FORTUNE TELLER
Ireland’s Aki back on top after low of quitting rugby to work in bank
BUNDEE AKI does not strike you as the tearful type – but he admits his unlikely Lions call has tipped him over the emotional cliff edge.
If he is picked to play against Japan at Murrayfield on Saturday, it will mark the culmination of an extraordinary journey from teenage fatherhood via dead-end Auckland bank job into the most exclusive club in British and Irish rugby.
Every squad member’s story is unique but none is quite like that of the 31-year-old, and its latest chapter is one that even Ireland’s midfield hardman finds hard to comprehend. “When the team was announced, I certainly shed a few tears with my wife and my parents on the phone,” Aki said.
“Just talking about it now, I’m getting a few goosebumps because the sacrifices we have made as a family have been unbelievable and this is it coming to fruition.
“I have a lot of people to thank, especially my wife, who has sacrificed a lot to enable me to play pro rugby.” Aki’s promise as a schoolboy in New Zealand landed him a rugby scholarship to Truro School in Cornwall but he dropped out to return home when he learned his girlfriend was pregnant. Life was turned on its head and he set out to earn an honest wage – first as a labourer and then at the bank.
“At the time, I had a newborn and I had to make a decision on whether I wanted to pursue a career in rugby,” he said.
“At the end of the day it’s about my family and my kids.” A year in, as a young father with another child on the way, he was slowly ballooning inside his suit, with rugby an increasingly distant memory, when a famous face appeared at the cashier’s window – Tana Umaga. The All Blacks legend was coaching Counties
At the end of the day, it’s about my family
Manukau and had popped in to make a withdrawal.
Umaga wanted him to give rugby another go with his province. Aki, incredulous at the offer out of the blue, signed up – and, a decade on, here he is.
It has been a long and at times controversial voyage via the Chiefs, Connacht and Ireland as a project player without a drop of Irish blood playing Test rugby on a residency qualification.
“I did what I had to do for my family,” he said. “People have their opinions – that’s for them. I have nothing against them.”
Now 31 Tests in, no one can doubt his commitment to Ireland, even if at times it can go over the top as against England in this season’s Six Nations when he was sent off for a dangerous tackle on Billy Vunipola. “I have to adapt and learn from it,” Aki said.
With no Manu Tuilagi, he is just what the Lions want.