‘‘Crazy is the first word that comes to mind’’: Angus Ta’avao looks on the bright side despite a tough year.
A positive attitude and laidback approach have former All Blacks prop ready to shoot for the top again,
You think 2020 has been challenging. Try the year Angus Ta’avao has had. He missed most of Super Rugby when he tore the quadriceps muscle off a bone, has sat out a big chunk of the Mitre 10 Cup with a mystery shin injury and lost his spot in the All Blacks due to his lack of game-time. And he’s still smiling.
You could say that Ta’avao, now 30, and in his happy place as a rugby player, has developed a healthy perspective. A pretty decent sense of humour helps too. This saxophone-playing, new age, late-blooming tighthead prop is rolling with the punches in terms of what 2020 has served up, and it has him well-placed to at least finish the year in style with Alama Ieremia’s high-flying Auckland team.
When you ask Ta’avao, who will anchor the scrum for Premiership-topping Auckland in today’s round-robin finale against Canterbury in Christchurch, to sum up his 2020 in a word, he eventually opts for ‘‘crazy’’.
He made it through all of 20 minutes of the original Super Rugby season opener for the Chiefs against the Blues on January 31 before limping off with a torn vastus medialis oblique (VMO) – a muscle on the inside of the thigh which attaches to the knee cap.
That rare rugby injury – ‘‘My surgeon had only done three operations like it before me, and this is a guy doing knee surgeries five times a day for the last how many years’’ – took him out for six months, which encompassed two competitions, one pandemic and one national lockdown. He made it back on the field just in time to bring the curtain down on Super Rugby Aotearoa, appearing in the last two games of a forgettable Chiefs campaign and then the North-South clash in Wellington.
It was then that new All Blacks head coach Ian Foster dispensed the rugged tighthead prop, who had made 14 test appearances during 2018 and ’19, including a World Cup campaign in Japan, to regain some form, fitness and confidence on the provincial fields.
That, too, was problematic. Ta’avao, a 1.94m, 124kg colossus, made it through the first three games of the Mitre 10 Cup with Auckland (two off the bench, one starting) before a shin injury in the other ( right) leg laid him low. He only made it back for last Saturday’s penultimate round-robin clash against Northland when the intense pain that had medics flummoxed ( the thinking was compartment syndrome or a stress reaction to a broken tibia suffered in 2016) suddenly disappeared after three weeks’ rest.
Ta’avao has done the hard yards in a 2020 that has tested, but never bested him.
‘‘When you’re injured, it’s like another pre-season – you’ve got to do all the niggly sessions to get the fitness back,’’ he says. ‘‘Then it’s also hard watching the [Auckland] boys playing so well. You want to be out there, and coming back last Saturday was a mixture of relief and excitement.
‘‘With everything going on in the world . . . Covid, the rugby scene changing pretty quickly, these weird injuries popping up, crazy is the first word that comes to mind.
‘‘ I’ve thought about how I could react. I could sulk, or I could make the most of other opportunities, like spending time with my family [ he and wife Kristyn have a 3- year- old son Leo], like doing a bit of work with Sky, and trying to stay positive.
‘‘I’ve had a good last few years, being in the black jersey and going to the World Cup. The cards I’ve been dealt this year weren’t in my favour, so it was about what I did with them.’’
Ta’avao didn’t come down in the last shower, and experience lends a valuable perspective.
He’s a proud Aucklander, but has had to chase opportunities elsewhere. He had two years with the Waratahs in Sydney, and returned in 2017 to link with Taranaki without even a Super Rugby contract. He was picked up by the Chiefs to fix a front-row crisis in 2018 and by year end had made the All Blacks.
‘‘ I try not to take things too seriously. When we switch on, I go hard. But I like to enjoy myself, and with a bit of experience, it’s about balance for me. If I had all my eggs in this rugby basket it might have affected me more, but you see what’s going on around the world, what people are going through, and I’ve still got my family, my mates around me, and good people helping me get back into the game.’’
It’s a mindset, oscillating between laidback and intense, that Ta’avao feels has worked for him in the past, and will do again.
Ta’avao has started thinking about life after rugby. He figures he still has a few more good years, but would love to put that giantsized personality of his to use in the media world when the time is right.
On the field Ta’avao has enjoyed the small part he’s played in taking the 7-2 Aucklanders to the top of the Premiership standings. They’re guaranteed top spot for the finals but still have a lot to play for, starting today in Christchurch.
‘‘Our mindset is to go down and put in a performance to make the jersey proud. There has been a massive rivalry between Auckland and Canterbury for as long as I can remember, and the boys are pumped about the challenge.’’
Ta’avao might be as motivated as anyone in Ieremia’s squad. He’ll be back with the Chiefs in 2021, and is itching to play a bigger part in both Super Rugby Aotearoa, and the new transTasman element that follows.
He is not done with the All Blacks either. He understood and accepted the decision to look past him this year, but hopes to re-prove himself again in the Aotearoa competition. ‘‘It’s a great environment to be part of, and once you get a taste you want to stay in there. If you worry too much about trying to get to that next level, you’ll lose what you’re doing. All I can do is focus on this Auckland team, and try to get this Mitre 10 Cup back to the big city.’’