Eddie’s England to train WITH Wales
MEET Ratu Josateki Tuivanuavou Waqanivalu Cokanasiga — most people call him Big Joe. His name translates as: Chief Joe, King of the new place, the warship with spears of the sun. All rather intimidating when matched to an enormous man. Cokanasiga pushes 6ft 4in tall and weighs 17st 9lb and the London Irish Exile is a winger, and 19 years old. He has a handy guide for commentators. ‘My surname is pronounced tho-can-a-see-ga,’ he explains. ‘The C becomes a TH in Fijian. My grandad was a chief, ‘Ratu’, and I was named after him. And Waqanivalu is our old family surname from cannibal times — but considered too aggressive these days!’ Cokanasiga may have been born in Suva, but his upbringing is decidedly British. His father, Ilaitia, served in the Army’s Royal Logistic Corps, and the family left the Pacific islands when Joe was three. Joe, older sister Missy and younger brother Philip upped sticks to live in Mill Hill, then Abingdon, before moving to Monchengladbach in Germany. By the time Joe was 14, Brunei, a small country on the island of Borneo, was home. ‘In Germany I joined the football club and played centre back,’ he adds. ‘Once we played Monchengladbach girls and I scored from the halfway line — I meant to clear it but it went in! Surprisingly my passion for rugby started in Brunei. My dad played for the Army out there, I watched him before joining in. Then we played together for the club in the centres. ‘I let him do all the work and took the glory! He loved running straight at people. He would make a break, then offload to me. Mum was on the sidelines shouting at my dad to protect me.’ Missy now works for the Fiji High Commission in London, and Philip is a budding rugby player. Joe is the self-confessed ‘mummy’s boy’ who only started to love the game watching the 2013 Lions series as a 15-year-old. ‘I saw George North pick up Israel Folau and after that I wanted to take it more seriously,’ he says. Fast-forward four years and Cokanasiga was touring Argentina with Eddie Jones and England having never played top-flight rugby. I thought there was no way I was going to go because I had not played well enough in the Championship,’ he recalls. ‘A couple of months before I was getting a haircut with the boys and got an email saying, “England Rugby: Confidential”, it was from Eddie Jones saying I could be picked. I was just shocked. ‘I called my sister straight after and she just started crying! When it was announced I was asleep and my housemate woke me up shouting, “You’re in!” I thought I would go back to sleep as it was a dream. I sat there for about 10 minutes thinking, “How is this happening?”’ A pulled hamstring meant he did not win a cap but Jones was impressed: ‘He’s big and he’s fast — that’s why I like him,’ he said. Add defensive nous to his power and pace, impress on league debut against Saracens today, and soon Big Joe’s name may be up in lights — if they can find enough bulbs.