West Indian man mountain Kevin McKenzie remembers when he first laid eyes on Broncos captain Sam Thaiday in action.
“Geez, he’s really cool. I’d like to try that,” was McKenzie’s reaction.
As so began the 26-year-old’s transformation from internationally capped rugby union sevens player to a Sunshine Coast Sea Eagle.
Having signed with the Intrust Super Cup team, McKenzie will try his hand at rugby league for the first time next year. He represented his native Guyana at the IRB World Sevens and the Commonwealth Games, and spent the second half of 2011 with the Sunshine Coast Stingrays Premier Rugby Union squad.
It was only after arriving in Australia, to be with Coast-based fiancee Christine Vidler, that he began to appreciate the physicality of league.
Having put out feelers to the Sea Eagles on a whim, he finds himself champing at the bit to play his first game in the 13-man code.
“You need a bit of fitness to play it (rugby league). I started watching it a little bit when I was in England and it was so boring,” he said.
“Because of the weather you can’t play exciting football there. It’s the same with rugby – you have to play controlling football.
“But when I moved here, everyone is a big league fan. I thought, surely I could do that. I would like to play No.12 – that’s one option.
“I was watching a Brisbane Broncos game and I was watching Sam Thaiday. I thought, ‘Geez, he’s really cool. I’d like to try that’.
“But I’d also like to try centre because you have to be a bit quicker. I guess I have to wait and see.”
McKenzie left his home country, population 750,000, for Trinidad as a teenager because of the greater opportunities for rugby union players. He went on to represent Guyana at the Pan American Games, Hong Kong Sevens, IRB World Sevens and Delhi Commonwealth Games.
In 2007 he moved to Ireland to play with the Bective Rangers in the All-Ireland League Cup before being scouted by prestigious Eng-lish club the Leicester Tigers for its Academy side.
In 2009 he played with Bracknell in the National League 3 competition, ending the season as one of the competition’s top-five try-scorers despite playing only half a year.
After spending the majority of his union-playing days in the centres and on the wing, McKenzie expects to find himself in the same positions in league.
He said, however, he liked the idea of playing in the back row and getting his hands on the ball.
“The (Sea Eagles) coaching staff have been pretty good,” he said.
“They have well and truly been teaching me, not so much the rules, but all the techniques, like all the tackling techniques, the wrestling techniques. That’s something new and I’m up for it.
“Scott (Hipwell), the strength and fitness trainer, he’s good as well. He’s a bit mean but I can feel my body changing already.”
(Reprinted from Sunshine Coast Daily)