New Zealand’s rising star opens up on ‘golden nuggets’ he received from All Blacks legend
New Zealand legend Sam Whitelock and All Blacks XV lock Fabian Holland.
Highly-rated Highlanders second-row Fabian Holland has revealed how much he enjoyed spending time with former New Zealand lock Sam Whitelock earlier this year.
Holland, who was included in the All Blacks XV squad for their upcoming tour to Europe, played alongside Whitelock in the legendary All Black’s final professional match in June.
The duo were part of the Barbarians team which faced Fiji in their Killik Cup clash at Twickenham and Whitelock finished his career in fitting fashion as the Baa-baas clinched a thrilling 45-32 victory.
For Dutch-born Holland it was a wonderful experience to be in the company of the 36-year-old who finished his career as the most-capped All Black in history, winning two Rugby World Cups in the process.
“He was awesome for me, he just tried to pass on a few gold nuggets and tried to take me under his wing,” Holland told The Breakdown.
“The whole week he pretty much asked me questions; it was around the time the Super Rugby final was on, unfortunately we didn’t make it of course but we watched the final together and he was pretty much testing me, like ‘what would you do in this situation?’ or ‘what would you do here?”
‘An awesome experience’
“It was an awesome experience, and then to share the field with him, it was a little kid’s dream coming true. It was awesome.”
Holland, who is 22 years old, came to New Zealand from the Netherlands as a 16-year-old and made a big impact during his time in his adopted country. He was called up to the New Zealand Schools team in 2020 before also representing them at U20 level.
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He was initially expected to become eligible for the All Blacks in late 2025, but a World Rugby eligibility change that came into effect on August 1 has changed all that and the behemoth lock, who stands at 2,04 metres tall, was named in the All Blacks XV’s touring squad for their matches against Munster at Thomond Park in Limerick on November 2 and against Georgia at the GGL Stadium in Montpellier on November 10.
“So the rule was always that you had to be a resident of New Zealand for five years,” explained Holland. “So 60 months and high school years didn’t count with that.
“So it was post-high school that you had to be a citizen for five years and then you would be eligible. But they changed it and they changed it to 60 months, so five years being with that rugby union. So that makes high school count as well.
“So that’s how I became eligible and I’m pretty proud of that.”
Apart from being above two metres in height, and being a valuable source of lineout possession for any team which he represents, Holland is also pretty effective as a breakdown exponent and revealed that he enjoyed that aspect of the game.
Enjoys the breakdown battle
“I love being in and around the breakdown,” he said. “Just the physical side of it and throwing your body around.
“It’s a bit of an unorthodox thing being quite tall and being able to get down low and slow the ball down or even get a turnover, I’d like to say I pride myself on that.
“That’s what I do, otherwise just try to work for my teammates and make sure after 80 minutes I know I’ve done everything I can to help the team get a win.”