Rugby: The rookie lock with a little extra spring

Romana Graham says he's working hard to perfect his lineouts. Photo / Getty Images

It is not surprising, given his schooling, that Romana Graham's sporting ambitions once had more to do with one-handed dunks than two-handed takes.

An old boy of the now defunct Church College at Temple View, just outside of Hamilton, basketball loomed large over the school, a legacy of the American roots of the Mormon church.

Church used to carry all before them on the basketball court and Graham was one of the reasons why.

Tall and superbly athletic, he made the New Zealand under-16 and secondary schools teams before deciding to take rugby a little more seriously in his final year of school.

It wasn't long before good judges started noticing his aerial ability was as useful on the footy paddock as it had been on the court.

A two-year mission in Western Australia in 2005-06 stalled his nascent rugby career and just when things started rolling again in 2008, he ruptured a disc in his back.

Last year was not without injury problems, he tore cartilage in his knee, before making it on to the field for Waikato in the Air New Zealand Cup.

Given that he is just 23, the rest is fairly brief history, culminating in his Super 14 debut last week against the Force. Tonight the Hautapu clubman makes his home debut against the Reds.

"It was pretty cool getting a game last week," he said. "It lived up to my expectations. Yeah, I was stoked.

"The most noticeable difference for me was the heat, playing in Australia. It was a big step up, it's a lot faster, a lot more physical around the rucks.

"It's huge step up from Air New Zealand Cup."

It might seem a little strange that the most noticeable difference for the Flaxmere-born Graham was not the physicality but the temperature, but when you think about his limited time in the game you understand he has rarely played under the summer sun.

"I haven't played too much sevens," he said. "The hardest thing I've had to do is the pre-season in the summer. That's all I can compare it to."

The second row was expected to be an area where they would feel the heat against the Force, with old head Nathan Sharpe up against two rookies in Graham and Culum Retallick.

"We're good mates," Graham said. "We're both fairly new to the Chiefs so we thought it was pretty cool just our young fellas going out there without much experience, just doing it.

"He [Sharpe] wasn't too lippy with us. I'm sure that's a good thing."

In terms of mentors, Graham has a good one in Chiefs' assistant coach Keith Robinson. "He's always trying to perfect the lineouts. It's still a big area of our game as locks so I've been told to keep working hard on my lineouts."

While Graham's rugby history is short, he has the pedigree. His father, also Romana (pronounced with short "o" and "a" sounds), was a back-rower who played 43 games for Hawkes Bay between 1989-94 and six games for New Zealand Maori.