Manu Tuilagi's road leads from Samoa to stardom with England
Manu Tuilagi sounds wistful as he reflects on his formative years as a kid in Samoa. Day after day he and his friends would play bare-chested games of rugby, using a plastic bottle filled with dried grass as a makeshift ball. Even at the age of 11, the village of Fatausi was no place for wimps. "In school we always played full-on. Barefoot, just in our shorts. We'd get a hiding from the teacher if our shirts got dirty so we'd take them off, remove our sarongs and just wear shorts. The ground was really hard. If you fell on it, all your skin would go. Great memories."
When he went home life was no softer. "One night my two older brothers, Andy and Vavae, decided they were going to teach me how to tackle. They were massive compared to me but they were running at me full-on, even though we were inside the house at night-time. I remember being hit in the chest and not being able to go to school the next day because my eye and nose were so painful. Luckily my mum and dad were away on another island and didn't see me the next morning."
Welcome to the gentle rhythms of Polynesia. Tuilagi may now live inLeicester but, despite the red rose on his jersey, he remains an islander at heart. You can take the youngest of seven Tuilagi boys out of Fatausi but the tattoo on his arm, with its Pacific star right on the point of the right elbow, still betrays split loyalties. Incredibly, he had it done just prior to last year's ill-fated World Cup. "At one stage they were tattooing straight on to bone. You could hear and feel them smashing it; it was so swollen I couldn't bend it." Pain seems a constant presence in Tuilagi's life, whether voluntarily administered or not.
All this has relevance to the sort of player England want him to become, not just against Fiji on Saturday but for the next decade. His director of rugby, Richard Cockerill, reckons the 21-year-old will become the best outside centre in the world. The public want to believe it but cannot quite shed the image ofa big kid who jumps off ferries and has his elbow chiselled three months before a major tournament. Some wonder aloud whether Manusamoa (to use his full name) is the man to out-think world-class defences and query the patriotic instincts of someone who has watched four of his brothers capped by Samoa.
The sceptics could be routed on both counts as early as this autumn. Those who play alongside him reckon he has better tactical judgment than people appreciate. "It's a fallacy that he doesn't talk … every time I've played with him I've loved it," insists his centre partner Brad Barritt. As for patriotic fervour, he makes John Bull sound positively Lithuanian. "It's emotional every time. The first time it just felt amazing. For me, having grown up here, England's the home of the game. I've lived here and played all my rugby career here. For me playing for England is an honour and I'm proud to do it." Not much ambivalence there. After 13 caps – and five tries – he has represented England more often than his captain Chris Robshaw.
Among his other vivid childhood memories was watching the 2003 Rugby World Cup final on television in his home village – "It's quiet, mate, less than 300 people" – along with his retired-politician father and his mother, who ran the local shop. When he first played alongside Jonny Wilkinson for England it practically blew his mind. "I watched Jonny drop that goal and, suddenly, I'm playing with him. Luckily there had been a three or four week camp to get used to the idea, but still …"
To underline his allegiance, Tuilagi will trot out on Saturday alongside a mascot from Hinckley RFC, as part of the Rugby Football Union's admirable initiative to connect the team's stars with their first grassroots club; the East Midlands has been his home ever since he arrived on a six-month holiday visa in 2004. He also has an English girlfriend, Chantelle, whom he met on a night out in Leicester. He sounds shyly smitten: "I've known her for a long time. We've been going out for two months. She's a nice girl."
Rather than sharing accommodation with his siblings, furthermore, he now lives with an old friend from Leicestershire's Mount Grace high school. "Since my brothers have gone I live with my best mate Ryan. He was my first friend in England. When I arrived I didn't really know how to speak English and he helped me a lot. My dad knew his dad and he looked after me. He sympathised. You remember people like that."
Beneath the macho exterior, suddenly, a small window of sensitivity opens. When the mood takes him, he can also be genuinely charming, if slightly off the wall. At his local Starbucks they know him, bizarrely, as James Bond. "I go there quite a lot. I'm a loyal customer. It's their job to ask your name so that's what I told them. There was a new guy in the other day who said: 'Hello Manu.' And the girl behind him says: 'No, that's James Bond.'"
He laughs fit to burst, tickled by the whole 007 impersonator thing. Even now he has ceased ferry-jumping into Auckland Harbour, the man-child still has some maturing to do. His autograph-signing demeanour certainly needs work. Rarely has any sportsman looked as disinterested, or attempted less eye contact. Pass him a ball, however, and he becomes irresistible. No other midfield back out there has the same low-slung thrust, the acceleration into contact or the arched-back ability to leave would-be tacklers sprawling out wide. Should he ever learn to offload like Sonny Bill Williams, manipulate space as cleverly as Conrad Smith or pass like Charlie Hodgson, England really will have a world-beater, regardless of the number on his back.
Next year's Lions tour is also on his radar. "I definitely feel there's a lot more to come from me," confides the hard man, softly. A gathering force of nature is heading Fiji's way on Saturday afternoon.