“Bundee Aki made me cringe a little bit, at how much he was going at it”

"We had Bundee Aki commentating the whole of the game, at the weekend."

Bundee Aki has returned to rugby in top form and helped his Connacht side off to a winning start to the 2020/21 Guinness PRO14 season, in Galway, last weekend. Aki scored two tries for Andy Friend's side as they defeated Glasgow Warriors 28-24 in front of a couple of hundred socially distanced fans at The Sportsground. However, it was Aki's chat, rather than his try-scoring brace, that appears to have unsettled one Glasgow player more. The Ireland centre is an extremely vocal presence on the pitch - as we noted after Connacht's final game of last season - and he kept up the chat at the start of the new season. Glasgow and Scotland back-row Ryan Wilson remarked, on The Offload podcast, how Aki was acting as on-field match commentator for the entire game. "He was on good form," Wilson commented. "Jesus, he was a terror!"

"It was weird at the weekend," he continued, "because Bundee Aki actually made me cringe a little bit, at how much he was going at it. "I even asked a couple of his teammates, 'God, you boys must be struggling with him going at it'. "There's a good way to do it and then there's a bit were you're like, 'Come on, rein it in a bit, pal'."

Former England captain Dylan Hartley was all for Aki being loud and chippy. "They're competing, they're IN the game and they love it," he said. "They're not turning up and going through the motions. It means something." "He's always chirping," Wilson added, "and there is a good side to it. You get it with guys like Owen Farrell - constantly going at each other - but by the end of the game, it is like a bit of a laugh. There's only so much you can keep going, in each others' face, until you just crack up." Aki and Wilson - either with Connacht, Glasgow or on international duty - are not due to meet again, on the pitch, until 2021. Whenever they do resume their rivalry, it will be one worth tuning in for [with the volume way up].

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