Blackwell shows why he’s the pride of Lions
It takes a big man to be vulnerable. A smart one too.
At 1.90-metres tall, Hurricanes and Wellington lock James Blackwell isn’t the biggest bloke in the physical sense. But the size of his heart and depth of his contribution to both teams are harder to measure. As for intelligence, there’s few more impressive and articulate players around.
At 23, Blackwell has served a good apprenticeship. Three years in the Wellington College first XV, the last as captain, were followed by a stint in the New Zealand under-20s, before Mitre 10 Cup and Super Rugby contracts.
He’s much admired within both professional outfits, receiving the Hurricanes’ Hunters Award for 2018, which goes to someone who rarely plays but whose attitude, attention to detail and ability to prepare the top 23 each week are deemed to be exemplary. Blackwell then backed that up by being named Wellington’s player of the year on Monday.
He’d now like to kick on and become a very good Hurricane. If he doesn’t it won’t be because he hasn’t worked hard at his deficiencies.
Becoming more explosive with, and without the ball, has been his main work-on this year.
‘‘No-one wants to go out there and miss five tackles in a row in front of the team, before you can get better at it. It’s quite a challenging thing,’’ Blackwell said ahead of Wellington’s Mitre 10 Cup Premiership semifinal against Auckland tomorrow.
‘‘Although you know you have to get better at your tackling, you have to get your mind in the right space to open up to working on it, which I found quite challenging being someone who’s come through the grades and expected a certain level of performance.
‘‘But the reality is you don’t start like that.
‘‘These are the things you have to build on and you have to be comfortable in the environment to expose your weaknesses and work on them.
‘‘You have to trust that, in this environment, no-one’s going to judge when you’re working on your weaknesses and everyone wants to help each other along.’’
When Blackwell first became a Hurricane, in 2017, he assumed everything that team-mates such as Beauden Barrett touched, turned to gold. In time, he realised the best players have just as many things to work on as he does.
‘‘Their ability, first, to recognise what they need to develop, even if it’s by watching themselves or getting advice from their coaches, that’s the first step. That’s something quite a lot of people have already, in that they have that bit of self-awareness and they know they can get advice from coaches.
‘‘The difference, I’ve learned, is their mindset and going and applying it relentlessly. It’s not something they do once and think it’s sorted. They address it constantly every day and that’s how they can actually develop what they’re doing and see the results.’’
Mind you, it’s not all pats on the back for trying and words of encouragement. Once a week Hurricanes such as Blackwell spend a couple of hours trying to make the senior pros look as incompetent as possible.
Blackwell might not be Brodie Retallick, but he’s well aware of his traits and if that week’s opponents are the Chiefs, then it’s his job to be as Retallick-like as possible.
‘‘The team that goes out as the Chiefs, in this scenario, is really excited. Especially if some of them aren’t allowed to play club rugby and have a gamereplacement [session] on Saturday [instead]. That’s confirmation that Thursday is the game for the week and you do get excited and you want to push the team to their limits and, if things overflow a little bit, quite often that’s encouraged.’’
No-one gets any better otherwise.