sThe biggest name of the English Rugby Union will be Salford’s frontline and center on Friday evening. Malo Itsje, Jamie George, Ben Earl and Tom Willis all start for the Saracens, with Tom Curry, George Ford and Luke Cowan Dicky among others putting sharks for sale. Most 20-year-olds invited to mix in such a noble company feel badly threatened.
However, it is becoming increasingly clear that the young Asher Opoku-Fordjour is a different gravy. As anyone who saw his eye-catching performance against the Harlekins last weekend knows, his strength and blocking presence with the ball is quite something. “If there’s something he’s tracking well last week, isn’t he?” Rugby Shark Director Alex Sanderson nods.
In fact, it gently puts it down. Opoku-Fordjour is the youngest English prop in history to have already won an international cap, and highlights exactly why his impact in the sale’s 43-29 victory. Is it really going to burst through the midfield like the centre of the center and run away like a half dozen tacklers? After that, would you try it on a good scale? “Did it go really well?” the powerful “baby” shark says with a laugh at his memory. “There were some special moments that I remember.”
This raises old questions about younger players right after outstanding performances. Can they replicate it, especially with such a vital piece of equipment? The winners will be pretty odds-on to make the playoffs. There will be quite fewer losers. Unlike some of the more freer premiership contests this season, this has a decent gritty feel.
Therefore, it is quietly clear to find Opok Fordur seriously for a fight. “The team knows that we come out very physically and they have to move forward towards us. They feel they have an extra advantage over us. So, what will his mind be like in the very important first scrum over Sally’s Pack with serious weight? “In my head, I’m ‘I want to dominate this.’ In the first scrum you want to give everything you have. But it says, “How are you going to control this?
The props of the thought man, the sounds and the dynamic things. His ability to play both Tithead and Loosehead and his periphery of the field have been previously referred to by Sanderson as “as unusual as teddy bear shit.” That impressive package places him one of the promising English advance early poses with real possibilities: Opoku-Fordjour, Henry Pollock, Afolabi Fasobton, Junior Kpoku et al. Let’s say last year England’s Under-20 World Cup victory had an exciting foundation.
But for the time being, Opoku-Fordjour’s toughest opponent is his kitchen cooker, as he pursues a target weight of 115kg, which he believes is best suited to his top-level ambitions. Raised in the Midlands, his relocation north to Manchester means that he will no longer be able to rely on his mother’s Ghanaian influenced cuisine. “I’m not the best chef, that’s the problem,” he confesses. “But I’ve been working on my skills and I’m getting better. The other day I had sweet potatoes, mince, some eggs and broccoli. That was good.”
But Sanderson is wary of this issue – “Sometimes I have to send him home with food” – and it sees it as part of the learning curve that every young player has to negotiate. While paying his players an epic dividend against Quinn last week, that’s not always possible. As Sanderson puts it, “What we found with the younger players is that it’s not just a rest that they develop. The minds expand, they come back and they get better again.
The UK is clearly thinking, even if Sale prefers to wear three of him while fantasizing Opok Fordur as a loose head. What’s fine is that for a short period of his time in the academy of the wasps, he was at risk of wasting waste. “When I was in college, I was in the ace program for hornets. One of my coaches kicked me the butt. He said, “You’re talented, but you’re not working well. I think that’s what I needed.”
He now appears as a full-fledged English International, having made his debut on the bench with Japan last fall. They were educational, especially in Northampton’s fierce defeat last October. “I played a few games when I was probably a little frustrated. Northampton’s game was pretty tough, I lost my head a little. My mental side is getting bigger.
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As the youngest of four siblings, Opoku-Fordjour is at least used to standing up for himself. His oldest brother is an artist – “I don’t have the artistic side, I think it got lost somewhere” – the other played for Coventry in the Championship and there was a lot of play that day. “They threw me a bit and I don’t think I’ve ever won. But I want to see how it’s going down now.”
But the more pressing concern is to curb Itoje, George, Earl, Willis, and co. After years of Saracen, Sanderson knows exactly what’s coming. “I’m at that facility, and I understand that they and we are not just teams who have found their form to win the Cup, but also teams that continue to improve at the back end of the season.
However, the sale forward has been flexing his muscles recently, and Opoku-Fordjour doesn’t take one step backward. “We’re definitely peaking at the right moment, and our fans are very nervous because they’re extremely helpful and give us the energy they need each week. The premiership is very tight. It’s about which teams can consistently do good.
