When I was playing for Fiji we always felt it was better to be involved in a game where both sides scored 40 points than win 6-0 even if it got you to a World Cup final.
That’s why people used to love to come and watch us play and why we generally got the support of the neutrals.
Playing Wales in the World Cup in 2007 was one of those sorts of games, although I still think they lost that one more than us winning it.
My good mate Stephen Jones missed a few kicks which I’ve never seen him miss anywhere else and we played some good rugby.
I think we caught them a little bit cold but we would rather have put them to bed than let it get so close as we did in the end.
Unfortunately for me I got a knock at the end of that game which meant I had to miss the quarter-final against South Africa.
I remember the support we got for that game was just incredible. All the crowd, including the Welsh guys who were over, were cheering us on and looking back we probably could have pushed them a little harder.
We scored a couple of long-range tries and put them under a bit of pressure but overall it was just an incredible experience being there.
It wasn’t quite as successful for us last year but it was amazing for me to go to my fourth World Cup. I never thought I would play in one, let alone four.
I’d grown up with rugby all around me, Walter Little my uncle is probably the most famous but all my family loved the sport and it was natural for me to get involved in it as well.
I grew up in Waikato and even though I didn’t go to a rugby school we had a pretty good Under-15s side and got quite a lot of success.
I got the opportunity to play for Canterbury who had so much success and were packed with internationals, guys like Andrew Mehrtens, so it was a pretty good environment to learn in.
I was only 19 when I got my first international call-up to go and play against South Africa. They were world champions at the time and I can still remember telling my parents that I was going on tour with these men.
My mum was pretty worried about me heading over there and even my dad asked a few questions but it was a great challenge.
At the time in the Fiji team I had loads of my uncles who were involved so they were able to look out for me, and it was the same when I went to a first World Cup in 1999.
If ever I got in trouble or couldn’t pay for my lunch they would help me out.
It was in 1999 that I made the decision to move up north and that was another one which caught my family a bit by surprise.
I’m really close to them but I’ve always found it difficult to stay still so I jumped at the chance to go up to Sale.
Even when I was up here I didn’t want to just stick in one place, I moved about a lot because I thought I had to see everything while I had the chance.
I’m pretty lucky to have played in so many countries, although I probably stayed in London a little too long.
I met my wife when I was over here and we have two kids and live in Canterbury in England now.
I knew I’d have to find a proper job when I stopped playing rugby seriously but it’s worked out pretty well.
I’m a director of rugby with a couple of schools and also involved with Canterbury Rugby.
One Comment
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I knew Nicky Little when he played rugby in Italy with the rugby team Petrarca Padova. Very delicious player on the pitch who teached a lot of u players of Petrarca and and gentleman with relationship with the fans.
It was a pity for our club when he left Italy to go to England.