Question: Andy, how much does the approach to rugby differ here from in Australia?
Andy Friend: Probably the main difference is the length of the season. Having coached Super 12 and having coached for three years in Japan too in a S12 style competition there I’m used to 11 games of football. You prepare probably four months for 11 games of football and each game is a test match for you but you know it’s only three and a half months and then you’re gone. Already we’ve had nine league games and a cup game, so ten games in all, and in my mind I’m thinking we’ve got one more game to go and then we can have a break. It’s a marathon here, it’s such a long season and that is really the main difference.

In terms of the way the game is played, the biggest difference is the amount of kicking over here. In Super 12 rugby there is nowhere near the amount of kicking that you get here. The work that we do on kick receipt ball back at home is minimal but the work that we have to do here is certainly different. The set piece play as you found out last Saturday is not very big [laughs] but here it’s obviously a cornerstone of the game. We talk about it being the cornerstone of the game back home but Super 12 rugby is all about razzle dazzle and throwing the ball around, when you come over here you grind the games out – they are quite physical confrontations in the forwards which is very different.

View a Printer Friendly version of this Story.

Bookmark or share this story with:

• Digg
• Delicious
• Facebook
• Reddit
• Stumbleupon

SPORTNETWORK SPECIALS

Harlequins Poll