Kiwis told to bring the flair
Embrace ‘Kiwis flair’ over ‘NRL structure’.
That is the message to the New Zealand rugby league team ahead of their World Cup campaign, from two former internationals who have been spending time in the camp in Ngaruawahia this week.
Olsen Filipaina and Fred Ah Kuoi knew a thing or two about expansive style, and they haven’t been shy on encouraging the new breed to play to that theme too.
The Kiwis wrapped up their stay at the Turangawaewae Marae with an open training session at the neighbouring rugby league club yesterday, before heading back to Auckland to build up to their tournament opener, against Samoa at Mt Smart Stadium next Saturday night.
And bidding farewell to the group were former centres/fiveeighths Filipaina and Ah Kuoi, who have enjoyed being a part of the team’s preparations the last two days, which has brought back memories of their playing days for the Kiwis through the mid-70s to mid-80s, and returned them to their roots.
Each knows first-hand what it takes to topple the Kangaroos, and the pair were unwavering in their belief that the Kiwis will need to take hold of an expansive gameplan rather than be too stuck in their NRL club ways that can often be heavily methodical.
‘‘Sometimes we can play in a system that quells your potential, and it’s all about bringing that potential out, and playing the style that we play,’’ said Ah Kuoi, who, from 1999, spent 16 years in the USA working with athletes via a Christian organisation.
On return to New Zealand, he is now in Auckland teaching the practical elements of the course run by former Kiwis coach Graham Lowe’s foundation, which is run in conjunction with the Manukau Institute of Technology.
The 61-year-old is now hoping to witness just the second-ever World Cup win for the Kiwis, and firmly believes if they try and play too structured against the Aussies it will end badly; that if there’s a gap on the first tackle and they have the chance to run it from their own 20-metre line, they need to do so.
‘‘That’s the only way you unravel defences in set structures, is do things completely against what they train to do,’’ he said.
‘‘You’re on a different level when you play international, this is freeview time now. This is where you allow everything that you are to be expressed. And that’s always been the Kiwi style.
‘‘It takes a brave coach to allow the potential to come out. And what we have here now is the makings of that freedom coming.’’
Filipaina, 60, who still lives in Sydney and is still working on the rubbish truck collection he’s been doing since 1980, agrees about embracing the flamboyance which saw both him and Ah Kuoi picked for the Kiwis even while playing second grade, after not fitting the mould their Australian clubs teams wanted.
‘‘The Polynesians have their own style of playing, and that’s what these guys have to do,’’ he said. ‘‘This is why we were so successful back in the 80s and everything. You go to the NRL, coaches want them to play the robot-style. We don’t play it like that, that’s why we come back to New Zealand and we play how we want to play, which is flair. Crowds love it, it’s entertaining . . . and players enjoy it.’’
Filipaina, who will deliver the match ball in the Kiwis’ World Cup opener, was also forthright about the tough draw the team will face, noting he was ‘‘annoyed and pissed off’’ that New Zealand had been grouped with Samoa and Tonga in a pool that also includes Scotland, while Australia have to face England but far lesser lights in France and Lebanon.
‘‘Everyone knows exactly how New Zealand, Tonga and Samoa play the game – it’s physical,’’ he said. These guys have got to go out hard out, whereas Australia gets a cream run.
‘‘It could be a positive, but then there’s the other side, where injuries come into it, because you know these sides aren’t going to hold back against each other.’’