Interview Matavesi enjoying life as

Hooker’s back story is a wild ride that features early rejection, Navy recruitment and suffering World Cup crime

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‘Ihave had a very busy life, put it that way,” says Sam Matavesi, the Northampton hooker, once described by World Rugby as “the most interesting man in rugby”.

The potted history is – deep breath – released by Exeter academy, picked up by Plymouth, called up by Fiji, joins the Navy, answers injury crisis SOS at Cornish Pirates, converts from back row to hooker, sent off at Twickenham, briefly joins Toulouse, called up by Fiji for the World Cup, has all his gear stolen and then answers another SOS at Northampton Saints, where he has been a “revelation” this season according to Chris Boyd, the director of rugby.

Matavesi, 29, is at pains to emphasise that he remains a Navy serviceman and will rejoin the forces when he retires. “I owe them so much,” says Matavesi, who is also keen to repeat Boyd’s assertion that he is the third-best goal kicker at the club behind Dan Biggar and Piers Francis. “Please get that in the article, the backs will go nuts.”

It has been a wild ride underpinned by a mixture of resolve and serendipity. That goes all the way back to 1985 when his father, Sireli, was touring Cornwall with the Fiji national side. Local club Camborne liked what they saw, so Sireli swapped a farm on a remote Fijian island for shifts down a tin mine in South Crofty. It was at Camborne RFC that he met his wife, Karen, who was the sister of a team-mate.

That heady mix of Fijian and Cornish genes has produced three Premiership players: Sam as well as

Josh and Joel, centres for Bath and Newcastle, respectively. Sam’s path to the bright lights of professionalism was far from straightforward. At the 2015 World Cup, he was watching Josh represent Fiji while playing for Camborne in South West One.

Playing on that same stage in four years’ time seemed a fantasy after slipping out of Exeter’s academy. “I wasted an opportunity,” Matavesi says. “Once you get into the academy, I thought the hard bit is over. It has taken me five, six years to realise the hard work is only beginning.”

Bounding between various parttime Cornish teams and with a baby on the way, Matavesi thought he was turning his back on rugby when he joined the Navy at Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose.

It proved the making of him. “It has definitely helped me,” Matavesi says. “If you did not have an ironed crease in your trousers, you are getting a bollocking. It is a totally different mindset from being a rugby professional, where so much is done for you.”

A few months into his new job, he received a call from Alan Paver,

‘I wasted an opportunity. It has taken me five, six years to realise the hard work is just beginning’