As well as advice, Woodburn, along with hooker Jack Yeandle, has handed Ridl a nickname; ‘the Ostrich’.<\/p>\n
“It’s because I’m taller, a bit lanky, pretty quick, long strides,” says 6ft 5in Ridl.<\/p>\n
“I think that is what they were going for.”<\/p>\n
There is another aspect that makes it apt. Ridl has come out of Africa.<\/p>\n
Three months after he was born in south London in 2005, Ridl’s South African parents returned to Cape Town to be closer to family.<\/p>\n
They, along with the rest of Ridl’s family, are still out there.<\/p>\n
His younger brother Will has recently signed for the Durban-based Sharks after tearing it up in the same school side that Campbell was once part of.<\/p>\n
“I think he wanted to come over here, but he got a really good deal at the Sharks,” says Ridl.<\/p>\n
“The guys in the club have seen a few videos of him and say they ended up with the worse brother!”<\/p>\n
Ridl needed the nicknames and such teasing to draw him out of his shell. He admits as a “really quiet, reserved guy” he struggled at Chiefs in his first few weeks after arriving in 2024.<\/p>\n
Managing the step up physically and mentally from university rugby was hard as well.<\/p>\n
“I’m down on Exeter’s website as being 90kgs (14st 2lb) – I’ve put a bit on since then, but one of the toughest things currently is keeping the weight on.<\/p>\n
“The nutritionist just said eat as much as you can – everything and anything – so it’s kind of nice, but also kind of tough at times.<\/p>\n
“And being in a ‘uni’ mentality coming to this, you don’t take it as seriously as everyone else. But as soon as you start playing for the Chiefs, you have to lock in to the plays, your role and keep clarity. It is mentally draining, but I’ve stuck to it.”<\/p>\n
It isn’t just his mind that Ridl has had to keep locked. Studying marketing and management, he still lives with fellow students. The night before games, as his house-mates head out on the town, Ridl has learned a routine.<\/p>\n
“Sometimes they mess around and try to wake me up, but nowadays I lock my door so they can’t get in,” he smiles.<\/p>\n
On Ridl’s last visit to the Rec, he endured his lowest moment in a season of highlights.<\/p>\n
Three minutes into January’s regular-season meeting with Bath, Ridl chased a box kick and, with his eyes locked on the ball, blundered into an airborne Henry Arundell.<\/p>\n
Arundell crashed to the turf and Ridl was dispatched from the pitch with a red card.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As well as advice, Woodburn, along with hooker Jack Yeandle, has handed Ridl a nickname; ‘the Ostrich’. “It’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":732284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-732283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/732284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}