Bundee Aki relishing chance to get physical for Ireland again

Animated and vocal, Bundee Aki’s enthusiasm and energy represents a fuel source for team-mates, but it is supplementary to his primary impact – that physical capacity to turn a match. It is something that he’ll be keen to reinforce not for his own gratification but that of the Ireland team at the Aviva stadium on Saturday evening (4.45).

The 30-year-old gets an opportunity following an injury to Garry Ringrose. He partners Robbie Henshaw – for the fifth time – for Ireland head coach Andy Farrell’s 14th match in charge. When all three were fit at the start of the Six Nations, Aki accepted Farrell’s decision to go with the Leinster pairing, but is delighted to be back.

“You love to see the boys play very well, you love to see them flourish; it’s good to watch,” he explains. “Obviously, we can enjoy it as a group together but there’s no better feeling when you’re out there together as a group and playing together as a group, and that’s the thing I miss, being out there on the pitch and sharing the moments with the brothers.”

Preference

His nearest and dearest, literally and figuratively speaking, is Henshaw, with the Athlone man moving to the 13 jersey to accommodate Aki’s preference for the inside centre role. Henshaw has been a standout player in the tournament to date and his former Connacht midfield buddy has been enjoying the show.

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“He is in great form and playing phenomenal rugby. I keep saying it to him every week – I don’t know what he’s doing but to just keep doing it. It’s nice to watch when you’re sitting back on your couch or on the side of the pitch cheering him on.

“We know each other inside out, we’re obviously really good mates off the pitch as well, so we stay connected. I know his family really well, as well as he knows mine, so we’re fairly close to each other. That’s part of the reason why we [gel and] get along so easily.”

Ireland’s creativity in attack has been fitful and lacking fluency at times during the Six Nations, but Aki argued that it is tweaking rather than a major overhaul that will have it functioning smoothly. “I think our attack has been going well; there are just a few little bits and pieces here that we can easily fix up.

“You know, we’ve got a good gameplan, we’ve got good coaching staff, and we fully back them. Our boys 100 per cent believe in the system, believe in what we can do, and believe in the plan that we have.”

Aggression

One of Aki’s many qualities is his physical aggression on both sides of the ball. He is asked, in view of the red cards in the tournament to date – he received one in the Samoa match in the 2019 World Cup – whether it had forced him to curb his natural instincts to hit hard in the tackle.

“Any sort of contact to the head is a red card so I’ve just got to make sure I get the techniques and do what’s right, which is play to the rules and make lower tackles,” he says.

There isn’t a time when Aki appears to lack motivation on a pitch, but one suspects he’d relish a victory on Saturday, and in doing so stop a four-match losing sequence against England.

He’s had the misfortune to have played in all four of those contests: two Six Nations tussles (2019, 2020), a World Cup warm-up match and an Autumn Nations Cup game; 2018 in Twickenham must seem a distant memory.

It hasn’t been a topic of conversation this week in the Irish camp. “They’ve [England] some strong players, guys who are threats all over the park. They played unbelievable rugby last week.

“We haven’t spoken about it [losing sequence] at all. We’ve been just trying to focus on ourselves and how we can better our game week in, week out. We have a good bunch of players that we know can play the best we can [this weekend].”