How George Bower fought his way into a starting All Blacks jersey
Perhaps one of the more surprising selections in the All Blacks team named to take on the Wallabies in the first Bledisloe Cup match of the year comes in the front row.
29-year-old prop George Bower, who only made his test debut last month, has been named to start in the No 1 jersey, despite the availability of the more experienced Karl Tu’inukuafe.
Bower was first called into the All Blacks squad for last year’s Tri-Nations competition in Australia but never made it onto the park. Instead, the All Blacks opted to run with Tu’inukuafe, Joe Moody and Alex Hodgman.
Moody is unavailable for Saturday’s match due to injury while Hodgman missed out on the selection this year. Tu’inukuafe, meanwhile, missed the All Blacks’ two tests against Fiji after suffering a shoulder injury in New Zealand’s sizeable 102-0 win over Tonga but is now back on deck.
Coach Ian Foster, however, has opted to retain Bower in the No 1 jersey, with Tu’inukuafe set to make his return from the bench.
It’s just rewards for Bower, who only made his Super Rugby debut for the Crusaders in 2019 but has quickly grown into one of the game’s pre-imminent loosehead props.
Senior All Blacks hooker Codie Taylor, who has regularly packed down alongside Bower at the Crusaders over the past three seasons, isn’t surprised his fellow front-rower is making such a splash with the New Zealand national side.
“He’s probably one of the fittest props I’ve ever met,” said Taylor on Thursday. “He runs a bloody good bronco time and just his charisma off the field – he’s a good man.
“And his willingness to learn. He debuted a bit later in his career but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to learn and absorb as much as he can to make him a better player and he’s done that since he’s had an opportunity with the Crusaders and just taking steps forward every year.
“I think he’s settled in quite nicely into the group, without getting comfortable … He’s a great man and he just wants to absorb everything he can into his learning.
“The more simple it is for him out there on the field, the better he plays – and I think we’ve seen that. He’s really stepped his game up in that physical part of it, around his defence and his ball-carrying ability and his scrummaging has been unreal to date. I think he should be pretty confident in his ability to just go out there and back himself and I think we’ve seen that in the first tests that he’s played in, and let’s hope to see it in a big one this week.”
Good luck stopping this loose forward trio, #Wallabies ? #NZLvAUS #BledisloeCup #AllBlackshttps://t.co/YzyxZXEqQ1
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) August 5, 2021
It seems that Bower’s physicality has been the major work-on for the late-bloomer, with Foster also noting following the All Blacks’ second win over Fiji in July that he’d been impressed with how Bower had involved himself in the match – even if he’d been slightly overeager at times.
“I thought George was pretty excited tonight, early,” Foster noted. “He got someone high and he got off the line a bit quick but I’ve just been really impressed the last couple of weeks with his intention to get up and get involved in the collision area
“The scrummaging is going from strength to strength. I’ll give Feeky [All Blacks scrum coach Greg Feek] a bit pat on the back for the work he’s doing in that space.”
For loose forward Ardie Savea, however, Bower’s greatest strength is what he does off the field.
“He’s a real humble man from Taita,” said Savea on Thursday. “I just love that he comes in and he’s a great singer, great performer. So he leads the boys around that and our culture and stuff like that, him and Richie.
“Codes is talking about what he does on the field and the work rate, but he’s a great man in terms of bringing liveliness into our environment. He’s good.”
“I’m his back-up singer. Codes is the dancer,” Savea joked.
Bower will partner with Taylor and Blues tighthead Nepo Laulala in Saturday’s Bledisloe, with the match set to kick off at 7:05pm from Eden Park.
Comments on RugbyPass
We’re building a bridge but can't agree where the river is.
2 Go to commentsfirst no arms shoulder or helmet tackle into his rib cage is going to be so very painful even to watch. go back to RU mate.
1 Go to commentsBulls by 5. Plus another 50.
3 Go to commentsJohan Goosen avatar. Cute. Surely someone at RP knows how to do a google image search?
3 Go to commentsCan’t these games play a little earlier? Asking for a friend.
3 Go to commentsIt’s impressive that we can see huge stadiums with attendance in the 40 000 to 50 000 region. It shows how popular this competition is becoming. What is even more impressive is the massive growth in broadcast viewership. The URC is one of the two best leagues in the World, the other being the Top14.
