Australia, if a little prematurely, added another hefty offensive weapon to their armory yesterday when Fijian winger Henry Speight was named in their squad for the Rugby Championship.
Fresh from the best display of tackle-busting in Super XV this year against the Waikato Chiefs last weekend, the 26-year-old ACT Brumbies winger was included despite not being eligible to play for the Wallabies until halfway through the competition.
The reason was not hard to fathom for anyone who has seen him deceive tacklers with his sidestep, barrel through them with his knees pumping high or brush them aside with a powerful hand-off.
Photo: AFP
The 12 defenders beaten in a rampant display in Canberra last Saturday are one of the main reasons why the Brumbies take on the New South Wales Waratahs in a Super XV semi-final on Saturday.
All but 10 of the players named in Ewen McKenzie’s 32-man Wallabies squad will be on display at Sydney Football Stadium this weekend, but many eyes will be focused on Speight and his future international teammate Israel Folau.
McKenzie knows all about Waratahs fullback Folau, who has scored 13 tries in 18 Tests since his debut last year, and in Speight he sees another of the sort of player who might help take Australia back to the top of world rugby.
“You’ve got to be able to win the ball and do the fundamental parts of the game, but there’s no doubt that they are the guys who can make things happen,” McKenzie said after naming his squad yesterday. “Call it X-factor or game-breakers, or whatever you like, the All Blacks have been blessed with many of them over the years and it’s nice to have a few. You need a few weapons in your armory. If you’ve only got one, they can play them out of the game tactically, but if you’ve got a couple, it’s hard to handle them.”
Speight, unmistakeable almost as much for his huge Afro hairstyle as his powerful running, comes from a family noted for their controversial contribution to the turmoil of Fijian politics over the past two decades.
His father and paternal grandfather were Cabinet ministers, his maternal grandfather was president of the Pacific island republic, while his uncle George is serving a life sentence for leading a putsch which overturned the government in 2000.
In the seven years since he left Fiji to complete his high-school education in Hamilton, New Zealand, Speight has gone about his mission of having his family name recognized for something other than the infamous coup.
Three years playing for Waikato in the tough proving ground of New Zealand’s national provincial championship followed, but it was the Brumbies who gave him his chance to move up to Super XV in 2011.
It was something of an irony then, that his best performance of the season came against the Chiefs in last week’s playoff, when he looked almost unstoppable in the first half as he helped dethrone the Super XV champions.
“He’s so clinical,” Chiefs coach Dave Rennie told Fairfax media.
“If you give him ball one-on-one or even with two guys in front of him, he’s going to get yardage or gainline, or offload, or he’s going to skin people. I thought he was massive, he really troubled us,” Rennie said.
McKenzie clearly hopes Speight can trouble a few more teams at Test level in the future, first in the second half of the Rugby Championship after he becomes eligible on Sept. 11 and then in the World Cup in England next year.
While his rush to formalize the winger’s position spoke of McKenzie’s regard for his ability, the Australia coach said he had been as much impressed by Speight the man when he trained with the squad in June.
“I think he’s a very polished individual, everyone sees the talent and the power, but behind the scenes I see a really good guy,” McKenzie said. “Everyone speaks highly of him of a person and as a rugby intellect. He’s going to add a lot to the squad.”
Speight’s focus will undoubtedly be on helping the Brumbies reach a second successive Super XV final this week, but McKenzie thought he would be boosted by knowing his long wait for international recognition is nearly over.
“It’s a been a long journey for him, everyone has a different journey and he’s had to wait four years to get that opportunity,” the former Test prop said. “I think he’ll be very motivated, I can tell by the way he trains that he’s motivated to be the best player he can be. It’s been frustrating and so now to say: ‘Here’s your bag and here’s your training gear,’ I think that will be a big weight off his mind.”
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