SKIPPER SAM HAS A LONG OVERDUE
WALES captain Sam Warburton is set to prove a crucial figure for his country in New Zealand over the next few weeks. The flanker faces a race against time to prove his fitness for the opening Test against the All Blacks in Auckland next Saturday morning after being sidelined since the end QUESTION: HOW IS THE SHOULDER FEELING? SAM WARBURTON: The shoulder’s all right and rehab has been going OK. I’m in a six-week schedule and have been looking forward to getting out to New Zealand and doing some rugby training now. I’ll be getting back with the squad for Test week. Q: DO YOU ANTICIPATE BEING READY FOR THE FIRST TEST? SW: The plan was six weeks. I haven’t actually sat down and looked at the fixtures and whether it’s going to be the first Test or the Chiefs game I don’t know yet. The surgeon said a minimum of five weeks so I knew from day one I wasn’t going to play the England game so I got my head round that pretty quickly. I knew I was going to be part of either the first or second Test. Hopefully it will be the first. Q: HOW WILL IT AFFECT YOUR FITNESS POTENTIALLY GOING STRAIGHT INTO THE FIRST TEST? SW: There is a difference between this injury and the problem I had going into the Six Nations. That was a lower limb injury and that’s when I stopped running and taking part in rugby training. That’s when it is difficult to get back up to speed. Because I have had a shoulder injury this time around, I have still been taking part in rugby sessions and they have run the legs off me for the last five weeks. That is the big plus of having a shoulder injury. If I had an operation it would have been pretty bad, but I have been able to do lineouts, pass and all the normal pattern stuff we do. I can still stay fit and that is the biggest part. I have felt pretty good. I’ve almost treated it like a mini pre-season, I’ve been doing a lot of strength work in the gym still, doing a lot of running and a lot of speed work. So I should be pretty fresh, fingers crossed, touch wood, You’ll be looking at me now after I have said that and after 20 minutes I’ll be blowing! But I should be feeling pretty good coming to the first Test. Q: BASED ON WHAT YOU SAW AGAINST ENGLAND AT TWICKENHAM, WHAT SORT OF STATE ARE WALES GOING INTO THE FIRST TEST? of April with a shoulder problem.
If the Lions captain is passed fit for the Eden Park encounter, it will be his first time back since he was infamously issued with a red card by Irish referee Alain Rolland in the World Cup semi-final against SW: It was a massively beneficial game for us in the sense that I can remember when I went to Australia in 2012 and that first half of the first Test hit us like a ton of bricks. We just weren’t there. I remember Shaun Edwards said before we got there if you play these teams down south, it’s different from when you play them at home. We found that out the hard way. So the big benefit of playing a quality England side at Twickenham is there were cobwebs blown away. It’s difficult to explain the feeling you get when you are really deep into a Test match 60, 70, 80 minutes. It’s good to have experienced that two weeks out, otherwise that game would have hit you like a ton of bricks in that first Test. So the running metres are up now. We are used to the higher intensity game and it will be a lot easier now to transition into New Zealand. Q: IN THAT CASE HOW WELL WILL THE TEAM DO IN THAT FIRST TEST France for a tip tackle on wing Vincent Clerc.
Warburton reflects on his injury progress and how he will cope with the demands of Test rugby after not playing for six weeks, the challenge of facing New Zealand on their home soil and why a Welsh victory over the All Blacks is so long overdue since the last victory in 1953. AND THE SERIES? SW: You have no idea how it’s going to go but you know me, I am never, ever going to go into a game not believing we are going to win it. I can’t wait for it. It’s an amazing opportunity for us to play three games against New Zealand on their own soil. If I heard behind closed doors any of our players saying I don’t think we are going to win, I would say you are not the right guy to come on the tour. You can’t have that mindset whatsoever. You have to have a really positive mindset to come out here. That’s half the battle in professional sport. We obviously know New Zealand are massive favourites. They have been the world’s best team for a long time now and they will be the best team we have played against probably in the last three or four years. The feeling of victory then is what motivates you because it would make it that much greater an achievement. So it’s really motivating to go out there and try to get a win against the best side in the world. Q: DO YOU THINK A WIN AGAINST NEW ZEALAND IS LONG OVERDUE? SW: Yes of course it is. It’s been way too long. If you look at the rankings, New Zealand are number one. I don’t know what we are, say we are fifth or something, and look at their record against us because they are only four places above us in the rankings. We wouldn’t have that record against a team who are perhaps 12th or 13th in the rankings. It’s a disappointing record. On my CV of things to achieve, beating the All Blacks is definitely one of them. But I wouldn’t even want to dance and celebrate if we beat them, because it kind of shows how big the gap is you are going to make that big a deal out of beating them once. The great northern hemisphere sides like the England 2003 squad beat the top southern hemisphere sides a few times and in their own country. That’s the standard everyone in the northern hemisphere should try to emulate. Once is not good enough. We want to be regularly competitive with these teams. Whether people think that’s realistic or not, that’s up to them to decide. But that’s the mindset we’ve got to have. Q: HOW DO YOU ASSESS THE ALL BLACKS POST RICHIE MCCAW, DAN CARTER, ETC? SW: The one thing I will say, which is not taking pressure off ourselves,