Finau: The hits will keep on coming
Samipeni Finau admits he heard all the outrage over his latest massive hit, but the Chiefs enforcer could not care less, and is backing his technique to continue to smash pesky No 10s.
Debate swirled over the weekend in the wake of Finau’s crunching tackle on Waratahs first-five Tane Edmed in the third minute of the Chiefs’ Super Rugby Pacific win in Sydney last Friday.
The match officials rightly had no issue with the shot − it wasn’t high, it wasn’t late, it wasn’t a shoulder charge − yet that wasn’t enough for some sections of the media across the ditch, and any number of social media users.
They claimed there was just no way the thunderous contact − which left Edmed writhing in pain but eventually able to get back up and play on − could be considered legal, highlighted moreso because Finau has made a name for himself in hammering opposition playmakers this season.
But the bruising blindside flanker is far more bashful than boastful about his jarring shots. In fact, the softly-spoken 24-year-old one-test All Black, in chatting to Stuff yesterday, even admits he didn’t initially realise how big a hit he had even put on.
“I knew that I made a tackle, but I didn’t think of it like that,” he says ... “until at a scrum later and then they put it on the screen and I was like, ‘Ohhh’.
“At the time I was really scared because I thought it was late and I was going to get yellow-carded.
“Most of the time I know my technique is there, it’s more if it’s a high tackle or not. [But] I’ve got to be careful.”
So, just how many times, then, has the 1.93m, 115kg loosie sat back and soaked in the replay of his highlight-reel play?
“Just one time after the game,” he says, “then last night there was a little cheeky clip that was on,” he goes on to confess.
“I know it’s footy, you pretty much hurt each other on the field, but I always check up on people.”
Samipeni Finau
And his phone had surely blown up when he picked it up post-match?
“Obviously,” he notes. “But I just ignore it. It’s just white noise to me.”
What about all that chat, then, around ‘cheap shots’ and him being a ‘hitman’, did he hear all that?
“Yeah, I did,” Finau divulges. “And then our D[efence] coach Hilly [David Hill] warned me, like watch out, you’re on the radar with the referee and all.
“But I don’t really care. It’s what they say, it’s not what I go through. Me, I’m just there to play footy and go home, to my two dogs, and forget about it.’’
So, just for the record, he does not have anything against No 10s, per se, then?
“Nah, I don’t, actually,” laughs Finau, who adds, “I know it’s footy, you pretty much hurt each other on the field, but I always check up on people” [he couldn’t find Edmed post-match but was relayed the news via Waratahs team-mates].
“Depending on who we play, it’s just the way they [the No 10s] play the game. And for me, because I’m always on the edge on set-piece, when they’re coming back they always try and pick on me.
“I’m always on the edge, I would say I’m second-to-last defender, they review us, the weak side is there.
“Obviously Hilly just gives me the green light to get up and go.”
Growing up in Tonga, Finau had a childhood of throwing the rugby ball around on the beach, and despite being the second-youngest of five children (two older brothers and an older and younger sister), he didn’t get the shoulders tested all that often.
After moving to New Zealand age 13, the heavy hitting started to come in his “Manurewa days”, after his move from fullback to lock, and knows it’s a part of his game that he can embrace.
“Yeah, it’s always been there, but it’s just picking the right moments and being more accurate on it, too,” he notes, not wanting to second-guess himself on the park.
“If I sit back and go through it in my head I’ll doubt myself most of the time.
If I just go there and back myself, it’s just rugby. If I get it wrong, I get it wrong.”
Chiefs coach Clayton McMillan concurs, for a player he describes as “a physical guy who thrives on those collision parts of the game”.
“We don’t want to suppress him, he’s just got to make sure that he’s highly accurate, because it’s small margins, and if he gets it wrong then not only he, but the team will be compromised,” McMillan says.
“So it’s a balancing act, but he’s getting it right at the moment, from our perspective.”
And a hard-hitting No 6 is exactly what the All Blacks have been crying out for in recent years, since the days of Jerry Collins and Jerome Kaino.
Shannon Frizell was getting somewhere near that place before his departure to Japan this year, and ironically, it’s now his old mate from Tonga, who he helped nurture during his time with the national squad last year, who is pushing hard to be that man.
Not that Finau’s made his menacing defence a big focus specifically to try and push on from that taste of the black jersey he got last year, or wants to become the man renowned for the monster tackles.
“No, no,” he says in batting away that suggestion.
“Me, I build on whatever weakness I have that week. On defence, stuff that happens just happens.
“I just want to play footy. If it’s there I’ll try put on a shot, but if it’s not, I don’t go chasing.”