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Hulking Irish wing Stockdale reveals Fijian legend he saw as role model

By Ian Cameron

Jacob Stockdale must think this international rugby stuff is a bit of a lark.

The hulking Irish wing is yet to lose a match as an international and what’s more, he’s smashing try-scoring records as he goes.

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He’s the first player ever to score seven tries in a single Six Nations campaign and has now scored eleven tries in just nine appearances for Ireland – already more than Simon Zebo or Luke Fitzgerald.

In fact to find a wing that has try scoring rate as high as the Ulsterman’s, you probably be better off looking to players of Pacific Island heritage that have togged out for New Zealand and the Wallabies over the decades.

Speaking with Stockdale after the match, RugbyPass asked the powerhouse wing was there any player that he modelled his game on growing up and he was quick to name-check a Fijian Rugby great.

“Funnily enough it’s Rupeni Caucau (Caucaunibuca),” said the 21-year-old. “I remember watching tribute videos and highlights of him whenever he was playing.

“He’s probably a slightly different style player to myself but he was always one that I loved to watch.”

Despite only winning seven caps for Fiji, Caucaunibuca is widely considered one of the greatest talents to ever play the game. His club career was a tumultuous one, with stints at the Blues, Toulouse and Agen; but no one that played with or against him ever questioned his almost impossible combination of power, speed and skill.

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England’s World Cup winning centre Mike Tindall once described him as “the best player I have ever played against” while Scotland’s Chris Paterson said of the mercurial winger that: “He can be the world’s best player, the type who can win a game almost on his own.”

The 6’3, 104kg Irish man might not be cut from a different cloth in a physical sense to the 5’10, occasionally 115kg Fijian sensation, but they certainly share at least one in thing in common – both are pure rugby ‘box office’.

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J
Jon 9 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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