‘Tackle Naka? I nearly broke my shoulder the last time’ SCOTLAND RUGBY
AT 6’4” and close to 18 stone, Josh Strauss looks a hard man to intimidate, but even the hirsute South Africa-born backrow forward sounded as if he felt he had encountered a superhuman when playing with and against the man who did most to take Scotland apart when they met Fiji last year.
That encounter in Suva was Strauss’s last Test appearance and, as he echoed the awe-struck tone of Scotland coach Gregor Townsend when discussing the individual capabilities of Fijian players, his admiration of former Glasgow Warriors team-mate Leone Nakarawa could not have been more vividly expressed.
“Playing against and with Naks, he is the only guy I know in world rugby who can stand upright with his arm in the air, get hit by three people and not really move,” said Strauss.
“The last time I tackled Naks I got a yellow card so I’ll try and wrap my arms around him this time. I tried to absolutely empty him, but because he is so heavy he almost broke my shoulder. I couldn’t wrap my arm so I got done for a no-arms tackle. In my view it wasn’t that bad. These days people get away with murder!
“He’s just a lovely guy. No matter how hard you hit him he’s just laughing at you. Last time, after the game he’s hugging me and stuff.”
What makes matters all the more difficult is that Scotland cannot pay too much attention to the former Glasgow Warrior, with Edinburgh’s Bill Mata, the latest Fijian to make a major impact in Scotland, and plenty more besides them as Strauss, who now plays his club rugby in the English Premiership with Sale Sharks, acknowledged.
“Whenever you play against a team with a Fijian in the Premiership they are target men, which is a bit worrying when you are playing against 15 of them put together,” he pointed out.
“It is one of those things, if you do what we want to do well as a team, you train well and buy into it, if you execute the things you put out for the weekend and do it in the right mind-set, then the game is there for the winning [but] they are a special team. I have seen a bit of Bill Mata and he is an exceptional player – a big guy as well – so, if he’s playing, he’s another one to watch.
“The special thing about playing Fiji is the fact that they have so much flair and talent, and natural physical ability, which you don’t always get. In some teams you get guys who are very hard workers but maybe not the biggest people, whereas Fijians have got a lot of flair and power about them, so it’s a different game. It is something that you are maybe not that used to when you play northern-hemisphere teams.”
Strauss admitted that Scotland had not been prepared for the Fijians last year – about as surprised as he had been to be recalled this week.
“We were quite surprised,” said Strauss. “All our analysis you do on them is about this flair-based, very loose game – offloads and all these things – but in the morning the rain was coming down and they just played a very structured and physical game, with forwards latching into each other and just trying to penetrate us.”