PRO 12 LEAGUE:Munster winger Simon Zebo talks to GERRY THORNLEYon his dramatic rise through the ranks as Saturday's big game looms
HE’S BEEN a breath of fresh air in his breakthrough season with Munster. Gifted, born to run, and to run quickly, thankfully Simon Zebo fell in love with the idea of running with an oval ball as soon as he took up mini rugby in Cork Con at eight, and now he’s very much a man in a hurry.
Now 22, engaging and easy-going, his team-mates and coaching staff talk of a much more focused individual this season, and while his conditioning and his defence need more work, his work-rate off the ball and passing have improved immensely. And there’s also, of course, his finishing.
In 13 Pro12 games, four of them off the bench, he has scored six tries along with another three in his first four Heineken Cup starts, courtesy of that hat-trick in stadium:mk against Northampton. A week later, there was also a try in his Wolfhounds debut against the Saxons. Much more of this, and he might even be a bolter for the New Zealand tour. It’s a further measure of this season’s rapid rise that Saturday will be his first Munster-Leinster game. “I have been going to them and watching them on TV up to now but seeing the intensity that they all bring together on the pitch, it is going to awesome. To be involved in that is going to be pretty cool. I’m looking forward to it.
“I love those big games, that is why I play rugby. I love to play against the Leinsters and Ulsters and all these big teams. It is good to play in these pressure situations, that is how you find out how good you are as a player and how you get better. I can’t wait for it.”
The Zebo turbo charger is in the genes. His father, Arthur, hails from Martinique, where he lived until moving to France when he was 19 to do military service.
“He was actually an athlete competing for the Olympics but he broke his leg doing his service in the army and couldn’t run,” says Zebo. “It was the Montreal Olympics in 1976 – he was an 800 metre runner. He dabbled in a bit of sprinting as well but he was predominantly an 800 metre.”
His father, who worked with Pfizers for over 20 years and is now with a French company Yves Rocher, and Cork-born mother Lynda, a manager with Brittany Ferries, met in Paris before marrying and moving to Cork. His sister Jessika is striving to make the Olympic times for the 400 metres in London. “Please God she will be over there.”
The innate speed, he agrees, helps. “It’d be different if I was a prop!” he jokes with one of his ready smiles, and a particular debt is owed to Cork Con servant and talent spotter Charlie Murphy. “He made me take it up. He was on to my dad just to come up for a look. I had just started playing GAA at the time and was focused on the hurling and he made me go up to Cork Con and give it a go. I was in love with it ever since.”
Zebo played hurling with Blackrock up until minors, while his PBC career was unexceptional until his penultimate year when, along with Scott Deasy and others, they beat Christians in the Senior Cup final at Musgrave Park.
After school, Cork Con also kept his career afloat before, via the Munster under-19 clubs and under-20s, he made it into the Munster academy. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Cork Con.”
Many have helped along the way, most obviously Brian Walsh in Con and Tony McGahan and Jason Holland with Munster, while he also has some bloke called Doug Howlett to use as a sounding board.
“Whenever Dougie talks you listen straight away because he doesn’t talk nonsense and he always has the best advice to give you and he won’t talk unless it is needed. So everything he does I’m just analysing him and trying to emulate him.”
As a 16-year-old, Zebo also readily recalls watching the 2006 Heineken Cup semi-final “when Rog scored that try at the last minute and jumped into the crowd. It just summed up the whole rivalry. The passion in his face when he scored that and to see what it meant to the team. That, hopefully, is something we can emulate as a new team. I watched it from home, I was only a young fella.”
The bigger the game, the more it seems to bring the best out in Zebo too.
The biggest of his career so far was that Northampton pool finale which Munster won 51-36. “The expectations and what we had to do to get the win was pretty cool. it was pretty awesome to make an impact on the game and help my team-mates as much as I could. To get a hat-trick was pretty nice for me obviously,” he says, now laughing.
A breath of fresh air alright.
