Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
Josh Canham reckons his English parents were about “50-50” when it came to who they wanted him to play for, but it’ll be one proud towering Australian who’ll take the field in gold at Twickenham against England on Sunday.
For that, the Wallabies can be grateful as the 2.02m lock with the cosmopolitan and multi-talented sporting background has proved himself as one of the most significant breakthrough acts for Les Kiss’s outfit this season.
The Queensland Red has impressed all observers, even selected in ‘a world XV’ by former England star-turned-journalist Stuart Barnes after his early standout Nations Championship games.
That included Canham becoming the first Aussie lock ever to score a hat-trick of tries in a single Test, against Italy, before later starring in the Wallabies’ win in Argentina.
Now as the established line-out caller and a tight-five regular, the 25-year-old second-rower – brother of an Olympic rower – is looking forward to a first Test in his mum and dad’s home country.
“They grew up in Peterborough,” said Canham, explaining how his rugby-playing dad Jeremy’s job with a Caterpillar truck company had him globe-trotting as a kid. US-born, he lived in Switzerland and Singapore before the family settled in Melbourne when he was eight.
Dad had represented English club Northampton, where current Wallaby James Ramm plays, and there was a suggestion that Canham, who has an English passport, might get snapped up by the Saints too in the early stages of his career.
“I talked to Northampton, it was really appealing to come over, but I wasn’t ready. And there’s so much opportunity in Australia, and I didn’t want to give away the opportunity to play for the Wallabies,” he explained.
“Although I’ve two English parents, I felt Australian and I am Australian, so playing for the Wallabies has always been my dream. My parents are pretty Australian now too, we’ve been there quite a while. They were 50-50 about who I played for.”
A long time ago, it was 50-50 which sport this gifted athletic specimen might play too.
Basketball was his first love, his school coaches thought of him as an AFL ruckman in the making and he even had a fish-out-of-water year as a rower trying to follow in the oar-strokes of big brother Ben.
“I really love basketball and I was all right, but you know it’s not a sport for you when you’re fouling out every game, so you’ve gotta play something a bit more physical.
“But now playing rugby, the things that do really correlate are that line-out jump, line-out catch, and offloading ability.”
All were in evidence in July as Canham began to feel he belonged at international level, doing an eye-catching job amid the imposing void left by Will Skelton’s Achilles injury.
“There’s always something in the back of your head, like impostor syndrome, but I tried to just put that out of my head for those games and focus on what I could do,” he shrugged.
“And now I’ve played okay at this level, it’s going to give me confidence to build on that. I’m not going to take a step back now and be comfortable; I just want to strive to be even better.”
He knows the Wallabies’ pack will have to be better against England where they got rolled to a 25-7 defeat in the mauls last year.
“I’ve been watching them for a few years now, so to finally play in Twickenham will be amazing,” mused Canham.
“Last year, it stung the group quite a bit how we defended those mauls so we’ve fixed that.
“This year, we’ve taken a step forward in our set-piece and we want to show that against a good set-piece team like England.”
