Snyman comfortable with fitting in and standing out at Leinster

X-FACTOR: RG Snyman fitting in well at Leinster and comfortable with standing out. Pic: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

It’s been said before, and it’s worth repeating now as the club season narrows down to the sharpest point, that all four of Leinster’s Champions Cup successes were won with the input of some of the best imports ever attracted to Irish rugby.

Players like Rocky Elsom, Isa Nacewa, Brad Thorn and Scott Fardy were intrinsic to all those successes and the bare fact of the matter is that some of the foreign players brought in since their last win in 2018 haven’t been up to that exalted standard.

No-one can question the latest batch.

RG Snyman, Jordie Barrett and Rabah Slimani have all signed on since the province lost its third successive ‘European’ final, in London last May. All three provide class and experience and presence in very different areas of the field.

If nothing else, all of them bring a different set of eyes to a dressing-room that is filled overwhelmingly with men from the same cultural and socio-economic background having come, for the most part, through the highly-efficient private school rugby system.

Take Snyman, and a road that has taken him from Pretoria to Mie Honda Heat in Japan and on to Limerick before landing in Dublin.

“You analyse different teams, you play a different style of rugby and that obviously all contributes to the player I am now,” he said. “The biggest thing I found was working under different coaches and working with multiple people throughout seasons.

“Like, at the start when I did Japan over the Currie Cup season, I had a set of coaches at the Bulls and then a set of coaches in Japan, and then a set of coaches at the Boks. So within one season, you kind of work under three different styles of coaching.

“You learn to be quite adaptable then and you obviously get three different perspectives around the game. I feel like that was definitely beneficial to me.” 

Snyman will bring all these rugby and life lessons to bear again this Friday when Leinster face Glasgow in the quarter-finals of the Champions Cup at the Aviva Stadium, and he has no hesitation in sharing those experiences with his current teammates.

The Springbok has been impressed with the open nature of the conversations at a club where world-class stars and young academy players are all encouraged to give their two cents worth so that the lessons work both ways.

The input of men like Snyman and Barrett and Slimani in all this can’t be underestimated.

Dan Sheehan spoke before last week’s defeat of Harlequins about how Leinster players can’t fall into the trap of blindingly adhering to their systems and always do ‘the right thing’ if it ignores the opportunity to try something off-script and potentially big.

Finding that balance is key. Snyman, of all people, is a brilliant example of the benefits that can come with bringing something different to the table given his incredible physique and that X-factor that comes with a sublime offloading ability.

Irish teams, for all their plus points, are not exactly spontaneous.

“It’s definitely something I’ve come to learn here in Ireland. It’s very structured. Guys are a lot focused on that and then you kind of go into that pattern a little bit more. Obviously I’ve been in Ireland a little bit longer now and then when a guy like Jordie comes in, he looks at things a little bit differently as well.

“Even when Tyler [Bleyendaal, the attack coach] comes in, he coaches a different style. So he has maybe a bit more of a ‘look up, play what you see in front of you’. Or something like that. It’s only an example I’m using now, but I just think if you bring all those conversations and all of those points of view to the table, it makes the squad we have now, it brings the best out of all of us.” 

Could this pinch of something different be the difference between winning trophies this year and falling just short again? Snyman isn’t about to make any bold declarations on that. For now, he’s just happy to be fit and getting game time under his belt.

Signed from Munster on a one-year deal, the two-time World Cup winner has already played 15 times and scored four tries and his importance to Leinster was emphasised late last month when he signed a 12-month extension to his contract.

He is fit, he has fitted in, and the sun is shining this week. All is well.

“Yeah, I've had a great season so far in terms of having fun and getting back to playing, getting some good minutes going and I'm really enjoying the environment. I feel like this is where my game will continue to improve and continue to go well.

“So yeah, I'm very, very happy to stay on.”