Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

Waratahs rejection blessing in disguise for All Blacks prop Angus Ta'avao

All Blacks prop Angus Ta'avao. (Photo by Hannah Peters / Getty Images)

It seems the tighthead prop the NSW Waratahs desperately crave may have been under their nose all along.

ADVERTISEMENT

Unfortunately Angus Ta’avao was shown the door by former coach Daryl Gibson two years ago.

Now he’s an All Black at the Rugby World Cup.

Letting 29-year-old Ta’avao slip through the cracks in 2017 won’t have impressed new Waratahs coach Rob Penney, who in his first press conference nominated tighthead as a position where the Waratahs had struggled.

Continued below…

Video Spacer

Ta’avao this week recounted his disappointment upon learning his two seasons with the Waratahs had come to nothing, having crossed the Tasman in a bid to play for the Wallabies via his Australian mother.

“Daryl Gibson came to me and said ‘we don’t have a contract for you next year,” Ta’avao said in a podcast hosted by All Blacks teammate Ardie Savea.

“It was sort of like a punch to the gut because I still felt like I had so much good rugby to play. I still felt like I could offer more.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/B3IXNSIggk3/

Ta’avao also had a newborn son who was unwell in Sydney and began seriously considering a non-rugby career before being thrown a lifeline back in New Zealand at the Chiefs.

ADVERTISEMENT

He made his All Blacks debut last year and impressed enough to win World Cup selection ahead of veteran tighthead Owen Franks.

Ta’avao said the Waratahs rejection ended up being the catalyst to realising his childhood dream and he harboured no hard feelings towards Gibson or the team.

Given his experience on both sides of the Tasman, he believes it is clear why Kiwi sides enjoy greater success in Super Rugby.

ADVERTISEMENT

“In terms of training, it’s not too different. I’d say it’s the skill level in New Zealand,” he said.

“Across the board there’s some awesomely skilled players in Australia but for a lot of guys – that basic catch and pass, offload, that sort of thing – it’s so foreign to them.

“It was a pretty stacked Waratahs team (in 2016-17) if you look at the names that were in there and we just couldn’t click and put it together.”

– AAP

Wallabies players have rejected the idea that they’ve adopted an “us against the world” mentality:

Video Spacer
ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

F
Flankly 2 hours 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
TRENDING
TRENDING Marcus Smith on that substitution and his England plea Marcus Smith on that substitution and his England plea
Search