John Afoa

You'd just go to that table because you're comfortable and you knew the guys and it didn't matter if it was coaches or players, you'd just fill that gap until the next table was full.

There was no rules around it.

There was no like, oh look, if that seat's not taken, take it.

And I think the toughest part is identifying it, maybe.

You know what I mean?

When you're in the mix of it, you just don't know.

You're sort of head down, you're doing your work, and you don't pick up on those smaller things.

And it won't be until someone from the outside sort of picks up on it.

And that's why maybe the beauty of having a guy like Ted is going to be around.

um cheap ferries with his pension from waiki you know what i mean so travels easy enough on his gold card so he's going to be around the team a lot um to like you know have that a view have that opinion have the he knows what a good culture looks like he knows what a good team looks like feels like smells like acts like um so you can just have that feedback for the coaches who are going to be solely focused on maybe the week to week of the game and the coaching side of it

Well, I think he's already got the respect of the whole team straight away.

You can see that when he walks into a room and he draws attention.

Same as Richie did.

But they're totally two different characters.

Not like I've had a lot of time with Vardy, but seeing him and meeting him a few times, he can be the loud guy, can be the entertainer.

He's got a lot of stuff going on as well off the field.

So if I was talking to him, I'd be like, oh, you know, you know you've got the swing of this team, you know you've got the influence.

Just make sure that you don't drag someone to a place where they're not comfortable yet or they don't know how to act yet because they're still learning their trade or they're still learning the way, what kind of sort of week it looks like for them around the off-field stuff.

And I'm sure he's had that when he's been at the Hurricanes or was at Moana.

So I think he'll have good players around him as well to help just settle that team