Source :- THE AGE NEWS
Josh Canham was as surprised as anybody that he had a fan club waiting for him in Osaka. The shy Wallabies forward had just hopped off a bullet train from Tokyo when a few young ladies with signs, photos and presents emerged.
As amused teammates hurriedly got out their phones, a red-faced Canham thanked his admirers and posed for some snaps. The big lock has never lived in Japan, but he met the same fans while on an Australia A tour in Osaka last year, and later with the Wallabies in Tokyo.
“I can’t really explain it,” Canham said later. “I’m not sure exactly where it’s come from. I met them at the games last year and they were so friendly and respectful and giving me gifts and stuff, so it’s pretty cool.”
Canham is big in Japan, clearly. But after his feats with the Wallabies in July, it’s not just Japan. Canham’s profile is getting big all over the globe.
After playing two Tests for the Wallabies last year, the 25-year-old was called into the starting team for the Nations Championships, and in Tests against Ireland, France and Italy, he excelled. It was a contentious selection call by Joe Schmidt, given his Reds teammate Lukhan Salakaia-Loto had been in strong form.
But Canham proved Schmidt very right. Running a dominant Wallabies lineout, working hard and showing great ball skills, Canham looked more like a 35-cap veteran than a five-Test newbie.
In the big win over Italy, Canham was named man-of-the-match, with dominant form and a record to boot: he became the first second-rower in 126 years of Wallabies history to score three tries.
“I’m very aware they came off the back of a big forward-pack performance, and I probably cherry-picked a few of those and got lucky,” Canham said. “I’m not making five tackle-busts and running 50 metres. You can’t get too carried away.”
No-one puts down distance-per-try in the record books, however. Just ask his Japanese second row rival on Saturday: Aussie-raised Jack Cornelsen. His surname is famous in Australian rugby due to his dad Greg, who amazingly scored four tries against the All Blacks as a flanker in 1978. The less-remembered part of the story is Cornelsen ran a total of five metres in scoring those tries.
“I had a lot of positives to take out of it, for sure,” Canham says of the July Tests. “But I had a few negatives I’m trying to work on as well. I am very keen to keep improving.”
Canham’s form was good enough to earn selections from many pundits in their World XVs based on the first three matches of the 2026 Nations Championships.
Former England No.10 Stuart Barnes was one. He wrote in the London Times: “In Josh Canham they have a lock with the ability to contribute tries … but more eye-catching is that he possesses an exquisite pair of hands, allowing him to shift the ball from the breakdown into open space, beyond the claustrophobic clutter.”
Barnes isn’t the first, and won’t be the last, to laud Canham’s handling skills. The 119kg big man is routinely called “a baller” by his teammates. It’s not just a compliment, it’s the truth.
Growing up in Melbourne, Canham played high-level basketball until his late teens, as a power forward and centre. At one point he contemplated a future in hoops instead of rugby.
“Basketball and rugby were the two I was playing most. And I probably played a lot more basketball than I did rugby,” Canham said. “I played for the McKinnon Cougars back in Melbourne. That was my Friday nights and Saturday nights for a very long time, which was a lot of fun. I enjoyed it a lot.”
Canham eventually chose rugby when drafted into the Melbourne Rebels academy, but the fact he ended up playing the 15-man game is mildly remarkable given all the other sporting paths he was encouraged to pursue with his 202cm stature.
Canham’s parents Jeremy and Julie are both English – his father played for Northhampton in the 1980s – but the family moved around the world due to Jeremy’s job with Caterpillar, the construction and mining machine company.
Josh was born in Peoria, Arizona, and also lived in Switzerland and Singapore before finally settling in Melbourne at the age of eight. He played any sport going, but rugby only really kicked off later for Harlequins and at Brighton Grammar School.
That was to the distaste of the school’s AFL coaches, who were keen to get their hands on the promising ruckman who was running around in the school’s rugby teams.
“Everyone was saying AFL because of how crazy it is in Melbourne. But I didn’t want to do it just because everyone was doing it. I really enjoyed the skill in contact side of rugby,” Canham said.
“My dad playing rugby was a good connection between me and him. Rugby at my school wasn’t anywhere near as big as AFL. There would have been four divisions of AFL, but only one or two of rugby. But I just enjoyed it more.
“And also, my brother rows for Australia, so the rowing coach really wanted to get me doing that as well.”
Big brother Ben Canham has been in the Australian rowing team for four years, and rowed at the Paris Olympics in the men’s eight. He will row in the four at the World Championships in Amsterdam later this month.
Josh had the right dimensions for rowing, too, but he did one year and didn’t see a life on the water.
“I enjoy ball sports a lot better than repetitive movements, so it was between rugby and basketball right until I was 18,” he said.
“When I started to get thinking seriously, I didn’t see myself making the NBA, but I saw myself possibly making Super Rugby. So that was the decision.”
All those years of basketball didn’t go to waste. Far from it. The skills from that sport proved a perfect foundation for Canham in rugby, where big men are usually more reliant on power and size than touch and quick feet.
All four are a rare package, but that’s what was on display from Canham in July. Not just in Canham’s lineout dexterity in July, but also the rubber-armed passing behind him at the line, hitting playmakers in the now-ubiquitous second-wave attack shape. Watch Jock Campbell’s try against Ireland, for example.
“All the things that don’t usually come natural to a bigger guy, playing basketball and other sports, definitely helped me,” he said. “The ball skills that you have in basketball, a lot of stuff with rebounds and your footwork, when you’re dribbling, like first step, being quick, catching rebounds, I think all that kind of stuff helps heaps.”
Canham played for the Junior Wallabies in 2021, and debuted for the Rebels a year later. He was earmarked as a Wallabies prospect early on, and added to his value by becoming a lineout caller under Geoff Parling.
To overcome his quiet nature, the coach made him go behind a wall to shout out the calls to teammates. He now calls lineouts for the Wallabies.
With an English passport, Canham turned down approaches from Northhampton but was almost lost to Australian rugby when the Rebels struggled through their last season in 2024. Canham was offered good money in Japan and considered leaving, but he chose to stay and move up to Queensland under Les Kiss.
He debuted in Wallabies gold within four months, and though a second Test would only come around a year later, Canham is now off and flying. He knows he made the right calls.
Rugby, and Australia.
“I’m very, very grateful I did stay,” Canham said. “This is where I’ve strived to be for a very long time. Now I want to put in performances every week so I stay here.”
