THE FIJIAN PUTTING (EVEN MORE) FUN INTO QUINS
IN JUNE, Tabai Matson knew he was to be Harlequins’ new coach, so sitting 12,000 miles away he watched the Premiership play-offs to understand the club he would be taking over.
When Bristol went 28-0 up in the first half of the semi-final against Quins it was 4am in New Zealand, and Matson turned to his wife Nadia.
‘“Shall we turn this off, darling?”’ he recalls now to Sportsmail, mockingly relaying his emotions of the time, putting his head in his hands and rubbing his eyes. ‘She’s like, “You’re the next coach, you should probably watch til the end!”
‘Then you see one of the greatest ever games, incredible, and after it you think, “What an amazing group of people”. Phenomenal.’
Indeed they were, first beating the Bears 43-36 after extra time, next performing a similar trick outscoring favourites Exeter six tries to five and 40-38 in the greatest final ever seen.
And all without a head coach. Suddenly, Matson is tasked with improving a side who clearly did not need a leader — how on earth will he do that?
The jovial 48-year-old Fijian laughs heartily at the question.
‘When they won the title, a lot of people said to me, “Who would want to take over there!?”’ he says. ‘First, I’m not taking over the joint. That’s not how sustainable leadership works. And second, it doesn’t change my remit.
‘Only a handful of teams get to move on from an amazing win like that, so I’m here for the journey.’
From the outside, a Fijian-born former All Black coaching Quins – the country’s most unapologetic swashbucklers — seems a match made in rugby heaven.
‘Perfect! Wow!’ Matson smiles again at that thought. ‘The way you make genuine change is in the middle and long term. I had five interviews, all Zoom, late at night, and what became pretty evident is that my skillset fits here.’
By that he means he is good at empowering players, not wrestling for control. ‘I’m not going to be a dictator, that’s not my style,’ he confirms.
Matson has had varied experiences, ones he thinks set him up for this job perfectly, rating 2015 as his seminal coaching year.
Starting at New Zealand’s ‘Anglo-Saxon, set-piece dominant, winning machine’ Crusaders, he then became the first non-Maori to lead the Maori All Blacks, a ‘very culturally driven, almost ceremonial team’.
He then went to the World Cup in England with Fiji — for whom he played in the 1990s, later switching to the All Blacks, the only man to represent both before eligibility laws changed.
The lessons he learned were that success has the same pillars everywhere, sport is pragmatic, and you better win. If Quins do not win the league again by default he has made them worse, so ahead of their game at Newcastle tomorrow, is that a worry?
‘I’m not nervous about that. One of the reasons why people like being in programmes I’m in is that I don’t transfer anxiety,’ is Matson’s answer.
‘Maybe because I’m Fijian and I spend most of my afternoons in a hammock! The Surrey trees aren’t as good for that! This is our first competition week — at training I’m looking at laughter and enjoyment. Me adding anxiety saying “we must win two titles!” is not helpful.’
Matson is now six weeks into living in Gomshall, 15 minutes from Quins’ training ground where he talks to Sportsmail with rain falling around.
In 2017 he left Bath after a year as Todd Blackadder’s assistant coach as both his mother and mother-in-law had cancer back in New Zealand. Thankfully the latter recovered and Matson was able to care for the former in the last two years of her life.
Matson is ready to commit here, with Nadia joining him after her Kiwi school teaching year finishes in December, and two daughters Mikey, 23, and Holly, 21, and son Zack, 19, all settled in America and New Zealand.
He totally buys into Quins’ style, too — which came to represent a sort of moral crusade for those desperate to be entertained.
‘The beauty of our game is that there are different ways to succeed,’ Matson says.
‘What Harlequins did was say, “No matter what, we’re going to go down swinging the way we do it” and it bloody well worked.
‘I’m hoping the world of rugby goes, “There is another way, we love teams with positive intent”.
‘It’s really positive for the game that a team manages to win in a manner that’s not traditional.’
Marcus Smith, Harlequins’ jester of a fly-half, became the flagbearer for that style. ‘Rugby is moving towards a trend of running rugby, so if you want a running 10 there’s only one guy on the list for England,’ says Matson.
‘Eddie Jones was here this week, I said to him, “You’ve got to put him in there”.’
Joe Marler came to embody a new, confident Quins, too. The England prop, rightly celebrated for opening up on mental health struggles, was allowed to thrive with all his eccentricities on show and was sensational on the field having been released off it.
‘Rugby is the most inclusive sport, and one thing we say is you’ve got to cater for all individuals, let them be who they are, and this is one of the few places I’ve seen it genuinely done,’ Matson says.
‘I took a photo when we left Leinster after our pre-season game of us at the airport to send back to my mates in New Zealand, a couple of a real uniform sticklers.
‘Our players were leaving kicking their jandles (flip flops) along the floor, in shorts and T-shirts. People could see that and go, “They look a scruffy group”, others could say, “Does it matter? They’re just young lads dressing how they want. I’m learning this is a place where you can be yourself.’
So when Quins take a beating one day, in the depths of winter to a defensive team, will they continue to be themselves? ‘That’ll be the true test,’ says Matson.
‘On the back of success there is a resolve here that this is the way forward, and we’re going to do everything we can to play the way we want to play.
‘It doesn’t mean we’re going to win every game, but this is the way we roll.’
‘At training I’m looking at laughter and enjoyment’