News

Nonu staying focused on basics

August 11 2008

When New Zealand take on South Africa at Newlands this Saturday All Blacks centre Ma'a Nonu will be looking to eradicate the basic errors from his game.

If the All Blacks can muster their first away win in this season's Tri-Nations in Cape Town then they will find themselves in a dominant position heading into their final fixture, a tricky away game against Australia.

Nonu, who came in for heavy criticism after the 34-19 defeat against Australia, turned his game around to produce a vastly improved performance in the following week's victory.

Despite being happy with his efforts at Eden Park, which included two tries, Nonu stressed that the horrors of Sydney will always serve as a reminder to him that if you don't focus on your game things can go very wrong.

"For me personally, I dropped a few balls in Sydney," Nonu told Yahoo!Xtra.

"I guess that resulted in a few errors as a whole team. I probably had to lift my game in Auckland and just do it for the team and the coaches.

"I was pretty stoked I didn't make a mistake or drop a ball, because you get teased about it when you get home.

"I guess I didn't really look after the ball in Sydney.

"One time I got it from Andy (Ellis) and (Luke) Burgess tackled me and I knocked it on. The other time I thought about trying offload before I tried to get through the contact.

"I tried to offload to (Daniel) Braidy and knocked it on.

"It is just probably doing one job at a time instead of trying to think about doing a break or making a gap for someone. It is just the first job really."

Following the defeat in Sydney there were several strong calls for Nonu to be dropped, all citing his lack of kicking ability as the main factor.

Whilst Nonu has won rave reviews for his destructive running game it is no secret he lacks any real option as a kicker, heaping the pressure on Dan Carter at fly-half.

But Nonu stressed he was working hard at his kicking.

"I guess I try and practice," he said.

"It is pretty hard when everyone says I should be kicking. I guess the coaches gameplan is just letting DC (Dan Carter) kick.

"I am working on it, but at this stage it is just really practicing. Personally I have to apply it to the game, it is like anything else in your game when you try and bring a lot of strings to your game.

"You just have to do it in your game. It is easy enough to do it in your game."

Nonu admitted some of the criticism was stinging, but he was confident he was working on a kicking approach which would benefit the All Blacks and help share the load with Carter.

"I hear a lot of stuff out there," he said.

"It is hard to take, but for our game-plan, DC is doing the kicking. I just have to keep working at it."