Narawa ‘excited’ to return
Emoni Narawa looks down at a left leg he still doesn’t have full feeling in, the numbness a lingering reminder of his Rugby World Cup injury heartbreak.
After a slipped disc in his back that agonisingly − literally as much as figuratively − ended his tournament before it began, the All Blacks winger is geared up for his first game since a memorable test debut.
Having been forced to watch from the sidelines through the opening month as he slowly made his way back to full-enough fitness, Narawa now finally gets to lace up again, set to play from the bench in the Chiefs’ round-five Super Rugby Pacific clash against the Highlanders this evening.
“Excited, that’s probably the word,” Narawa says of the emotions ahead of his return. “It’s been, what, eight months.”
Indeed it has, since that July 8 season-opening All Blacks test against Argentina in Mendoza, when he iced a fine debut with a late try in the 41-12 victory.
Duly making it into the 33-man World Cup squad, it was September 6 and two days out from the tournament opener when disaster struck.
“It was just the last five minutes of training, just running around, and then ‘bang’, just gone like that,” Narawa recalls.
“I didn’t really know what was happening, no feeling in my left leg ... all I was thinking about was being out of the World Cup.”
Sent for a scan, the bad news was confirmed, with Narawa’s disc found to be hitting a nerve. There was no sugarcoating such a blow, for a man who had burst on to the scene in such storming style with the Chiefs in the months before.
“It sucked, man,” Narawa reflects. “The dream was over before it even started. The timing of it was pretty tough.”
And so instead of lighting it up on the grandest stage, Narawa was forced to head home and plug away with rehabilitation, having to go back to basics in many respects.
“I was still able to walk, but the feeling on my lower left side wasn’t there. It was all dead, pretty much.
“So I pretty much had to start back from the bottom and do a bit of strengthening on my left side.
“I got the whole feeling in the left leg about two months later. Hopefully it’s sweet now, but I’ve still got some bits in my left leg that I can’t feel at the moment.
“But I can’t dwell too much on the past, I guess you’ve just got to look into the future, control what you can control, and it is what it is.”
Along with the support network he had at the Chiefs, Narawa found comfort in his recovery from family, notably partner Danielle and daughter Milla, to whom he dedicates his craft.
“She’s nearly 2 now, she’s full on,” Narawa says. “She’s what motivates me and drives me.”
Back running with the squad in the new year, Narawa has still had to bide his time, staying back from the team’s pre-season trip to Japan and then still needing a few more weeks after that to continue strengthening the body.
“It’s just one of those injuries that you don’t want to rush,” he says. “It was pretty much a call from the medical team just to wait.”
But now it’s time to unleash. And doesn’t coach Clayton McMillan know it.
“He’s back to his kind of annoying self at training,” McMillan says. “He brings a lot of energy to our environment.
“He can do some things that other people just can’t do, and we saw plenty of evidence of that last year.’’
Indeed, Narawa’s rise to the national ranks came off the back of a season where, despite missing four games (logging 13 appearances), he finished in the competition’s top-10 for tries (ninth-equal with eight) as well as metres gained (fifth with 1015), clean breaks (sixth-equal with 15) and defenders beaten (fifth with 62).
So what kind of expectations does Narawa have on himself?
“For me it’s just go out there and have fun, pretty much,” he says. “First game back, just enjoy it ... we’ll see how the lungs go.”