'I went from watching him on TV to looking at him next to me on the training pitch'

According to the old adage ‘you should never meet your heroes’ but Coventry Rugby’s summer signing from Saracens Obinna Nkwocha is happy to testify to a very high-profile exception.

The 21-year-old lock spent six years with the Fez Heads, the last two of which were as an ambitious junior pro in the club’s senior academy.

And during that time he received huge amounts of support from perhaps the biggest name in English rugby – Maro Itoje.

Brad Shields on potential All Blacks call up now that he’s back in NZ

Brad Shields on potential All Blacks call up now that he’s back in NZ

He said: “When I first joined the senior academy it was a bit weird as I went from watching him on TV to looking at him next to me on the training pitch and thinking ‘Oh my God that’s Maro Itoje.’

“For two years he was a teammate – I didn’t get to play with him in a match but I trained with and against him a fair bit.

“On the personal side he’s really nice and was extremely good to me. He always had time for me if I wanted a conversation about something and he helped me a lot.

“He is always open to give advice or help out with things and especially towards the end of my time there I used him as a mentor and someone I could seek advice from.

“Training with Maro was incredible but also in a way quite difficult as he does things his own, unique way and he’s so good and so consistent he’s unstoppable. He’s very focused and precise and extremely hot on the detail of lineout attack and defence as you’d expect.”

Nkwocha admitted he had little knowledge about his new club, his teammates or even the Championship this time last year, but has been delighted that his subsequent research on Coventry proved accurate.

“I was released by Saracens at a really bad time as three clubs had just gone under and the size of the player pool was ridiculous,” he said. “There were lots of players with Premiership experience looking for clubs so it was a difficult time.

“My knowledge of the Championship wasn’t great, but when my agent mentioned Coventry as a possibility I sat down and watched a few of their games.

“I was immediately struck by what an enjoyable brand of rugby Cov play. It is really free-flowing, everyone gets the chance to attack and offload and I thought being part of that would be really good.

“I also looked at Coventry having one of the top forward packs in the division and also them finishing third last year and now I’m really glad I made the choice I did.”

Following their recent win at Bedford, Coventry topped English rugby’s second tier for the first time this century and ahead of upcoming meetings with London Scottish and Cornish Pirates Nkwocha believes their New Year’s resolution should be ‘more of the same.’

“We had some hiccups in the autumn but now it feels like we’re going in the right direction and we need to keep building on that,” he said.

“I’ve never played against Scottish but they took down Ealing recently and will no doubt be looking for another scalp.

“We know what we’re capable of so it’s a question of being consistent and keeping to our structure. Rugby doesn’t have to be complicated – if things are going well don’t change it, keep building on it and keep our performances consistent.”