Afgelopen zaterdag nam Amir afscheid als international van het Nederlands Team. Amir is al vele jaren een belangrijke peiler van het 1e team en ook van het Nederlands team. Via onderstaande antwoorden kunnen hem nog wat beter leren kennen!
My secret tip to improve your rugby skills are two things:
Firstly, make skill work competitive and fun. You should enjoy training and feel good. Go with a team mate and do 1:1 exercises, make kicking and passing drills into games. Secondly, Mistakes will happen to everyone so don’t be afraid to make them, that’s what training is for, but know why something didn’t have the desired outcome and keep working on it. The best things in life take time.
From which coach/player have you learnt the most and why?
Every coach is different and has different qualities and ideas about the game. It’s important to always be open for these different ideas. Over time these different influences will make you a more allround player. However, you are part of a team and the coach cannot smell if players don’t agree with stuff. So, be critical and question certain topics id you think it is not in line with the strengths of the team. this can help the team in the long run. Big tip: have these conversations before or after trainings or even on the phone on other days. During the training is not a right time (I’ve learned the hard way🤪).
What is the best game you played so far/which game has stayed with you and why?
Some games everything seems to work. The game for me was Poland away in 2016.
It was in a huge stadium filled with wild Polish supporters, who are great btw! Everything seemed to work for me and even when I had a brain fart moment and no-look round house kicked the ball over the top of the ruck the ball still bounced up perfectly in the wingers hands. Any other day that ball would gone somewhere else but in that game
It seemed like a stroke of genius.
Two games that have stayed with my are the 2013 national champions final with HRC and the 2020 promotion game against Belgium with the Dutch team.
The final in 2013 was crazy! We played a star studded Hilversum. The game went up and down with both teams making in characteristic mistakes and in the end after 80 min it was 0-0. Which was insane. Then in the overtime we managed to get some good territory and crash over the try line twice.
This was my second season as a senior player so having this wild experience early on has definitely shaped the rest of my career.
The promotion game with the national team in 2020 was special for another reason. It was ofcourse during the pandemic and this was an awful time for most but for us it was almost a blessing in disguise as we could commit to a couple of months of training to work towards this goal. We would travel to Amsterdam several times per week, get tested every training, quarantine if someone got a positive test. But in the end all this brought us closer together as a group and come the game we where a very cohesive team. The game is one of the toughest I played and when I got subbed I could barely stand. But when we kicked the ball out after 80 min and win the game the ecstasy was unparalleled, all the hard work had payed off and for the first time the Netherlands could go up into the REC.
