The five best recruits of Super Rugby 2014

There were some dynamite recruits this year in Super Rugby and I don’t just mean local players being awarded Super Rugby contracts and confirming their promise.

I’m talking about players from outside the system being brought in—the kind that would have had other coaches slapping their foreheads by the end of the season and thinking: why didn’t I think of him?

And pity the coach that let a 2014 star go.

5. Shane Christie   (Highlanders)

A late bloomer, the 28-year-old qualified builder and openside flanker was with the Crusaders last year but Matt Todd started in every game but one, when Christie got to run-on against the Force. He wasn’t even on the bench in the other games because Todd played for 80 minutes most of the time and they didn’t carry a reserve opensider.

But the Tasman Makos’ skipper got a new lease on his rugby life when Jamie Joseph picked him up for the Highlanders for 2014.   Joseph liked his relentless and tireless style and played him in 16 of The Clan’s 17 games—and only two of them as a reserve, preferring him to the excellent John Hardie when both were available.

 Shane Christie – got a new lease of life at the Highlanders

Being fast off the line he made 20 tackles in a match more than once and was also in the high teens a few times. That helped him to make the second-highest number of tackles of any player in the regular season of Super Rugby this year.

The All Black selectors obviously have a high opinion of Christie also. With Crusaders McCaw and Todd busy at the moment he was chosen to attend an All Black camp to for opposed training.

4. Kurtley Beale   (Waratahs)

The inclusion of KB in this list may seem to be cheating because he was returning to the same Super Rugby team which he started playing for a few weeks after his 18th birthday.

He had left the Waratahs to play in Melbourne and nobody could blame him because he could earn $200,000 more there than he could with his home team according to Bret Harris of The Australian. This was because the Rebels were given a concession to hire ten foreigners in 2012—but regardless of what they paid them, they would be charged only $147,000 each under the new salary cap regime.

This gave the the Rebels a leg-up because it left them more money available to pay Aussies like Kurtley Beale and James O’Connor without breaching the cap—provided they found the cash to do so.

Beale parted company with the Rebels last year after some off-field discipline issues and everybody thought it was a good thing that he should return to his home city where he had supporting family and friends.

It seemed that hiring him was a no-brainer, but Beale had off-field issues with the Wallabies too. If he didn’t behave himself the Tahs could find themselves suspending a player after the the season had started, and people would be pointing the finger at coach Michael Cheika for taking a bad risk and wasting a squad spot.

Kurtley Beale – his performance is contagious and so is his attitude

But it turned out well for the affable Beale, his mates in the squad and the fans. Chosen as an inside centre this year there has hardly been a better 12 in the whole tournament. He made a few bad choices on the field including some low-percentage passes, but his ability to be a circuit-breaker and to combine so well with flyhalf Foley have been significant factors in the success of the 2014 Waratahs.

When asked what it’s been like to play with Beale this year team mate Adam Ashley-Cooper said: “Awesome, absolutely awesome […] the form he’s been in in the last couple of years to the form he is in now—it’s been a great turnaround and it’s a great story.”

He’s in a really good head space, he’s maturing as a bloke […] as you can see his performance is contagious and so is his attitude; so he adds a lot to this team and a lot to the culture.

Well done to Michael Cheika, who made the final decision on Beale.

3. Nemani Nadolo   (Crusaders)

In the Super Rugby rookies article we’ve already talked about the big winger who was born in Fiji but was raised in Queensland since he was a baby—no doubt a big one—and that his dad played for the Reds.

Nadolo, the cousin of Lote Tuqiri, played for the Aussie Under 20s and came to Sydney.  He was with the Waratahs in 2009 but injuries that year didn’t help him to get him on the park. They didn’t help him to get in the 2010 Tahs squad to replace his cousin either and nor did the arrival of Drew Mitchell.

Nor were other Aussie franchises interested in a big fast lad who couldn’t read the game as well as he can now and missed out on too many chances to contribute over 80 minutes. Moreover his handling skills faltered too often at critical moments.

At the time some people thought he should have been persevered with but he went overseas, unwanted, to play in France and England where his progress was problematic on and off the field.  He found his niche in Japan in 2011 and that must have been the right place for him to grow as a player.

It would be nice to have him now but, in hindsight, it would have been about three years before he showed the kind of stuff he is producing for the Crusaders currently. Aussie coaches picking their squads for 2010 wouldn’t be second-guessing themselves now about snubbing him then.

 Nemani Nadolo – the power runner that Blackadder needed

Other Super franchises in the three countries could have signed him up for 2014 from Japan when he finished his season for the NEC Green Rockets, but it took Crusaders’ coach Todd Blackadder to see the value.

NZ Super Rugby teams don’t recruit a lot of foreign players but Blackadder was looking for a power runner who could break the line to augment his stable of skilled backs. He didn’t hesitate when Nadolo’s coach at NEC, ex-All Black Greg Cooper, recommended him.

When Nadolo was signed Blackadder explained:

We are looking for something just a little bit different, a little bit of X-factor, and this guy has got it. He is an absolute hulk of a man, yet he can fly down the field like you wouldn’t believe for a man that size.

Nemani Nadolo has lived up to the Cooper recommendation. He has made more clean breaks than anybody else in the competition and is just one behind Israel Folau in the number of tries scored.

Look for him to be named as the number 11 in many of the Super Rugby teams of the season that will be named after the final.