Exiles chief Kidney hails influence of injured Naholo
London Irish director of rugby has paid tribute to the professionalism of injured winger Waisake Naholo and says the former All Blacks star has made a big impression on the side’s young players.
Naholo, who was a member of the New Zealand squad that won the 2015 Rugby World Cup, has yet to feature for Irish this season after undergoing knee surgery 11 months ago.
The club had hoped he would return at the start of the season only for a series of setbacks to keep him on the sidelines.
However, Kidney said the 29-year-old has been a huge help to the club’s emerging young widemen Ben Loader and Ollie Hassell-Collins and also highly-rated fullback Tom Parton.
“He’s brilliant and I cannot speak highly enough of him,” Kidney said.
“With his rehab he is very diligent and his generosity with the back-three is exemplary and is a hard thing to describe.
“Sometimes with star players everything they do you see.
“But often it’s just away in the background and I don’t think it is any coincidence the improvement from of the back three and the leap forwards they have taken has been with Waisake around them over the last 12 to 18 months.
“There is nothing like player-to-player when it comes to passing things and giving them all sides of the game.
“Sometimes the expression role model is rolled out wily nilly but in Waisake’s case he is certainly one.”
Kidney is hopeful Naholo and Adam Coleman, who is also recovering from ankle surgery, will be fit to return to action before the end of the season.
“Waisake is starting to join pitch sessions now and Adam is just a couple of weeks away from doing that.”
Irish host Bath at Brentford on Saturday at 3pm and welcome back Parton, who has missed the last two matches against Worcester and Sale due to a leg injury.
Sale inflicted Irish’s heaviest defeat of the season last Sunday when they ran out 41-13 winners at the AJ Bell Stadium and Kidney said the team will have learned a lot from the loss ahead of facing a side who play in a similar, physical style.
“They have been in a rich run of form and have a lot of similarities to Sale and it’s a case of us learning from the last day,” he said.
“They’ll use their width a little bit more with the backs that they have and they are another top-four team from last year and we just have to learn our way around those types of matches.”
London Irish team: Tom Parton, Ben Loader, Curtis Rona, Theo Brophy Clews, Ollie Hassell-Collins, Paddy Jackson, Nick Phipps, Will Goodrick-Clarke, Matt Cornish, Lovejoy Chawatama, Chunya Munga, Rob Simmons, Ben Donnell, Blair Cowan, Matt Rogerson (capt)
Replacements: Agustin Creevy, Facundo Gigena, Ollie Hoskins, George Nott, Jack Cooke, Sean O’Brien, Ben Meehan, Will Joseph.
