Lealiifano enjoying Waikato environment

DONNA WALSH/The Waikato Times

WATCHING: Christian Lealiifano's Brumbies coach Andy Friend has been keeping an eye from afar on his young five-eighth.

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Christian Lealiifano's Brumbies coach Andy Friend has been keeping an eye from afar on his young five-eighth via television and giving him feedback.

He would have liked what he saw on Saturday night when the recently turned 23-year-old played a key role in Waikato's 36-27 ITM Cup victory over North Harbour at Albany.

Lealiifano's skill, pace and anticipation at second-five made him the standout player as the Waikato backs started to put some dangerous attacks together and his combination with the consistently strong-running centre, Save Tokula, was impressive.

"The Brumbies coach watches it on Foxtel over there and he just rings me up with a bit of a review and gives me a few pointers to work on, as well as Stormy (Waikato backs coach Scott McLeod) and Chris Gibbes, who are helping my game as well," Lealiifano said.

Auckland-born, Melbourne-raised Lealiifano, who is here on a one-off, one-season contract with Waikato as part of his return from injury, said he was loving playing in New Zealand's national provincial championship.

"It's been awesome; I couldn't ask for any better. The environment is good and I'm really enjoying being a part of it.

"We're just building on some consistency now, which is exciting." Combinations were starting to gel and Lealiifano said he was finding it "pretty unreal" to be running around in the same team as All Blacks such as Liam Messam and Richard Kahui.

Messam said it was a rare chance for Waikato players to get to play alongside a player from another country who had experience with a strong Australian Super 14 side.

"He comes in here and I guess he brings a strong insight into how the Australians play and just lends different opinions and a different voice, which is good for this team," Messam said.

Lealiifano thrived on Saturday night's running game and scored his first try in red, yellow and black by following up a clean midfield break by Tokula and receiving an overhead hook pass.

"I think it's a definite strength of ours [attacking wide through the backs]," Lealiifano said.

"We went back to reviewing our season from five rounds in and we found our backs are a definite strength so why not use them.

"When they give us the ball we try to do the best with it because the forwards are giving us such a good platform, so we just have to try and make the best of it and thankfully enough it's working for us." The backs had been working with McLeod on running straight lines and all the other little things that provide space for the threequarters to attack in.

"It's really working. You find it quite easy to play when you do some stuff at training; that you work on quite hard and then go out to the game and it comes off.

"It's very satisfying."

But the latest victory didn't come easily and Lealiifano certainly felt the big hits out there on North Harbour Stadium.

"[North Harbour] were really physical, mate."That's how they are and they were playing for their season pretty much so they came all out."

- © Fairfax NZ News