Shannon Frizell is an early riser
Frizell’s parents, who often flew to New Zealand to watch their son play for Tasman the past two years, made the trip to Nelson when he signed with the province in 2016.
‘‘Everyone knew he was something special, and we all think he’s going to be better than his brother, who is obviously a very, very good league player,’’ Lewis said.
Frizell impressed in his first season with Tasman in 2016, but it was last year when he started raising eyebrows, even before he went on to make seven appearances at lock, one at blindside flanker at one at No 8 in the NPC.
During a pre-season match between Counties and Tasman about a year ago, Frizell put on a show in front of scouts and agents from most New Zealand and Australian Super Rugby sides, Lewis said. backs and forwards . . . the way he’s wristy with the pass and how he runs reminds you a bit of Graeme Bachop.’’
Hansen admitted Frizell was in this group because of what they saw in his future, rather than necessarily his present.
‘‘We’ve lost Jerome Kaino who has been around a long time, and provided a lot of positive intent when he carried, when he cleared rucks and tackled. If you think back to Jerry Collins, Jamie Joseph, Cowboy Shaw in that 6 role, they are the type of players we’ve had.
‘‘Shannon comes in with a similar style. He’s energetic and he wants to be in your grill in a positive way with his intentions when he’s tackling and cleaning. We have to take our time developing him and see where we get to.’’
New skipper Sam Whitelock had not travelled for the camp because of health issues, but it was hoped he would join his new team before tomorrow’s wind-up. what a fallacious view that was, called up as one of three new caps in Steve Hansen’s All Blacks squad of 33 to take on the French in three tests next month.
Taufua, who is 1.87m and 107kg, plays with a relentless ferocity and physicality that has long had those in red-andblack country convinced he is capable of taking the step up into that black jersey. Now he can’t wait to prove those remaining doubters wrong.
‘‘There’s a lot of noise about that,’’ he says of the size matters theory. ‘‘Everyone was fighting for him, ‘‘When I’m on the field I from the Brumbies, to the Crusaders, to feel like I’m twice the the Highlanders. They were all after his size. signature, so you knew he was something ‘‘When I go out there I special.’’ play with passion and
Though Frizell ended up in Dunedin, energy, and I make sure I his preference was to play for the bring the energy because Crusaders. all this talk about height
‘‘To be honest, Shannon never gets me up and gets me wanted to go to the Highlanders but his excited.’’ agent drove a pretty hard bargain that If that sounds like he wanted game time. If he’d gone to the Taufua plays with a chip Crusaders he would have got a lot of on his shoulder, never games this year, but at that stage there mind. It clearly works for was Kieran Read and there was All him.
Blacks everywhere,’’ Lewis said. With Kieran Read still
‘‘I think Shannon was looking at on the long road from needing game time. The Crusaders back surgery, he has were quite upset to lose him. And Tasman, filled the gap at the from our perspective, we would Crusaders admirably. have preferred it if he’d gone to the Now he gets the chance Crusaders.’’ to do likewise in the and heavy enough and powerful enough’’ and the only shortcomings, as it were, came around his effectiveness in the lineout.
‘‘It changes the balance little bit, but we can work around that. No one is perfect and at times we’ve got to remind ourselves we’re selecting them because they do a number of other things very well, and we can work on the things they don’t.’’
Taufua received the traditional call advising him of his All Blacks callup in the wake of the Crusaders’ hard-fought 32-24 victory over the Blues at Eden Park on Saturday night.
Not that he regarded it in the time-honoured fashion.
‘‘Our manager Shane Fletcher said [Gilbert] Enoka is on the phone. My first reaction was ‘who’s that?’ I’ve never met the guy. We started chatting and he let me know I’d made the team,’’ he said at the squad announcement in Auckland.
‘‘It was pretty special. I was a bit speechless and overwhelmed, and at the same time excited,’’ Taufua said.