lot. And Lester
there's a really good example of that. You know, it's
one hundred and eight kilograms. You know, he's tall, he's athletic,
he's got all the attributes to be a fantastic loose forward.
So and we see more and more of those players
playing the backs on the wing or in the midfield.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
So yeah, absolutely, so let's move it up a level.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
It's a different story super rugby. With all due respect,
you start playing at an international level, you stick Lester
Finger and Nuku in the open side role up against
the South Africans, for example, is he going to take
to it as well as he has at a super level.
Is that a possibility? Can you move that idea up
(08:55):
to the very top level international rugby?
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Well, it's a possibility. I think time will tell. I mean,
we need to see a bit more of them. This
was one game and I thought he did it really well.
But can he back it up? Can he do that consistently,
consistently week on week And we'll just have to wait
and see. You know.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
One part of me thinks he is only going to.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Get better at it, but the other part of me
is just saying, well, let's just wait and see, you know,
because it is a different challenge for him, and can
he just back it up?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
And just finally leaving Reuben Thorn always great to talk
COVID mate, Thanks very much for your time. If there
was an area you think at that next level that
he may struggle at, based on what you've seen and
what you know of that position, where would it be.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
I think he'd handle the physical nature of it because
he's a big, strong, physical player. It's just the reaction
time and just being really instinctive with that role because
there's just more pressure, there's more things are just a
bit quicker, a bit faster, but more there's a bit
more squeeze on your thinking, so that would be the
big adjustment for him. But you know, he's taken a
(10:05):
really good step and that game, so yeah, let's just
wait and see what happens.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Fantastic ruben Thorn, always a pleasure. Thanks very much for
your time, mate, you look after yourself, say safe, go well.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Thanks dus Jez.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
For more from Sports Talk, listen live to News Talks
it'd be from seven pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
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