Benji Marshall goes from zero to 10 in 40 minutes

The famous bravado wasn't quite there a month or so ago, when Benji Marshall first parked himself in the Auckland Blues back line. Having spent the early months of his switch to rugby union conditioning his body like the rest of his teammates, the real test came when the side switched to game-based training early last month. And Marshall stunk it up.

"When I first started, I was so lost," he said. "Everyone was laughing at me ... The first few days of trying to play 10, I didn't know where to stand, I didn't know where to run on to the ball, how deep or how flat to be. Everyone takes their timing off the 10, and the first few sessions, I was stuffing everyone up. I looked like a little kid, with no idea. And I didn't. That's the problem. I had no idea. I think all the boys were thinking, 'Holy hell'."

Laughing stock: Benji Marshall, arriving in Sydney on Thursday, had a rough return to rugby.Credit: Anthony Johnson

What was he thinking? He was frustrated and angry. Yet at the same time, eager to put things right. Before his return to Sydney, to face the Waratahs at Allianz Stadium on Friday night in a Super Rugby trial, Marshall revealed he has found his switch more difficult than expected.

"So much more," he told Fairfax Media. "To be honest, when I made the decision, I knew it was going to be hard, but I thought I could cover a lot of the basics with the stuff that I knew.

"I was way off the mark. I couldn't have been more wrong about anything. But after the first couple of days, I just thought, 'I've got to forget everything I know and open my mind to learning everything new.' It was good for me, because it made me get angry. I wanted to be good at it, and go home and study up harder."

In the learning process, he had to unlearn much of what made him great in the NRL. "Most of the things I've learnt in league, I've had to throw out the window and start again. Forget that I ever learnt that," he said. "The same thing happened when I changed from rugby when I was 15.

"They coached all the rugby habits out of me, and told me they were bad habits. Now I've gone back to rugby, they're taking all of my bad league habits out ... The way you catch the ball and the way you pass the ball ... and the defence is completely different to league.

"Every day, I'm learning something new – the way you defend from lineouts, the way you defend from scrums, where you stand after you kick the ball. It's a completely different way of thinking."

But he is learning fast. Initially, Blues coach John Kirwan was planning to play him at fullback in his early outings. But after training at five-eighth, despite the early difficulties, Marshall mastered the position enough to command it for 40 minutes in the club's first trial, against the Hurricanes last week. "It was, 'Here you go son, have a go,"' Marshall said.

"I learnt more in the first 40 minutes last week than I learnt during the whole pre-season."