Feyi-waboso never looked back after Cardiff rejection
England’s newest wing, Immanuel Feyi-waboso, who was born in Wales, has revealed that he has never wondered about the alternative path he might have taken had he been accepted to study medicine at Cardiff University.
Feyi-waboso was not given a place at Cardiff despite achieving three A* grades at A-level. Instead he went to university in England before ending up at Exeter, where he is continuing his medical studies at the city’s university while impressing for the Chiefs, leading to a call-up from Steve Borthwick and an England debut against Italy.
When asked whether he wondered how things may have panned out had he studied in Wales, Feyiwaboso replied: “Not really, no. As soon as I didn’t get in, I didn’t think about it again.”
Warren Gatland, the Wales head coach, in his column for Telegraph Sport last month recalled the moment assistant coach Neil Jenkins learned that Feyi-waboso had chosen to play for England over Wales. “I can’t use the language that he used but it was basically along the lines of, ‘He was born in Cardiff and if he doesn’t want to play for Wales, then he can b----r off ’,” Gatland wrote.
Feyi-waboso could become a third-generation doctor after passing his degree. His Nigerian grandfather, Marcus, is a gynaecologist while his English grandmother, Margaret, lives in Gloucester. Feyiwaboso’s father, Andrew, is an ophthalmologist and the family moved around a lot as a result of his father’s job, leading to Feyi-waboso being born in Cardiff.
“When I came to Exeter my dad was like, ‘Yeah, I’ve lived here too’,” Feyi-waboso said. “He’s been around a lot to be fair, spent some time in Scotland. We settled in Cardiff for a decent amount of time. I was there until I was 15 and I went to school in Bristol.”
Extra attention was on Feyiwaboso last week given his ties with Wales and the 21-year-old admitted that since coming into the international fold he has been deleting Instagram throughout the week, heeding the advice of others in the squad on blocking out external noise. That attention was obviously heightened when Feyi-waboso’s decision to play for England became public after he was called up by Borthwick, which the 21-year-old admits came sooner than expected.
“I thought [the decision] would be a lot further in the future,” he said. “There has been a bit of noise, to be fair. You guys have probably been writing it. I blocked out a lot of it so it wasn’t too bad. I have a lot of good people around me, like family. They helped my decision and definitely didn’t force my hand. It was definitely my decision. Whatever decision I made, they were happy.”
Regarding his move to Exeter, he revealed that Rob Baxter, Exeter’s director of rugby, helped to secure his place studying medicine at the university with Feyi-waboso opting to repeat his first year.
“Rob was really good about it, he kind of told them that was huge. [Medicine] is not something I want to stop. He was all for it, and he made it happen, pretty much. Got me in.”
Juggling the workloads of being a professional rugby player and a medical student is some task, with Feyi-waboso studying in the mornings and late afternoons at university either side of training. “I just kind of enjoyed learning,” said Feyi-waboso. “If I wasn’t playing rugby, my ideal situation would be just to stay in uni, keep learning, keep going.”
Meanwhile, England are confident that bringing Manu Tuilagi back to face Scotland a week on Saturday will not be a risk, after the centre was named in the squad following a groin injury which has kept him out since before Christmas.
Tuilagi is listed as a full participant unlike Ollie Lawrence and Marcus Smith, who have linked up with the squad to continue rehabilitating their respective hip and calf injuries. England forwards Luke Cowan-dickie and George Martin have also been named in the squad for the first time in this year’s Six Nations, as reported on Tuesday by Telegraph Sport.
Regarding Tuilagi’s potential return, England defence coach Felix Jones said: “Manu’s probably a guy who has experienced enough Test rugby. To my knowledge he’s done it a number of times when he’s come back from injury with low levels of game time and low levels of Test game time, but still been able to perform at a very high level.”
Three names dropping out from the 36-player group are Newcastle hooker Jamie Blamire, Northampton back-row Tom Pearson and Harlequins back Oscar Beard.
Given Lawrence’s current status, Tuilagi and Fraser Dingwall would appear to be the frontrunners to start at inside centre. Tuilagi has now recovered from a groin issue which has kept him out since Dec 22, while Dingwall has started for England against Italy and Wales, scoring last Saturday at Twickenham.