L’ve taken on mentor role like Jonny
FLOOD HELPING YOUNG TEAM-MATES
EVErgrEEn playmaker Toby Flood says newcastle’s youngsters will be in a good place if he can offer a fraction of the mentoring he received from Jonny Wilkinson.
The 35-year-old made his newcastle debut in 2004, when the Falcons boasted the likes of Wilkinson, Matt Burke and Jamie noon.
Flood will continue to pull the strings today against Bristol at ashton gate, where he will offer a wise head for young talents such as Brett Connon, 24, and adam radwan, 23.
He said: ‘The younger boys have come into a game that is far removed from the one I came into however many years ago, when I was 18 or 19. They see things and look at things differently, which helps me, but at the same time experience lends itself to hopefully add value to their game as well.
‘I can sit and talk rugby to them until they are bored of my monotonous voice after five minutes. I was fortunate to come through in an era when we had Jonny, Matt Burke, Jamie noon, dave Walder. They were huge in facilitating my development.
‘It was nice that I had Burkey on one side, an australia international who glided through space, and Jonny, a studious player who wanted to understand the game and get better and better.
‘Jonny helped me no end in terms of how I should hold myself on the field and off it. If I can add a tenth of the value that Jonny did to my game, then I’ll be leaving the club in a better place.’
On lining up against Bristol’s Fijian powerhouse semi radradra today, Flood said: ‘It reminds me a bit of when we played the all Blacks a few years ago and they picked sonny Bill Williams in midfield. Mike Ford called an emergency backs meeting. He showed sonny Bill Williams carting through people, offloading off the floor, doing ridiculous things and he turned around and said, “so lads, how do we stop that?” and everyone went, “Erm, dunno, just don’t play the game?”
‘What can you do? It’s a bit like that. We know how good he is and they are littered with talent.’
• Bristol v Newcastle, LIVE on BT Sport 2 from 2.30pm, kick-off 3pm.