We already had the pleasure to introduce some of our back line players to you with help of BLT Visuals. This week they portrayed one of the front row players: our prop Ben Campbell (you can watch his video HERE). And of course we took the oppertunity to pop him some questions.
Now when asking a prop which professional rugby player he’d like to be for a day, it will not be too surprising to hear the name of Ox Nche for an aswer. We however dare to believe you would not have guessed Ben’s motivation tough: “I would choose to be Ox Nche cause I would get to do scrum training all day and lift heavy in the gym. This is what my coaches would probably want to hear, but the real reason I would be him is because I would get to eat cake (not that I already don’t).”
You probably know Ben’s father is happy to watch his matches when having the oppertunity. What you might not know is that his dad was quite a player too! Ben told us: “A long time ago he used to play second row and represented Scotland u21 and Harlequins a few times.” “He has always something simple to say about a complex sport. The best piece of advice I’ve gotten
from him was “You need to do more running” after having a particularly slow match. He was definitely right and then the next week I made sure to incorporate more running into my training. It worked out well and after a while I was better to keep up with the game.” Ben thus named his dad as the coach that made the biggest impact on his game. He, with a smile, added ”being a typical forward he also usually has a lot of advice for the backs after every match, but I’m not sure if they would want to hear it from him”
Ben also shared what he believes to be a good exercise to improve your rugby skills:
“Squats, specifically box squats. Keep it slow on the way down, pause once you are
sitting on the box, the explode up. I have found that this is very useful for scrum training and also being more powerful on field in both attack and defence.”
Last yet not least we’d like to share his reply to our question what game has stayed with him and why? ”Beating Belgium for the u20 championship. Of course there’s a bit of a rivalry between Belgium and The Netherlands, but for a chance at a title it brought it to a new level. It wasn’t my best game; I let my nerves get the better of me at some points, and I also forgot how to catch the ball that day. However, we still won in the end and overall I think I had a pretty good tournament. The reason it stayed with me the most is because winning matches like those is what rugby is about. After all the time you spend in the gym and on the field, finally getting something to show for it is great. Then to lift that trophy with my friends at the end of it all left it set in my mind.”
Thank you for sharing Ben. We are hope – and are actually quite confident – there will be more moments like that to come!
Als jij ook zo’n filmpje wil of als je iemand anders weet die dat geweldig zou vinden: in dit artikel vind je daar informatie over.
