Heading into this season, his third with the province, Alex Nankivell had established himself both as a fixture at ‘12’ and part of the furniture. A typical Kiwi – as in an innately good rugby player and good bloke – he had settled easily into the Munster environment and culture.
His last 32 appearances had been at inside centre, but last week, away to Bath in the Champions Cup, he was relegated to a replacement for just a second time. As had been the case when wearing number 22 in Munster’s win over Leinster at Croke Park, Nankivell ended up playing on the wing.
“I played [there] at Croke Park against Leinster, unexpectedly though,” he said. “I didn’t realise I was covering wing. And I played a little bit in New Zealand, but the game is a bit different in New Zealand. There’s not many high balls and stuff like that.
“So, you don’t really have as much anxiety when bloody Ben Spencer is putting up a bomb on you or something,” he said of the Bath scrumhalf with an ironic chuckle. “But I’ll play anywhere, mate. If I’m on the field, I’m happy.”
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And you believe him. The same as when he says he welcomed Dan Kelly’s arrival from Leicester and the greater competition in midfield between the two and his good mate Tom Farrell.
“It makes you better because you can’t just rest on your laurels,” he added, explaining that Kelly has also brought a different perspective in coming from the Premiership.
“Just around the physical side and defensive side of the game. He’s real clever around that and just systematically how they would defend to, say, how we defend in New Zealand and then to how Munster defend.
“In New Zealand, the way we defended was very outside shoulder and we forced teams back in, whereas here we’re more compact internally, and try and connect and push teams out. And then [in England], they’re just more aggressive and big around the contact area and ball pressure.”
Munster fall as Leinster fail to impress in Europe
Ahead of Saturday’s crucial Champions Cup assignment against Gloucester at Páirc Uí Chaoimh(kick-off 5.30pm), a big focus has been placed on improving Munster’s conversion rate in the opposition 22. Not to mention the special opportunity this move to Cork provides, to both play in front of a record crowd and repay last week’s travelling fans.
Spoken like a true Munsterman, he’s long bought into the province now.
“Yeah, 100 per cent. I’ve got an Irish girlfriend (Kerry), she’s from down in Bantry. We’ve been together for over a year now. So, it does feel like home. It’s always been so similar coming over here, so familiar culturally – the people, the hospitality and the lifestyle. I can definitely see myself staying here a long time.”
Nankivell speaks firstly of the people.
“Everyone’s just good people. They’re not too on their high horse. They say it’s a bit of a working-class team and that’s the way it feels. Everyone’s just humble and there for a good time.
“They don’t take life too seriously. They look after their own, look after one another and they care a lot about one another. That kind of loyalty for the province and the people, and the people who have gone before in the Monster jersey, that’s all pretty special to me.
“I guess coming from New Zealand, a lot of similarities for me, and I guess being at the Chiefs with Clayton (McMillan), a lot of similar stuff there. So, I feel like I just can really buy into that.”
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Deepening this Munster-Chiefs link, head-coach McMillan has brought with him Brad Mayo, who is Munster’s head of athletic performance, while Martyn Vercoe is the team’s manager. Vercoe had been Nankivell’s manager at both Tasman and the Chiefs.
“We’re very close, I’ve known his kids since they were seven or eight years old. He’s more than just a traditional manager. He’s really good at lifting morale around the group and standards, and he’s so organised around different things.
“He even has his own little segment during the week around getting to know the different players in the team and for us as players, getting to [know] each other on a deeper level than just surface-level stuff.
“He chucks them up the front, sits next to them and goes through a few different stories about their life or their upbringing, or things like that. He’s a great man and I know the lads have felt the same, that he’s been awesome.”
Nankivell has not been placed in front of the squad by Vercoe yet.
“It is very vulnerable. Jeez, I don’t know. I’ve said to him if I go up there and he brings up certain parts of my life, I might get a bit emotional. I’m pretty innocent to be fair, but there’s a few things that probably could set me off, I’d say.”
This is undoubtedly in reference to his brother William, who passed away at the age of four due to a rare form of cancer nine months before Nankivell was born. He has a tattoo bearing his late brother’s name on his left wrist.
His parents based themselves in Oysterhaven, up the coast from Kinsale, for six months last season. They painted and landscaped during the week and, at the weekends, went to matches or saw the Ring of Kerry and the Wild Atlantic Way.
They will go to the Benetton game in Treviso in April before revisiting Ireland, while his London-based brother Hugo and his fiancée were in the Rec last Saturday night holding two banners. One said “200 not out” in reference to it being Nankivell’s 200th professional game. The other bore his nickname, Nank the Tank, from his time at Christchurch Boys’ High School
“I had this big growth spurt and in my last year of school; I was probably the heaviest in the team.”
Another unforgettable memory from last Saturday in Bath was the “human tunnel” and “escort” which thousands of Red Army fans afforded the team from their hotel to the ground.
McMillan replayed the video of that to the squad last Tuesday along with a review of the 40-14 defeat.
“When you put something up like that, it actually hurts. It’s something deeper than just you dropped the ball here, or you missed a cleanout there. It’s something a bit deeper than that.
“As a player, I know I don’t want to feel like that again. You know what I mean? They do that for us and then we’re not reciprocating it around how we play. We want to make them proud and we didn’t as a team. We didn’t make them proud in our performance against Bath.
“So, we want to rectify that.”
