KEARNEY GIVES AKI THUMBS UP
DURING an international career that stretches back ten years, Rob Kearney has seen plenty of faces come and go in the green jersey, but few have ever generated the same amount of interest as new teammate Bundee Aki.
Last Saturday, the Connacht centre became the latest beneficiary of the three-year residency rule and finally got an opportunity to put in a shift for his adopted country after a difficult period of debate over the nature of his inclusion.
However, from the moment the New Zealand-born centre first set foot in a Joe Schmidt training camp the message from inside the Ireland squad has been clear — Aki is one of us.
That acceptance was evident as early as the first minute at Aviva Stadium when a pumped-up Aki let out an adrenaline-fueled roar as he received high fives from his new teammates after dumping 124kg Coenie Oosthuizen flat on his back, a huge hit that has resulted in the Springbok prop being ruled out of the remainder of their November tour.
And Kearney (below) believes that the debate surrounding Aki’s involvement with Ireland played a huge role in the record 38-3 demolition of South Africa, that Oosthuizen tackle setting the tone for a dominant performance over a traditionally troublesome opponent.
‘It set a massive tone, and when you see the opposition tighthead going off after 70 seconds, it’s a nice feeling,’ admitted Kearney (right), who acknowledged that Aki was under more pressure than most to impress on his debut.
‘When you’re getting a huge amount of column space and you’re on the front page of national newspapers the morning of the game, you do a feel a little bit more pressure, and I’m sure he did. That’s why it was all the more pleasing to see him have such a good game. ‘He has been quiet [since coming into the Ireland camp]. He has been keeping his head down and doing his work, [but] he sort of came to life during the game. He was quite nervous in the build-up to it. ‘He was certainly very animated during the game and it was great to see, and great to be a part of.’ Aki was not alone in that sense, and it was noticeable how much backslapping and encouragement there was between Schmidt’s team throughout Saturday’s win, with the Leinster fullback explaining that the Aki issue has helped forge a renewed sense of togetherness within the group.
‘Brotherhood is a word you hear a huge amount of times between players,’ he continued.
‘When you go out to battle like that it is something that you do need. We would have recognised over the last few weeks that Bundee was taking a little bit of stick for nothing that he’s done.
‘He has just wanted to come here and play for Ireland and it probably does bring you together a little bit more. Guys understand that maybe he needed a little bit more love over the last week or two than he had been used to.’
Of course, one thing that Aki can’t yet bring to the table is experience, and Kearney believes that the low-key celebrations among the squad following such a comprehensive win were a result of learning the hard way not to get too carried away with one performance.
It was only this time last year that Ireland were still buzzing from a first victory over New Zealand, only to be brought swiftly back to reality in the return Dublin fixture before losing to both Scotland and Wales during a disappointing Six Nations campaign.
This time around Kearney is hoping Schmidt’s squad can learn to enjoy the big wins while also keeping their feet firmly on the ground, claiming that Ireland will never adopt the same bombastic approach as some of their more noisy neighbours, with Eddie Jones recently declaring his England side have ‘no excuses’ not to win the 2019 World Cup.
‘That’s probably the nature of the English people, isn’t it? We like to keep the heads down and play the underdog a little bit more so I can’t see that changing too much. We’ve never been a group that felt world rankings was all that important to us. It genuinely is a game by game thing.
‘As a group we were delighted with the win and the result. It was a comprehensive victory. The challenge to this team and probably Irish teams over the past decade has been to back that up and do it consistently. Not have one really good, unbelievable performance and then have a dip the following week — you want to be known as a consistently excellent team as opposed to just an excellent team that has an ability to dip in performance.’