Nathan Hughes: Loyal to Fiji. Ready for England

Wasps No 8 Hughes will snub the chance to play in the World Cup for his native country. He tells Hugh Godwin why...

Wasps No. 8 Nathan Hughes (Getty Images)

There are two ways of enjoying the Rugby World Cup this autumn: watching it, for the vast majority of us, or playing in it. Nathan Hughes has chosen to be a spectator rather than representing his native Fiji as the clearest possible indication that Wasps’ exciting No 8 is waiting to qualify for England next year.

“I’m going to watch the World Cup and support some teams,” said Hughes, a leading contender for the Aviva Premiership’s player of the season, the shortlist for which will be announced this week. “Fiji, for one team, obviously, because I’m from there. I’ll try and go to the opening World Cup game, Fiji versus England – that’ll be a good one. Though I think it’s pretty hard to get tickets.”

Hughes’s availability for England from June 2016 after he has completed three years’ residency has been a topic of conversation almost since the now 23-year-old arrived on these shores in 2013, having been told by the Auckland Blues’ head honcho John Kirwan that he wouldn’t be receiving a Super Rugby contract. Hughes was qualified at that stage to play for New Zealand by residency, Samoa through his mum, or Fiji as the land of his birth. The move knocked out New Zealand and brought in England.

Wasps' No 8 Nathan Hughes (Getty Images)

Hughes is still not saying specifically that England – and their comparative riches compared with impoverished Fiji – is his goal, but his deeds speak louder than words. “John McKee [the New Zealander who is head coach of Fiji] emailed me before their tour last November and asked me if I wanted to go with them,” Hughes revealed. “I said, ‘I’m not ready, I am just seeing how we go with Wasps and getting more experience’. That was the end of the conversation really.”

England’s existing squad, in which Billy Vunipola, Nick Easter and the injured Ben Morgan are the primary No 8s, must get on with the World Cup without Hughes, but it was significant when the forwards coach, Graham Rowntree, made mention of the newest kid on the block. Speaking in January about Wasps’ use of the choke tackle, Rowntree said: “I like that Nathan Hughes.” And Wasps’ owner Derek Richardson also weighed in, when high-profile marquee signings was the topic: “Why would we need to get a Richie McCaw or somebody like that when we have the stardust in our team? Nathan Hughes is spectacular.”

And so say all of us, or at least anyone who has seen Hughes ripping the Premiership up with his rampant running and lavish one-handed ball skills. The only blip has been the ban he picked up, that was subsequently overturned, for kicking Northampton’s George North in the head. Wasps used GPS technology to argue the contact was accidental, but not before an aggrieved Hughes missed the European Champions Cup quarter-final away to Toulon.

Fortunately he has ample chances to create happier memories. There is the imminent arrival of his and his wife Ella’s first child, a son, in about three weeks’ time, and then there is Wasps’ bid for the top-four Premiership play-offs. They have been wowing a new audience since buying and moving into the Ricoh Arena in Coventry in December, with the attacking pizzazz of Christian Wade, Elliot Daly and Joe Simpson anchored by the flanker-captain James Haskell. From financial wobbles and relegation fears a couple of years ago, Wasps could make the play-offs by winning their remaining league matches against Leicester in Coventry next Saturday – a sell-out “derby” crowd of 32,600 is assured – followed by London Irish away on 16 May.

Billy Vunipola in action for England (Getty Images)

Face to face with Hughes (right), who was 16 when he left the Fijian sugar-cane mill town of Lautoka to take a sixth-form scholarship at the crack rugby school Kelston Boys’ High in Auckland, you encounter light-heartedness leavened with humility. He candidly admitted to knowing nothing about Wasps before his arrival – “I had to Google them to find about their history” – or their greatest captain, who also happened to be England’s finest modern-day No 8. “When I first got here I was interviewed [by the media] and was asked about Lawrence Dallaglio,” Hughes recalled. “I said I didn’t know Lawrence Dallaglio. If he wasn’t an All Black, I wouldn’t know him! The only English player I knew was Jonny Wilkinson, because he won the World Cup with that famous drop goal. I have read Lawrence’s book and he sounds like a nice, calm down-to-earth person. I am waiting for that right time, when we can sit down together and catch up.”

Dallaglio was never very calm when Wasps were playing Leicester in the great days of the two clubs’ rivalry a decade ago. Now, for different reasons, it is a tingling time again. Wasps are making bold predictions about becoming Europe’s second wealthiest club behind Toulouse; they have issued a retail bond inviting investors to lend them up to £35m, repayable in 2022 with 6.5 per cent annual interest in between.

Manu Tuilagi is another Pacific Islander to have appeared for England (Getty Images)

A London concern for much of the history Hughes was obliged to look up, Wasps have plans for a new training base in the Midlands next year. Where rugby’s regulators might have fussed that a club was being bought in one area and plonked into another, there has in fact been acquiescence.

Hughes’s main sport as a lad was hockey – his dad, a diesel mechanic for the Fiji Electricity Authority, and mum were into it. Coming to 15-a-side rugby late, as a lock, he made an impression by running down an opposing full-back and tackling him so hard into touch they shattered the spectators’ wooden chairs. But like most Fijian boys, Hughes had always thrown a rugby ball around in games of touch. He was influenced at his Auckland club Waitemata by Michael Jones, the wondrous All Black flanker.

And New Zealand’s world-beating seven-a-side coach Gordon Tietjens pestered Hughes for three years to join his squad. “As much as I love playing sevens, 15s was the future,” Hughes said. Just as well for England, as playing sevens for New Zealand would have tied Hughes to that country for good.

Instead, he is settled now in Richmond, and thwacks an occasional golf ball around with Wasps’ Italian players Andrea Masi and Carlo Festuiccia. Most tellingly, perhaps, while Hughes admires New Zealand’s Kieran Read, he doesn’t yearn to be like any other No 8; he wants to be different. “To try to distribute more,” he said, smiling, “instead of hogging the carries all the time.”

Pacific Islanders to have played for England:

Manusamoa Tuilagi (age 23, 25 England caps, 1 Lions Test)

Leicester’s Samoan-born centre packs a powerful punch but is currently waylaid by a long-term groin injury.

Mako Vunipola (age 24, 20 England caps, 3 Lions Tests)

Saracens’ Tonga-descended loose-head prop, born in New Zealand, has brilliant skills in the loose and the breakdown. Welsh accent from his dad’s time playing for Pontypool.

Billy Vunipola (age 22, 17 England caps)

Mako’s big baby brother is a hard-carrying No 8 with a sweet offload. Born in Australia, joined Saracens from Wasps in 2013.

Semesa Rokoduguni (age 27, one England cap)

The Fiji-born Army tank driver and granite-hard Bath wing looked set for a run in this season’s England team but was quiet on debut v All Blacks and then troubled by injury.