7 Go to commentsChristie is not Sottish, like the majority of the Scotland team.
2 Go to commentsHold the phone, decline over-rated. Is it a one game, dead cat bounce or the real thing? Has the Penney dropped? Stay tuned.
45 Go to commentsTotally deserved win for the Crusaders Far smarter than the Chiefs who seem to be avoiding the basics when it matters Hotham showed them what was missing and Hannah seems a real find - a tad light but that can be fixed over time
8 Go to commentsGreat insight into the performance culture with Sarries and I predict Christie will be a fixture in the Scotland team now for some time to come. However, he is slightly missing his own point around Scotland “being soft” when he cites physicality examples in defence of that slight. The issue is much closer to the example he referenced around feeling off before a game but being told “it doesn’t matter, you can still play well” by Farrell. Until Scotland can get their psyche in that square, they will carry on folding under extreme pressure…
2 Go to comments> We are having to adapt, evolve and innovate more than when we were in Super Rugby where there was only really one style that everybody had to play to gain the most success. Have = able to? Interesting what that one style might be? I thought SA sides still had bad tours now, or at least bad schedule, months away? Those extra few hours flights have to be a killer though, no surprise to see their sides doing so badly at the start of the season each year. I wouldn’t enjoy that unfairness as a supporter.
7 Go to commentsThe problem for NZ, and Aus, is they ripped up the SR model and lost a massive chunk of revenue that hasn’t been replaced. Don’t forget SA clubs went North because they were left with no choice, Argy unceremoniously binned and Japan cast adrift. Now SR wasn’t perfect, far from it, but they’ve jumped into something without an effective plan, so far, to replace what they’ve lost. The biggest revenue potential now lies in Japan but it won’t be easy or quick to unlock, they are incredibly insular in culture as a nation. In the meantime, there is a serious time bomb sitting under SH rugby and if it happens then the current financial challenges will look like a picnic. IF the Boks follow their provincial teams and head north then it’s revenue meltdown. Not guaranteed to happen but the status quo is a very odd hybrid, with the Boks pointing one way and the clubs pointing the other way. And for as long as that remains then the threat is real.
45 Go to commentsI think Etene has had some good tuition, likely while at the Warriors to be a professional that helped his rugby jump, but he was certainly thrown in the deep end way too early. Should have arguably 20 less SR caps, and therefor a way better record that he does at his age, but his development would have been fast tracked by the need to satiate his signing away from league. Again, credit to him and others that he has done it so well. Easy to fall over under that pressure in the big leagues like that but he kept at it when I myself wasn’t sure he was good enough.
1 Go to commentsAwesome story. I wonder what a bigger American (SA) scene might have mean for Brex.
1 Go to comments“Johnny McNicholl and the Crusaders” save a Penney. Who has been in camp this week and showed them how to play?
8 Go to commentsSo, reports of the Crusaders’ demise / terminal decline are perhaps just - slightly - premature/exaggerated…? 🤔 Will we see a deep-dive into that by the estimable Rugbypass scribes, and maybe one or two mea culpas? Thought not.
8 Go to comments1. The Chiefs are rudderless without DMac, which enhances his AB chances 2. Chiefs pack are powderpuffs. The hard men arent there anymore 3. They had their golden title chance last yr and wont threaten this yr. Gone in second round of playoffs.
8 Go to commentsHonestly, why did you have to publish such a foolish article the day they play us? 😂
45 Go to comments> They are not standalone entities. They are linked to an amateur association which holds the FFR licence that allows the professional side to compete in the league. That’s a great rule. This looks like the chicken or egg professional scenario. How long is it going to be before the club can break even (if that is even a thing in French rugby)? If the locals aren’t into well it would be good to se them drop to amateur level (is it that far?). Hope they can reset from this level and be more practical, there will be a time when they can rebuild (if France has there setup right).
1 Go to commentsWhat about changing the ball? To something heavier and more pointed that bounces unpredictably. Not this almost round football used these days.
35 Go to comments