Jowitt shrugs off injuries on way to being a better player
But at least the Cook Islander managed to hang around longer than his old Auckland mucker Cameron Jowitt. The 23-year wing forward didn’t even last five minutes.
With 12 minutes left, Michael Cheika sent word that Jowitt was to replace Stephen Keogh but a kettle wouldn’t have boiled in the time the 6’7” flanker spent on the paddock.
Soon after he was replaced by Owen Finegan after a thunderous hit from Agen’s Lucas Ostiglia.
“I just took a bit of a knock on the head,” says Jowitt with more than a hint of understatement. “I’m fine now. I passed all the medical tests.”
Last Saturday’s was just the latest in a long line of setbacks to the Kiwi of Samoan extraction in his second season with the province. Injury has severely curtailed his game time and, with the likes of Keogh and Finegan being parachuted in to Dublin, his absences have been badly timed.
When Cheika and David Knox arrived to take up the Leinster baton two summer’s ago, Jowitt breezed in almost unnoticed in their slipstream, an arrival that was entirely in keeping with his quiet and understated manner.
His CV was modest enough too. A member of the Auckland Super 12 (as it was then) High Performance Squad and the Auckland NPC “A” squad, he spent most of his time avoiding splinters on the bench.
“I played a few NPC games for two years but didn’t get much game time,” he has admitted. “I was battling for a spot against Ali Williams and Bradley Mika and the back-row in Auckland have players of the calibre of Jerome Kaino and Angus MacDonald who were All Blacks, so it was hard to get a start.”
He left New Zealand without ever really making his mark. Google the term “Cameron Jowitt Auckland” on the Kiwi version of the website and only four hits are returned, two of which don’t even relate to him at all. He climbed the order of merit far quicker north of the equator. A quick glance through Leinster’s campaign last year shows Jowitt’s name pencilled at number six for the seminal victories over Bath away, Munster in the Magners League and Toulouse in France.
In that last, never-to-be-forgotten game, it was Leinster’s other flanker, Keith Gleeson, who was showered with all the plaudits for his endless hounding of the unfortunate Frederic Michalak but Jowitt was prominent too and even ended the day with a try.
Despite his injuries this season, he claims he is a far better player now than he was then. “It’s just from training every day, getting stronger and being able to work with Cheika and all the coaches we’ve got. I’ve definitely improved over the last 12 months, as you would.”
In his Auckland days, he lined out alongside Wright for the second stringers so Jowitt has spent much of the last two weeks helping his old colleague settle in to city life in Dublin. Without a game in six weeks, Wright suffered badly in the tight against Agen at Lansdowne Road but, such is the apparent paucity of cover at prop, that there was never a question but that he would play some part again today.
Frighteningly, Brian Blaney said earlier in the week that Agen weren’t as physical as he had anticipated in Lansdowne Road but that he expected them to turn up the thermometer in the home leg.
“I don’t think he needs any tips,” says Jowitt. “If anything, he should be giving me some tips.
“He’s 28 and very experienced so he’ll handle it well. I’ve got every confidence in him.
“I’ve only played twice in France myself, in Bourgoin and Toulouse. That was obviously a huge game and I would compare it to the Munster match in terms of the hype and stuff like that. It’s the same game though. You’ve still got to run and tackle and do your job in the lineout. Just take it as another game.”
It appears he has taken to Ireland with ease and homesickness has never seemed to be an issue.
New Zealand, it seems, is not currently on Jowitt’s radar. Whether he ever appears for Auckland or another club in his home country again remains to be seen.
“My old coach at Auckland (Pat Lam) was the Pacific Island coach and I saw him when he was over here. There’s been a few people asking about me at home as well, which is nice to hear.”
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