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Thu 16 Jul 2015 | 12:05
Sensational Stepper Nehe Milner-Skudder's Tribute Video

10
Comments

Nehe Milner-Skudder has had such an impressive debut season for the Hurricanes that he has been called into New Zealand's Rugby Championship squad, and although not in Friday's team to face Argentina, the experience can only help him. 

Milner-Skudder, 24, first came to the fore when playing for rugby league side Canterbury Bulldogs under-20s before featuring for New Zealand in touch rugby. He then moved back to local club Manawatu and tore teams apart in the ITM Cup.

Hurricanes saw his potential and included him in their 2014 Super Rugby wider training squad before he became an official squad member in 2015. He hasn't looked back since.

"I don't know how to explain it, it hasn't quite sunk in, but I'm buzzing at the moment," Milner-Skudder said of his recent All Blacks squad call up.

"I was coming back from Palmy and with a bit of flooding going on we sort of took our time. I just walked in the door, turned the telly and heard my name. I was taken aback, it's a bit of a shock," added the player that has had everyone talking this season.

View the hot-stepping, fleet of foot, wing/fullback's debut Super Rugby highlights below.

We've posted another Milner-Skudder tribute, also very good to watch, on page two

credit: worldrugby.co

credit: 7rugbyvids

Posted By: c_gillon

10 Comments

  • 10stonenumber10
    12:28 PM 18/07/2015

    Set piece vs running with it.

    The boks scrum and line out dominates all in the southern hemisphere. Peter De Villiers was quoted as saying "a good big un will always beat a good little un", around the same time they brought in minimum gym weight standards players had to achieve before even being considered for the team.

  • eddie-g
    4:26 PM 17/07/2015

    I agree with pretty much all of this, but I'll offer just one counterpoint. Rugby is as much the national sport of white South Africans*. Yet we spend hours and hours scratching our heads as to why our young players, for the most part, do not have the same skills as our NZ counterparts. It's not simply enough for it to be the national sport, there also has to be a commitment to playing the game a particular way. NZ have that in a way that no-one else does.

    *Not the place here to have a debate about the painful racial history of our country, but suffice to say that historically, white South Africans have had rugby as their game (thankfully now, and to everyone's benefit, no longer to the exclusion of non-whites).

  • 10stonenumber10
    2:13 PM 17/07/2015

    As a player I was fairly talentless, but the schools I went to produced a long list of top players. There was no football at my secondary school, only in 6th form, but there was a rugby option 2 out of 3 terms... Even benchwarmers for the 5th XV could spin a 20m pass off both hands and belt a 40m touchfinder.

    It is true though, training sessions only teach you so much, backyard makes the difference. The only reason my handling skills are as good as they are is because of GCSE/AS/A level Exam Study Leave... dropping a pass in the common room meant noise... and a confiscated ball!

  • drg
    8:54 AM 17/07/2015

    Haha, I missed that, but that's brilliant!

  • stroudos
    8:06 AM 17/07/2015

    Good post DrG.

    To extend the observation to the Pacific islands, did you see that interview with the Tuilagis a while ago where they were asked to explain why rugby was so much more popular in Samoa than football. Alesana deadpanned "have you tried kicking a coconut?"

  • dude
    12:58 AM 17/07/2015

    That's about it. There are not more playing but those that do play, run, pass with a rugby ball from an early age.
    Plus clubs get access to the best athletes being the main sport - although football for kids has larger playing numbers it is not the main sport.

  • drg
    12:50 AM 17/07/2015

    It's been discussed quite a bit on and off round here. Rugby is NZ's first sport, whereas the majority of the rest of the world is soccer... most parks will host groups of 'lads' kicking a football around and playing a game, it's not all that common to see guys throwing a rugby ball around or having a bit of a mess about.

    The beauty of just 'playing about' is that it's not position specific and there is no important result, running around playing a sort of touch, or semi contact type of game will get everyones mind working, traditional props throwing dummies and trying to step, perhaps chipping forward for others, elusive backs doing what elusive backs do, but everyone more or less trying to perform no look passes and horrendous offloads.

    So if THAT ^^^ becomes the norm around parks around the world, then other nations will thrive. The problem most nations have is that kids go to school and automatically 'the fat one' is a prop, 'the tall one' is a lock and that is where they remain for life, forwards don't try to offload, they should take the ball into contact - copy paste copy paste copy paste... same old trudging stuff, which is great when it's wet, slippy etc, but when you try to play an expansive fast game, you rely heavily on just your backs with the forwards staggering about with the fear in their minds that they'll yelled at if they get caught in the back line.... (as is traditional, in traditional rugby...)

  • eddie-g
    10:16 PM 16/07/2015

    The pipe-line of talent is crazy.

    The thing that also gets me is that you never see a someone pull on an AB shirt who doesn't seem like a natural with the ball in hand and fits right into the team. It's infuriatingly impressive.

  • 45678
    8:59 PM 16/07/2015

    Haven't watched much of the s15 this year, but this fella looks like a talent with the ball in hand. Perhaps if he can cut out the one handed forward passes he could make the ABs......

  • drg
    1:57 PM 16/07/2015

    If only the World cup was just about having the most talented players, I think NZ would have it in the bag time after time.

    It seems to me that most teams around the world have excellent players with a few outstanding ones... NZ seems to have outstanding players with a few excellent ones... then of course there are injuries, and most teams replace injured outstanding players with excellent ones... and NZ?? They replace injured outstanding with more outstanding....

    Just ridiculous really...

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