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New Zealand's NRL club poach son of an All Black

Rocco Berry playing for St Pats Silverstream 1st XV.

New Zealand’s NRL club the Warriors have poached the son of a former All Black in a major coup, signing Wellington schoolboy Rocco Berry to a four-year deal, according to Stuff.co.nz.

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The son of former All Black Marty Berry, who played 10 times in the black jersey between 1986-1993, is a talented fullback who starred for Wellington’s dominant rugby school, St Pats Silverstream’s 1st XV over the last two seasons.

The 18-year-old was selected to attend the Hurricanes under-18 training camp and the New Zealand secondary schools camp last year but did not make the final schoolboys side with still another year left to push his case.

Watch Rocco’s schoolboy highlights:

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He will give up following in his father’s footsteps in Union to make a code switch in pursuit of an NRL career.

“He’s got some really good attributes on and off the field, you’ve only got to talk to him for five minutes to know he’s been raised in a very good environment,” Warriors chief executive Cameron George told Stuff.

“It’s very exciting we’ve been able to secure a son of an All Black into our league family.

“We do know that he was heavily chased by a number of rugby league and rugby clubs and to get his signature is certainly a massive privilege for our club.”

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The loss of Rocco Berry to the 13-man code is a blow to the Hurricanes and New Zealand Rugby, but the Hurricanes are somewhat insured with one of the largest conveyor belts of talent in the country.

The franchise debuted 20-year-old midfielder Danny Toala, who can also play at fullback, earlier this season as well as finding more game time for Peter Umaga-Jensen, another midfielder with the ability to play at 15. There are often not enough jerseys to go round for the franchise in the capital who lose talent to many other Super franchises.

Berry’s move is surprising in the sense that it was the Warriors who were the NRL club able to complete the deal, as the Australian league clubs often win the signature of New Zealand’s highly-touted prospects. It was the Warriors who lost out on St Kentigern prodigy, Etene Nanai-Seturo, who was swayed by NZR and the chance to play for the All Blacks in the future before signing with the Chiefs.

The Warriors CEO extended open arms offering of sorts to rugby union players around the country, claiming there are opportunities for them with the club.

“Whether you’re a rugby union kid playing the game or rugby league, there’s opportunities here at the Warriors.”

The Season with St Pats Silverstream – Episode 3:

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
N
Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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