Our latest Heineken Cup hero is a bit of a left-field choice, but probably the last man any rugby player would want to be faced with in a one on one situation.
About a month or so ago, a video of USA Sevens player Carlin Isles went viral, showing the former sprinter taking to his new sport with gusto and leaving numerous defenders embarrassingly in his wake on his way to the try line.
Another American rugby international who is nearly if not as fast as Isles and has had a far more lasting impact in rugby is Takudzwa Ngwenya, who once ran the 100 metres in 10.5 seconds, who famously burned Bryan Habana in the 2007 World Cup and whose turn of foot has been frightening opposition wingers in Europe since his arrival at Biarritz in November of that year.
Biarritz are still a force to be reckoned with in the Heineken Cup, but when Ngwenya arrived, they could legitimately claim to be one of the top four or five sides in the competition. They lost the 2006 final to Munster, lost out in the semi-finals in the two seasons prior to that defeat and made the last eight again in 2007, where they were dumped out of the competition by Northampton.
Like Isles, Ngwenya primarily attracted attention for his exploits with the US Sevens side, but he took to Heineken Cup rugby like a duck to water in his opening season in the competition, scoring two tries in three appearances as Biarritz crashed out at the pool stages.
He didn’t manage any tries in what was a forgettable campaign for the Basque side in 2008/09, but both player and team returned far stronger the next season, where Ngwenya scored six tries in eight appearances on their way to their second Heineken Cup Final.
Few who have seen it will forget one of those tries, a quite magnificent effort against Ospreys in the quarter-final in San Sebastian, when Ngwenya received the ball in his own 22 and showed frightening pace along the right touchline to pass no less of men than Mike Phillips, Shane Williams and Lee Byrne on his way to one of the best ever tries scored in the competition.
Munster managed to prevent both Ngwenya and Biarritz from scoring a try in the semi-final, but Biarritz progressed to meet Toulouse in the decider, where they endured heartbreak once again with a two-point defeat in the Stade de France.
Biarritz haven’t reached those heady heights since – they did win the Amlin Challenge Cup last season – but Ngwenya has continued to consistently cross the try line with five tries in 2010/11, four touchdowns last year and one in four games in this year’s competition so far.
With 18 in the completion in total, he’s within five tries of the top ten all-time leading try scorers in the competition, a list populated by players who have played for far longer in the competition than he has.
He seems to have been around for a lot longer but Ngwenya is still only 27 and has plenty of rugby in him and plenty of time to frighten the life out of his opposite number for years to come.
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