Former All Blacks captain Kieran Read offers his expertise to Leinster – The Irish Times

Leinster’s cross-hemisphere relationship with the conquering Crusaders has already been beneficial in a number of ways and also saw former All Blacks captain Kieran Read pay them an informative visit over the weekend.

During the worst days of Covid, Leinster and the Crusaders fielded a 23-man squad on matchday for the other to analyse.

Michael Ala’alatoa has since joined Leinster, as has manager Andrew Goodman, while Stuart Lancaster has struck up a relationship with Read.

“He was in the UK last week so he came for the game on Saturday and was there for the weekend,” Leo Cullen confirmed yesterday. “He met some of the guys for lunch yesterday and I would have met him last night for a bite to eat and he was first thing this morning. He spent the whole day.

“He’s been brilliant, very good, just in terms of his mindset, he’s really one of the iconic figures in the game.”

Read addressed the team collectively and spoke with the players individually.

“He was very good in sharing his different experiences, especially because we have a young group this week. It was great to have him.

“He has a lot of different connections there, he would know Andrew Goodman and Mike Ala’alatoa, even Jason Jenkins, they played together for Toyota Verblitz.”

[ Tadhg Furlong to be assessed ahead of Ireland’s game against South Africa ]

For the Leinster backrowers, the presence of the former All Blacks centurion was a golden opportunity to listen to the big man, an opportunity gladly seized by Max Deegan.

“Yeah, of course I did. It was me who asked him questions, asking him to be a world class number 8 and how did he get to this point. I’ve been calling it the best number ‘8’ in the world for almost 10 years.

So what did he do, what kind of little things did he do outside of training, the extras he would have done?

“I thought he was incredibly talented. He could do things that other ‘8’ numbers couldn’t, and I was just asking him how he had honed his game and moved from that level that a lot of other ‘8s were at. world-class people.

As a number ‘8’ himself who sought to impose his game with skill and athleticism more than physicality and power, and as an aspiring player passing through St Michael’s, Deegan admired Read more than others in the same position .

“I think back then a lot of ‘8’ numbers were incredibly physical, like [Pierre] Spies, while a number ‘8’ I liked was Kieran Read, or even [Taulupe] Faletau, where they are very skilled, their catch-up pass is really good, good offloading, good feet, and obviously good ball carriers.

“It’s a bit of something I would look at in my game. The ability to catch-go down the line, make good decisions, be a smarter rugby player than the opponent. I’m can’t -not being as physical as some ‘8’ numbers, say in South Africa, but being smarter, being able to work smarter, choosing my moments, things like that.

One particular revelation stood out when Deegan asked Read to control the ball at the base of the scrimmage.

“He would have made small pieces blindfolded. In the scrum you can’t always see everything, so he could sense where the ball is, to get into the right positions for the scrum-half.

Deegan joked that not only could he mimic that in training, but he could also do it in a game.

In his youth, Read often played in the outside channels, but contributing to his longevity, he gradually moved more and more into the middle third of the pitch.

“Exactly. And that’s what I’m trying to do personally. I’ve gotten myself to the edges a little too much and I’m trying to get more involved. More workload, more reach, more involvement , more impact. That’s something I’m looking to do right now.”

The leadership of players like Deegan and Ala’alatoa will be especially important in Friday’s final URC game before November’s breakaway against the Scarlets. As well as Leinster’s 17 players from the Irish squad, Jamie Osborne has been ruled out as he observes return-to-play protocols, joining eight other players on their injured list.

Against that, Rhys Ruddock will train this week after returning from graduated return to play protocols, and the same goes for Ryan Baird, who is part of the Irish squad. Some academy players are obviously in line for their debuts.

“We’ve been to this place before,” said Cullen, who admitted, “Those are the weeks that I enjoy the most. A lot of times you have young guys coming in to debut and you want to set them up. to go well. That’s good.

“You have the sense of excitement, everyone who’s been through the process can remember their first game, their first cap for all the teams they’ve played with. You want to make those days special for the guys coming in. and we’ll have a few guys for their debut.

A statement from Leinster said Tadhg Furlong, Josh van der Flier, Jamison Gibson-Park and Hugo Keenan were all being assessed this week by the IRFU medical team, with the latter trio expected to “intensify their rehabilitation this week”.

Furlong “should be fine” according to Cullen, who added of the other three, “It’s on a case-by-case basis but they’re all very close. Whether they succeed or not, I don’t know.