The talking will be over soon. Bundee Aki will get his chance to show how much playing for Ireland means to him.
Aki was 24 when he left his wife and two young daughters behind in New Zealand to make a name for himself in Europe. To make a new home for himself as the advanced guard.
It took 18 months but Aki was eventually joined by wife Kayla and his two girls. Galway was that home.
Connacht had won a league title by then. Four days before Connacht’s semi-final win over Glasgow – before they blitzed Leinster in the final – Aki twisted his knee badly in training and left The Sportsground on crutches. Pat Lam gave him until 6:29pm on matchday [an hour before kick-off] to pass a fitness test. Lam later recalled:
“He’s a warrior. Jeez, he’s a warrior! … When we arrived at the stadium, I came in and our fitness people were with him. I gave him a thumbs up and he gave me one right back. Good, so… he’s tough.”
Aki, over the coming months, would try help his family settle and drive his team on as they contested well in the Champions Cup, with a strained squad, while trying to retain that title. His contract was running out, too, and Clermont offered a massive pay deal.
Aki was not going anywhere. He was pissed off when Pat Lam decided to head for Bristol but the Akis were in it for the long run. That decision, and his form, was rewarded when Joe Schmidt named him in his Ireland squad, then his team to face South Africa. He has not addressed the media since but his name has not been far from the headlines [be it complaints from disgruntled former players or rent-a-rows].
Tiernan O’Halloran is part-way through his fourth season as a teammate of Aki’s at Connacht and [from 25:20 below] he spoke excellently about the Auckland native on The Hard Yards.
“Being honest,” O’Halloran began, “when we, back in the day – 6 or 7 years ago – there were lots of signings. Where you signed somebody from Australia or New Zealand.
“Every single year you had somebody like that coming over. Probably about 70 or 80% of the time, the guy didn’t live up to his CV.
“The guy played a bit of Super Rugby and, coming from New Zealand, you were expecting a lot. Probably, in the past, we didn’t get the sort of player we thought we would be getting or that we would have liked at Connacht Rugby.
“So when you hear the news that we’re signing Bundee Aki, again… he was playing Super Rugby with the Chiefs and we watched the end of that season when he was involved. But he wasn’t that marquee player for the Chiefs at the time. He wasn’t anywhere near where he is now, where he’s a superstar on the team.”
“He looked like a player and like someone that could be very beneficial to us. But to think that and to what has actually happened is incredible.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BbUMiHgFYcs/?taken-by=sportsjoedotie
So, rather than being another case of buyer beware, Aki quickly poured himself into the project of being a Project Player.
O’Halloran can’t speak highly enough of the man. He said:
“Bundee has probably brought an extra couple of thousand people in the gate with his style of play.
“His rugby brain is incredible too. He works so hard on laptops, doing his analyse. Things that coaches aren’t picking up on, he’s coming into meetings and throwing out there. He’s very detailed in what he does and he works incredibly hard and pushes everybody so much in training.
“He has lifted the standards so much. I’ve spoken about Pat [Lam] saying we have to go into every game to win it. Bundee has been as much a part of that as well. He’s just lifted our standards so much and what is expected of each other. He’s brought the best out of lads as well.”
Whether that is a piece of tactical advice, a supporting word, extras after training, securing the lads a free lunch every now and then or being the man you know will pop you that perfect offload, Aki has had a true and constant influence out West.
O’Halloran is certain that positive influence will spread to the Ireland squad but he’s not so sure of Schmidt using him, like Lam often did, off the back of attacking scrums.
“I’m not sure about that now but hopefully he does get that chance to show what he can do as he’s an incredible player.”
