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The Canadian lock that Newcastle are relying on to avoid the drop

Evan Olmstead during Mitre 10 Cup match between Southland and Auckland (Photo by Dianne Manson/Getty Images)

Canadian lock Evan Olmstead is uniquely qualified to help drag Newcastle away from the relegation trap door with just three Gallagher Premiership matches left for the north east England club to save themselves.

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Olmstead faced a similar three-game shoot-out with Canada in Marseille in November when they needed to defeat Kenya, Hong Kong and Germany to grab the 20th and final qualifying spot for the Rugby World Cup in Japan.

The heavily-bearded Olmstead, who was brought back from New Zealand to bolster Newcastle’s forward power at the most crucial point of the season, believes that experience of delivering under pressure can help the Falcons survive.

The 28-year-old, 6ft 6in forward left Newcastle at the end of last season and headed to Auckland, helping them win the Mitre 10 Premiership Cup for the first time since 2007.

He was also part of the wider Blues Super rugby squad before Dean Richards, Falcons director of rugby, called to offer him a route back into the Premiership and high quality rugby in the build-up to the World Cup campaign.

Olmstead is well aware of the ramifications of relegation on and off the pitch for Newcastle and they must defeat an improving Northampton team at Kingston Park on Friday night, then Gloucester (away) and Bristol (home).

The Canadian, who played at the 2015 World Cup, said: “When I left we were in the Premiership play-offs last season and now it’s about staying alive. It’s about fighting for your job, your life and the organisation. Going down brings a lot of consequences. No-one has their head in the sand and our mindset is still positive. We will keep working hard.

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“With Canada we had three games to qualify for the World Cup and there are many similarities with our current position at Newcastle. We went to Marseille knowing we had to get three from three and we did that. It’s the same now. If we can do the business we should be okay because I can’t see the other teams near us winning all of theirs.“

Newcastle’s Evan Olmstead is tackled by Saracens back row in the Gallagher Premiership on April 06  (Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images)

With no relegation worries in New Zealand rugby, Olmstead experienced a totally different mindset with players prepared to take the kind of chances not regularly seen in the Premiership.

He explained: “It’s completely different in New Zealand. The attacking and defensive philosophy and the emphasis is on skills and decision making rather than set-piece.

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“It’s all about having a go and running with the ball because there is no relegation which means it’s high risk high reward while here it’s a more conservative game. I learnt about how to react to different players.

“Over here you could have a couple of players in the team who are bit random like Sinoti Sinoti or Niki Goneva in our squad, but over in New Zealand the whole back line is like that and so you have to get used to guys doing things that would be considered rogue over here. It was quite an experience.

“Going to the World Cup, hopefully we can ruffle a few feathers and we’re not going there just to turn up. We’re in a pool with New Zealand, South Africa, Italy and Namibia.

“At the last tournament I’d just broken into the Canada team and getting as much first-team action as possible in a high performance environment is really important leading into Japan.”

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J
JW 3 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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