Just over twelve months ago, a fresh-faced Fabian Holland lined-up at Allianz Stadium in the famous Barbarian F.C black and white hoops alongside All Black legend Sam Whitelock.
Holland, as he has done with virtually every rugby outing, impressed against Fiji that day last June.
Roll on to this July and Holland will make his full international debut for New Zealand, lining up against France this Saturday.
The dutch-born lock has an incredible back story and rise to the top of the game. He watched the All Blacks sevens team train in his hometown of Castricum in the Netherlands in 2014 aged 11 and moved to New Zealand five years later to pursue his dream of playing professional rugby – and look where he has ended up now!
“It’s movie stuff, isn’t it?,” said All Black head coach Scott Robertson.
“He’s pretty excited. From Zeeland to New Zealand.
“He’s come a long way. It’s a great story. Pretty single-minded from a kid to make that call to come over and represent another country in a game he loves – and he saw the All Blacks as the ultimate.
When looking back to his first taste of international rugby with Barbarian F.C last June and working alongside Whitelock, Holland said:
“He (Whitelock) was awesome for me, he just tried to pass on a few gold nuggets and tried to take me under his wing.”
“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.”
“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?’
Barbarian F.C would like to wish Fabian the best of luck this weekend – we will be watching and cheering!
