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'They are two of the biggest freak of natures I've come across on a rugby pitch'
By Josh Raisey
Chris Ashton has described his former Toulon teammates Semi Radradra and Josua Tuisova as “the biggest freaks of nature I’ve come across”.
The Harlequins winger provided an insight of what it was like to play in a back three with the duo in the South of France during the 2017/18 season, where Ashton actually broke the Top 14 try scoring record for a single campaign.
Radradra, now with Bristol Bears, captained Fiji to a win over Georgia at the weekend in the Autumn Nations Cup, while Tuisova, now with Lyon, scored one try and set up another for Mesu Kunavula.
“So I played 15 because I knew if I didn’t play 15 I wasn’t going to get in this team,” Ashton said to Jim Hamilton on RugbyPass’ All Access podcast this week.
“You’ve got Semi on one wing and Josh on the other - I had to play 15. If I’d ever catch the ball at fullback, I’d just fling a pass to them, no matter how far they were I’d just throw it to them. They are two of the biggest freaks of nature I have come across on a rugby pitch, especially Semi.
“[Semi] obviously had a big NRL background, so he was in Australia for a long time from a young age learning and being around professional rugby, where not a lot of the Fijians do this.
“So for Semi to go to Oz and get used to training from a young age, it’s now just in him to be like that. He likes training, he likes weights, he likes doing skills and stuff and just has that NRL professional rugby league mentality.
“On the pitch, he would do things that I’ve never seen people do. When people are backing off in defence sometimes, they will wait and wait to try and drift. He would wait and as soon as someone gave him a shoulder he’d just push them over in the wrong direction and go through that space. You’ve got to be thinking a lot through your head to be able to see that and execute it so fast.”
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Go to commentsYes that’s what WR needs to look at. Football had the same problem with european powerhouses getting all the latin talent then you’re gaurenteed to get the odd late bloomer (21/22 etc, all the best footballers can play for the country much younger to get locked) star changing his allegiance.
They used youth rep selection for locking national elifibilty at one point etc. Then later only counted residency after the age of 18 (make clubs/nations like in this case wait even longer).
That’s what I’m talking about, not changing allegiance in rugby (were it can only be captured by the senior side), where it is still the senior side. Oh yeah, good point about CJ, so in most cases we probably want kids to be able to switch allegiance, were say someone like Lemoto could rep Tonga (if he wasn’t so good) but still play for Australia’s seniors, while in someone like Kite’s (the last aussie kid to go to France) case he’ll be French qualified via 5 years residency at the age of 21, so France to lock him up before Aussie even get a chance to select him. But if we use footballs regulations, who I’m suggesting WR need to get their a into g replicating, he would only start his 5 years once he turns 18 or whatever, meaning 23 yo is as soon as anyone can switch, and when if they’re good enough teams like NZ and Aus can select them (France don’t give a f, they select anybody just to lock them).
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