ASIDE FROM THE wealth of skill, experience and leadership that Kieran Read offers, there was another very good reason to send him into the first Test of this Lions series despite two months sidelined with injury.
Read ended 2016 with 97 caps to his name and his broken thumb in April meant he was not risked for the series warm-up against Samoa last month, but once passed fit for the opening Lions Test, his century came in to clear view.
It’s not a mark he ever imagined as a child, centurions are hardy old warhorses and energetic young athletes only see the steps rather than white be at the top when they get there.
“I didn’t play 100 Tests in the back yard,” joked Read after his captain’s run in Auckland today.
“It was probably just my first Test (I imagined). It was about pulling on the jersey, it wasn’t who it was against. As a kid you wanted to play for the All Blacks and that’s the dream. It’s pretty awesome to be living the reality.”
Still, now that the moment is here, the setting, the importance and the worth of the opposition could hardly make for a better occasion.
“It’s a pretty cool place to be. I never expected to be in this position. The biggest thing for me is to go out there and do my bit and help the team and get the win. That’s what we want.”
Read made his debut in Edinburgh in November 2008 – and went on to face Munster and Ireland in the following weeks – as captain nine years later he has plenty of little words of advice to pass on throughout his squad, but to men like Jordie Barrett and Ngani Laumape starting a Test for the first time tomorrow, he’ll pass on the advice he would give his 23-year-old uncapped self.
“Your first one, you’re pretty nervous, you’re pretty excited, and I don’t think that would have changed to be honest. I’ll be rocking up tomorrow and I’ll have a few butterflies in the stomach. But overriding that is the excitement of why you do this. I don’t get sick of pulling on the jersey and going out there and playing, so I can’t wait.”
Can’t wait sums up the All Black approach to tomorrow’s third Test. Defeat, even with 14 men, hurts and they will feel they have a record to set straight. Read’s message to the squad has been tweaked slightly, but the overriding message remains: trust the skill-set, trust the process. The pressure is there, it’s unavoidable and the players just have to help one another deal with it.
“It has ramped up a little bit, which is expected. There’s a few guys who are used to it, so you have to impart your knowledge about what these moments do mean to teams, and the way we can do this is embrace it. As a rugby player these are the moments you want to be involved in, on the biggest stage, and, as I said, we’re looking forward to the game, the task that’s ahead of us, and we can’t wait for it.
The guys are certainly excited, I think you come off a loss and there’s a bit of edge around, and guys want to get back out there and have another crack. Fortunately we’ve got that opportunity. And the reality is we know what’s coming up, it’s a three match series and this was always going to be the case if we lost one of those first two games.”
“(We) weren’t really happy with the way we played last week, so certainly we’ve got to make a change. If we expect to turn up with the same result it’s not going to work. So the boys are pretty confident with what we’ve got in our group. It’s a pretty exciting challenge. It doesn’t get better than playing at Eden Park in what’s, in a sense, a final. So it’s a pretty awesome opportunity.”
The42 is on Instagram! Tap the button below on your phone to follow us!
