‘Super-physical’: Houston’s Seth Smith points to US rugby future – and MLR decider | Rugby union

It has been less than two years since Seth Smith has become the youngest player in the majority in rugby and he was only 20 years old this week. Hooker’s birthday fell on Tuesday, during the preparation of the Houston Sabercats for his first MLR championship match, against the New England Jacks in Providence, Rhode Island on Saturday.

Free jacks are looking for a third consecutive title, but in the Sabercats camp, “everyone is very positive,” said Smith, considering the challenge of a team that had previously played three games in the playoffs and had lost them all.

“We have had ups and downs, but … these dams are the ones that count. We beat a very strong team that fought very hard. And Utah, they are very physical, and we have also taken care of business there. ”

In this Western final, Smith marked a vital test. From New England, the dominant MLR team in recent years, he says with Relish: “Now we are at Big Goliath.”

Smith could still play David. But although he is young, he already has a warrior nickname, Viking, thanks to his long blond hair and his prodigious strength.

He was presented to rugby at 11 when his father found the game on the internet, fell in love and found a club, Katy Barbarians, who taught his boy to play. In Texas, football in high school is a religion. Smith excelled in the back for surfishar and also fought but the hardest rugby. He played with the Lions of West Houston and at school and looked at a place at Life University in Georgia, a collegial power, when the Sabercates signed him.

World rugby observers may be invited to take note. Smith is good age for university, the traditional time that Americans have rugby, but he is already playing nine years. More American boys and girls can say the same thing. Smith’s hard athletics style is perhaps about to become a more familiar spectacle in the oval world.

When asked how traditional school sports have helped his education in rugby, Smith said: “Everyone thinks that football is like a direct rugby translation, but there are so many different modifications.”

As an ordeal, he “played the offensive, and I worn from time to time, but I was more a blocker. In rugby, there is no player who only attacks: everyone must be able to attack and defend and be versatile to change quickly.

“One of the things I have done with rugby is, you learn people’s bodies, right?” You understand how people decrease. I like to attack myself. I am 5 feet 9 inches. I have a low center of gravity. If I ever tried a high tackle, I have to jump. situations.

The fight also helps scrolling: “This definitely helps with the legs, with the lower body. As a whore, you need to understand how to use your head in melee, whenever you bind. And if there is one thing that I did very well in the fight, I was very good with the lever effect, using the head and the shoulders – which is very well fighting. “

Smith was a flanker first, but quickly moved from the back of the melee to the front. This helped that in high school, he came to see the weight room as his “safety place”.

“My father is a bodybuilder. In my first year of high school I was going this summer, I and started to raise him. This is a place where you can just rush into something and give it everything you have for as long as you want, and you have nothing else to worry. It’s like entering the four lines [of a rugby field]. You have nothing else to worry, except do your job. And so it’s just a place where I could find safety and safety. »»

Rugby as a dangerous sure space: players know the feeling. Saturday in the Rhode Island, Smith, the Sabercates, the free jacks and up to 10,500 fans – Commissioner MLR, Nic Benson, said that the League thinks that it will be “close” to the sale – will again create such a space.

Smith has done US national teams under 19 and U20 but not yet U23, saying: “I was not invited this year, so it’s a good thing for the chip on the shoulder.” In Houston, he had international talents to learn from the great American flanker Danny Barrett to current sabercates, including the Hooker Samoa Pita Anae Ah-Sue. Houston also has a strong South African influence, through many players and head coach Pote Human, successor to Heyneke Meyer, formerly Springboks coach.

“You watch any South African match, they’re going to do three things,” said Smith. “They will outdo you, they will outperform you, and they will exaggerate you. These are the things they do best, and that’s why they succeed.

“I have always been a super-physical player, to play seven, placing seven brands, in Hooker, that’s all I grew up and that’s exactly the way they want players to play. To integrate in Houston with all the South Africans? I don’t think it wouldn’t be the same thing elsewhere for me.”

Those who wish that MLR would feed more Americans would like Smith a regular starter elsewhere, although Anthem RC, the North Carolina team has formed to align such a local talent, recorded two seasons without victory.

Asked about Anthem, Benson said: “If you look at the objectives of what we have done with Anthem, it was to make young American players more time and exposure to a higher level.

Detailing Smith’s progress in a Houston Heavy team with imports, Benson said: “I think you have to find a balance. You want to have foreign players, but have a learning experience for Americans, especially where you have truly seasoned professionals who lead for example.

“As if you have the experienced veteran that shows the youngest players what it means to be a professional in terms of eating habits, training, discipline, all these things. This is an essential element. You see it in Chicago, you see it in San Diego, you see it in Houston. It is a critical piece.”

Anyway, it is said to be something which, at only 20 years old, Smith should appear in the championship match. Look towards the 10 -year future: in 2035, during the male World Cup After The male World Cup will be held on American soil, Smith will only be 30 years old, an overview of Hooker. If the United States can find more talents, dreams of quarter-finals and more can get closer to the conclusion.

Smith is impatient to go.

“I played my first international match at 15, and I traveled all over the world. I played in Scotland, I played in the Netherlands, I played in Canada, I played in Dubai, I played in Ireland. I played everywhere. So, going abroad is a big aspiration … and obvious to see that I can take this.”