Adam Byrne has his work cut out for him.
Nemani Nadolo is 21-stone, found pounds. He is 6-foot, 5 inches. He can run 100 metres in less than 11 seconds but usually only needs five clear metres in front of him to do his worst.
He terrorised Leinster in Montpellier, in last season’s Champions Cup.
This weekend, he faces them again. Byrne is his opposite number, on Leinster’s right wing.
The Fijian powerhouse is ready to bring the hurt but he was not in the know about Ireland’s tropical mid-October weather conditions. Before he flew out from the South of France, though, he put the call out.
Trying to pack my bag.. can anyone tell me if it's freezing cold in Dublin?.. 🇮🇪 ❄️😎
— nemzy (@nemani_nadolo) October 13, 2017
This response from a Leinster fan was class.
https://twitter.com/lovesthesteak87/status/918775325357682688
On The Hard Yards podcast, Ronan O’Gara and Stephen Ferris discussed Leinster’s Champions Cup encounter with Montpellier [from 27:00 below] and tried to solve the puzzle of Nadolo.
As Racing 92 defence coach, O’Gara admitted he has yet to solve the Nadolo puzzle yet.
“You can have all the values and culture and work-rate,” O’Gara began, “but how do you stop someone like Nadolo?
“I’m a defence coach. If you’ve a scrum 15 metres in from the left-hand sideline, which means you have a 15-metres blindside on the left-hand side and he plays left wing. You’ve a scrum-down and 16 fellas tied into the scrum. You have a 9 that will track their 9 and then you’ve a 14 facing Nadolo. Like one man cannot stop him.
“Go away and have a look there and I welcome your suggestions on how to stop him!”
Ferris remarked that, every time he watches a game involving the giant winger, Nadolo is bouncing one, two and three men out of his path.
O’Gara believes Leinster will have to “gang-tackle” Nadolo but that, then, options up a whole other world of possibilities to be breached. “I’ve seen footage where they’ve put two on him, and you’ll have to brace yourself for him, even when you’re trying to chop his legs.
“Then, all of a sudden… like he kicks at goal for Fiji. He can places it beautifully on his left foot to grubber it down the wing and, all of a sudden, he has massive acceleration for a 21-stone man and you’re like, ‘Where does he get this from?!'”
Saying all that, O’Gara still reckons Leinster will get the job done at the RDS but he’s not so certain about the return game in France.
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