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Locking master-class

New Zealand Dominion Post
15 July 2005

Answering a radio ad has given Nathan Coleman the rare chance to learn from some of rugby's greats. He talks to Toby Robson.

Nathan Coleman's not waiting for someone else to kickstart his rugby career.

At 2.08m tall the young lock has been turning heads in his first season of Wellington premier club rugby with Marist St Pats.

But after breaking a leg last year the 23-year-old is making up for lost time.

So when former All Black Murray Mexted's voice crackled over his car radio earlier this year Coleman picked up the phone.

"I heard this ad with Murray Mexted on the radio saying he had John Eales, Martin Johnson and Ian Jones as coaches and he wanted tall locks.

"I called him up and said, `I might be the guy you are after'.

"I told him the teams I'd been in, and stuff like that and he said, `that's not bad', but when I said I was 6'10 he said, `Shit!, you sound like my man'."

The result is Coleman has spent the past two weeks at Mexted's International Rugby Academy of New Zealand in Palmerston North under the tutelage of Australian legend John Eales and former All Black Ian Jones.

Next week he will go one-on-one with England's World Cup winning captain Martin Johnson.

For Coleman it's part two of a process he hopes will help him realise his rugby potential.

"It's only really in the last two or three years that I've started to take rugby seriously.

"I just want to see how far I can go. I don't want to die wondering."

That's unlikely. In February he competed in the gruelling Coast to Coast, putting himself through the 243km cycle, run and kayak to rebuild the fitness and confidence lost when he broke his leg.

"It was something I wanted to have a crack at when I finished rugby, but I think I probably need to lose about 15kg to be competitive.

"It was something I knew if I could do that I wouldn't have to worry about my leg when I returned to rugby."

The Paraparaumu College old boy has been making an impression in Wellington's Jubilee Cup competition this year, and at the end of the season he will head to Italian Serie A club Colorno.

A Wellington Colts representative in 2002-03, he says his time at the academy has made him set his sights higher.

"Just working with those guys has been a massive learning experience . . . being able to draw on all their experience. They are so good at simplifying things," he said.

"A lot of the game in lineouts comes down to beating your man on the ground and in the air . . . but a lot of the time we spend too much time making it difficult, doing silly fakes."

Technical skills aside, Coleman said the biggest thing he had learned from spending time with Eales, Jones, former South African coach Nick Mallet and former Wallaby halfback Nick Farr-Jones was to make the most of life.

"Nick Farr-Jones is obviously a guy who has tried to squeeze, in his words, every drop of lemon out of his life as he can.

"You don't want to look back and wonder how good you could have been.

"This course is good for those things you learn what you have to do to push yourself further. They give you the tools to push on from here.

"Getting the technique right is helpful, but if you don't do the hard work it comes to nothing."

Coleman's doing plenty of hard yards, taking time off work as a pricing analyst at French bank BNP Taribas to spend three weeks at the institute commuting to Wellington for Marist's trainings and games.

Jones said the Wellingtonian had done the right thing by seeking specialist coaching.

"Club coaches are an important part of the country's rugby fabric, but they normally know one position and that's their own one.

"They have a general understanding of the broader game, but people who are passionate about their position can't necessarily offer the expertise to everybody.

"Here you are gathering a wealth of information in a short space of time.

"I'm not so sure that we are coaching new things, just explaining the basics and things that worked for us and others around us in the team situation during our careers.

"He's (Coleman) certainly got all the right physical attributes . . . he's in a fortunate position to get coaching one-on-one, and get the tools to succeed."