Brad Shields: Wellington Lions vice-captain ahead of their NPC match against Canterbury

The Wellington Lions head to Rangiora for round four of rugby's NPC to meet Canterbury, and seek to continue their unbeaten start to the campaign. 

With skipper Du’Plessis Kirifi out injured for an extended period of time, vice-captain Brad Shields joins Adam Cooper to assess the season so far. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right around the Wellington region.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
The All Sport Breakfast with.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Rutherford and Bond Toyota and King Toyota, your home of
hybrid used talks edby US talks edb on the All
Sport Breakfast thirteen away from nineteen PC. Rugby continues obviously,
had Southland kicking off round four last night. I come
from behind when over North and Up and fung a
day well eaton lines. They are three from three so
far not overly convincing on the hole though, fair to say,

(00:25):
and I think they are the first to admit that.
But they look to continue the unbeaten run tomorrow afternoon
down in Canterbury to take on the Canterbury side. But
not just in christ Church. It's actually at a boutique
grounds Ayora as playing host to this one. Let's set
into the Lions camp now. I was fucking enough to
hit out to the Lions training base yesterday at Indian

(00:46):
CIS and caught up with Vice Captain Brad Shields. Began
by asking about the impact of losing captain and loose
forward Duplessy Kadife to.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
A broken jaw. Well Brad, firstly, obviously the loss of
dopes tell us what that does to the team, but
also you know the loose forward pack as the impact
as you sort of look to charge on this this
great run so far.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah, it's obviously a massive loss in terms of one
of our big leaders and terms of the way he plays.
Brings a lot of physicality the game. But yeah, unfortunate
with his with his jaw, probably potentially could have been avoided.
But yeah, no, he's a big loss. And at the
same time, it gives another opportunity for cer only to
come into the team and and play in that position.

(01:28):
And I think regardless the squad we're at, we've got
good depth and whoever we're playing or whoever's out there
best foot forward sort of mentality, so should be right.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
And overall, you know, a few wins, they haven't always
come easy, but you're happy with with where the team's
at after a few weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, I get, Yeah, we're pretty happy obviously with the
wins on the board. You never know when your next
wins is going to come. I just think we're not
consistent with our performances at the moment. And if you
look at mine or two as an example, like they
played pretty well and we didn't adjust to the way
they're damaging our breakdown and sort of messy ball for us.
We couldn't quite get a good platform for our tech

(02:04):
and I just think if we're more consistent throughout the game,
probably be a bit more satisfied with with a win
at the end. But I guess I said, unless the
wins are we've got to take them. But we know
with this room to improve.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
Yeah, and being able to sort of come back from
those those deficits and when at the end after maybe
you know, struggling through the games. Has that been encouraging though.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
And that's one thing we spoke about, like huge character
and sometimes things don't go away in the game. Sometimes
it's not perfect, But the thing is we're hanging in
there and we're doing things when we need to at
the right time, and I just think we shouldn't leave
it to that moment. But we are building good resilience
in this last little block and hopefully with Canterbury going

(02:46):
into our storm week. We finished the finished this sort
of block of games with a real positive mindset in
terms of how we're playing because we're not going to
get a lot of time to train over the next
couple of weeks. After this game, So that's sort of
our focus.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
How do you usually deal with.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
With storre weeks?

Speaker 3 (03:00):
To know there's been a bit of rotation around the
squad the last couple of weeks, but how do you
usually get through it?

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Lots of recovery, eat right, sleep right, sometimes difficult with kids. Look,
I just think it's a good chance for us to
use our squad. But if you get the tap on
the shoulder to play like, boys are more than happy
to back it up one hundred percent. And we obviously
want I share the load as much as possible and
give guys opportunity, but also we're just keen to get
out there and play and win rugby games. So it's

(03:26):
quite a fun week because it's different to your traditional
sort of week of rugby. Like I say, there's a
lot of less training, but more recovery and more focused
on different things like recovery, gym, eating right and all that.
And some of the young boys don't quite understand that
concept yet or getting towards that concept, so to put
them through this sort of week is good to understand
certain different things.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
And from your sort of community ground potty do, it's
a cannaburies and don your or what are you expecting there?

Speaker 2 (03:50):
Grassroots rugby? You can't be today. Oh we're enjoying, mate.
It's good to get out of the community. And that's
what this sort of NPC level was about, is trying
to draw in those community people and in grassroots rugby
and if we can take it out to places like
on the Order and pott it or and make sure
we're sure of sharing the load. I guess that's important
for us as well, to give back to people who

(04:11):
are investing in time and us come watch us.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
And just finally thought on Canterbury themselves, saw them sort
of have a bit of a scrappy affair with Hawks
Bay the other night. What are you expecting from them?

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (04:20):
It's just just the thing that sticks in my mind's
just Canabary in general. Like they're just they're a good team.
They're a solid team. And I think if we sort
of start the game we have in the last couple
of weeks and leave it to the last minute, it'll
be too late this week. So we've got to kind
of come out early and play well for eighty minutes.
As the cliche would go, all the best things of
chatting effect chairs.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Mate, for more from news Talks, the'd be listen live
on air or online, and keep our shows with you
wherever you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio