RUGBY: GERRY THORNLEYfinds the dashing Leinster fullback cuts quite a dash off the field as well, as he revels in life as husband and father of twin girls just as much as he delights in being part of Joe Schmidt's crew
THE SUN is bouncing off their perfectly-manicured back garden as Isa Nacewa bounces his 15-month-old twins, Mia Rose and Ellie Milika, on either arm.
Wife Simone dangles keys behind the camera to catch their wandering intention.
Helpfully too, a wasp hangs in suspended animation overhead, much to Mia’s fascination. All in all, life seems pretty good hereabouts.
The Fiji Rugby Union recently sent out letters to their all their qualified players sounding out their availability for the World Cup, and are seeking a reply by next week. Once capped for a couple of minutes by his father’s country at the 2003 World Cup, the 28-year-old Aucklander will politely decline. “I’ve committed myself to Leinster.” End of story.
The morning after celebrating Auckland’s 2003 NPC final win in Wellington, he naively took a flight to the World Cup as a late Fijian replacement and then played the last two minutes of their final pool game against Scotland.
C’est la vie.
“It’s just part of the story, you know. I look back on it, I had a good week in Aussie and that was it. No regrets at all. It’s just something that happened but I’m loving every minute that happened after it, playing Super 14s and then loving my time here. I probably would have stayed on (if Fiji qualified). Who knows what would have happened? But the right decision was to come over here and I haven’t regretted one bit of it.”
It’s Easter weekend, and Isa Nacewa has been spared the Magners League trek to Aironi. There’ll be one of the regular family treks to Marlay Park instead. Born at 33 weeks, Mia and Ellie “are loving” the good weather.
They’re too young for a long haul to New Zealand, so they may hire a villa in Tuscany or even stay put in Ireland to check out the west coast for the first time.
He describes their current home as “a bit of a half-way house” for family and friends, and helpfully, Simone’s family have visited, as have Nacewa’s dad, Isa senior, and his mother, Barbara, who came over for their first visit to Europe when the twins were eight weeks old.
Ellie and Mia have “completely” changed his life. “They’re your number one priority, that’s it. Everything is about them now; you’ve got to make all your decisions for them. It’s not often I’ll wake up on Sunday hungover anymore. I’d rather be out with the girls and that’s just the true fact of it. It’s more exciting taking them to the park and watching them grow, so it is life changing. There’s the odd sleepless night but as parents you learn to cope.”
Both on and off the pitch he cuts quite a dash, yet as well as being a family man he’s down-to-earth, chilled, ultra dedicated and very popular with team-mates. And if ever a player deserved a weekend break it’s Nacewa, having played in every single one of Leinster’s 27 competitive matches prior to the Aironi game, as well as pre-season friendlies, and started all but one of them.
As the regular chants of “Eee-sah, Eee-sah” suggests, he’s generally played pretty well in them too.
In the front room of their impossibly tidy Churchtown semi-D, he keeps a watching brief some Saturday mornings on the Super 14, perhaps with Mia or Ellie on one or both of his arms, looks at the empty seats in the stands, and it only makes him feel more fortunate.
“Empty. Empty. And that was what it was like when I left. Even against Treviso I think we had 14,000 and that’s in the middle of the Six Nations with no internationals. At the NPC final in 2008 before I left, there was 9,000 people at Eden Park. And that was a final.”
“I love the RDS, I love the little picket fence around the outside, I’ve got friends staying at the moment and they loved it; everyone singing along. They haven’t been to a game like that in New Zealand for 10 years.”
They fairly ripped in to him over the “Eee-sah, Eee-sah” chants, though.
And it’s for days such as today that Nacewa first decamped to Dublin three seasons ago. “It’s as close as you can get to Test match rugby. That atmosphere in the Aviva is electric. It’s just amazing what comes out of it. It’s a good time to be involved in Irish rugby. I love it.”
He enjoys the “buzz around the team” and healthy competition for places, which, like much else, reflects well on Joe Schmidt, the one-time Auckland Blues backs coach whom Nacewa once described as “Mr Rugby” and the biggest influence on his career during their three years working together (2005-07).
His one-time mentor gives players the confidence and the freedom to play.
But he’s also changed. “He’s very different,” says Nacewa of Schmidt. “In New Zealand it was around the time that Carlos (Spencer) was still there and he couldn’t really stamp his authority the way he wanted to and I think if he did we would have ended up with the trophy.
“Coming here, everyone thought he might be a bit of a lightweight, not being head coach, but he threw everyone off guard as to how much authority he commands. He puts guys on the spot come Monday morning. You just can’t hide it with the video these days so and he’ll pick you out if you’ve been hiding. It puts a lot of pressure on you. You don’t go missing in the game and it’s worked too.”
He talks about the “huge legacy” left by Cheika, the intense physicality they began to bring to every game under him and how Schmidt has “taken the bull by the horns and really just kicked it on another gear”.
Nacewa also talks at length about how much the players are “excited about coming to training” and how it’s never a race to return to the changing room. “Everyone has to be able to pass the ball and it’s a good thing too because there were just so many opportunities that we didn’t take because couldn’t pass the ball or wouldn’t pass the ball.”
True to Schmidt’s word to improve passing and finishing, Leinster’s try tally has increased from 51 in 28 games last season to 68 in 28 games so far.
Nacewa accepts that even he has improved his passing, witness the way he put Luke Fitzgerald over in the corner two weeks ago against Ulster, and his kicking. On arrival at Leinster it seemed he just threw the ball in the air and swung his foot. “Oh God! No, kicking was definitely something to work on,” he admits with a broad smile. You think of the little grubber off the outside of his foot for Shane Horgan’s try in Thomond Park four weeks ago.
For this improved accuracy and expanded repertoire he thanks kicking coach Richie Murphy. “He’s one of the best kicking coaches I’ve been with. He still beats us in all the competitions. It’s another work-on. I’ve put a lot of work in, just a couple of times a week getting out with Richie. I got a big shock as to how far behind I was in the kicking when I got here. Every one of the backs could kick a long way and very well, and I was just way off the pace. I probably hid behind Luke McAllister a lot during those years and with Nick Evans in the last year I just didn’t really need to kick.”
Having played across the Leinster back line, save for scrumhalf, it would also appear as if fullback is his best and most influential position.
Granted, Leinster’s superb counter-attacking game is as much the collective state of mind and work-rate off the ball as it is Nacewa’s ability to weigh up his options and invariably take the right one.
“Working with Shaggy (Shane Horgan) and Luke, we are reading each other a lot better now, and playing more as a unit and I think that’s showed over the last couple of weeks. We pride ourselves on trying to take every ball on the full and grass cover, and the young guys have bought into that too.”
He looks at the young players coming through in awe, and then he looks at some French clubs like Toulon and wonders how they can have an identity. To be one of the select few overseas players amongst team-mates such as Horgan, who would “die for the jersey”, is, he says, “awesome to be a part of”.
In the first of a renewed three-year deal, to see out his career here would suit him just fine. “Five seasons here at Leinster I’d be happy. I wouldn’t really want to go anywhere else after that.”
Any decisions then will be dictated by what’s best for the girls, and he may start his own business after rugby.
“I definitely won’t be a coach. I could be a manager of a team. I wouldn’t mind doing the organisational things behind the scenes but no, I wouldn’t be one to coach. A very tough job.”
Coming here, it helped that the Euro was very strong (“at the time” he chuckles). Unless you’re an All Black the financial rewards for Super 14 player are not excessive and about 20 of the 27-man Auckland squad which won the 2005 and ’07 NPC titles was retiring or seeking pastures new. “So I thought it was the perfect time to leave.”
He used to think they played too much rugby in the Northern Hemisphere, but not any more, and he likes the seamlessness of the Leinster season. And then there’s the Heineken Cup. “I said that to someone a couple of weeks ago that it’s the best competition in the world. You just can’t beat it.
“Every game, they say it’s Test-match intensity and the whole structure of it is perfect, and pretty much if you don’t win your pool you aren’t going through. There’s no other competition like it.”
The quarter-final against Leicester – when Simone attended a Leinster game for the first time this season and saw hubby score Leinster’s try – was “the most physically bruising game we’ve played this season. I’ve never been so sore after a game.”
And next up, for light relief, the boys from Toulouse. Last year’s semi-final defeat over there remains vivid. “It was a big-time low. We thought we were prepared but we just weren’t ready for what they brought. They played typical Toulouse rugby and we didn’t really have a look in that match. Definitely a score to settle.
“I look at other French teams and you see the strike pattern and you sometimes think that if you can attack their strike power then they have nothing to fall back on. Whereas Toulouse have got every position covered well and it’s not as if there’s two playmakers making all the decisions for the team. Across the board they’re all smart.”
He and Leinster also have the memory of eventually beating Leicester in the final two seasons ago. “Mate, nothing beats winning it and I think that fuel burns inside you to win it again.
“I can’t picture anything but trying to win it, and doing everything we can to win it, because it’s all a bit of a blur that game. But you remember the ecstasy you had afterwards and that’s what you want to get again.
“And you remember how low it was to make it all the way to the semi-finals last year. You just put everything into the whole season for that and you came up short. You just don’t want to have that feeling again.”
