It is a truth universally acknowledged that when the Waratahs cut Nemani Nadolo 14 years ago, it was the Fijian-Australian winger who had the last laugh.
Written off as not up to Super Rugby standard as a 21-year-old, Nadolo has wielded his 139kg frame like a weapon ever since, playing for top clubs in all the major championships around the world, winning a premiership with English club Leicester last year and earning 32 Test caps with Fiji.
Nemani Nadolo returns to NSW 14 years, 32 Tests and a Premiership title after he was cut by the Super Rugby side.Credit:Kate Geraghty
But if the big winger is all smiles now, back in a Waratahs jersey as an internationally recognised wrecking ball for hire, it was not always so clear-cut.
For a number of years the pain of that early rejection fuelled Nadolo’s every move. Once, very early in his career, it nearly cost him everything.
“I let it get to me, the rejection,” Nadolo told the Herald. “It wasn’t until I was arrested for drink-driving and spent the night in a jail cell that I woke up to myself.”
French and English rugby a decade ago were not littered with Australians as they are now and Nadolo was not a big name.
“Rejection, you can take both ways. You can accept it or you can go and prove you are worth it.”
Nemani Nadolo
The 21-year-old learned the hard way that big Fijians were grist for the mill in the Top 14. When Nadolo’s club, Bourgoine, was relegated, he was cut adrift after half a season and left, he says, without being paid for his services.
He picked up a contract with Exeter in the English Premiership but was used sparingly. As a young man supporting his recently divorced mother and two younger brothers back home, the pressure built.
One night things came to a head. Nadolo was picked up by police as he was leaving in his car from a local nightclub.
“Getting let go here in Australia and having my first stint in Europe not go the way I wanted … I dealt with it the wrong way, with alcohol,” he said.
“I was six times over the limit that night. I’m glad it happened to me when I was 21. I’m 34 now with a family. There were two ways I could have dealt with it – I could have kept going down that path or learned from it and made some different choices.”
Japanese club NEC threw Nadolo a lifeline but attached several strings. He could not drink and was not allowed to drive a car for the term of his 10-month contract. At a fork in the road, Nadolo went all-in on rugby. He finished the season the Top League’s leading tryscorer and signed on for another three years.
“That’s when I realised I could do something with my career,” he said.
The rest is well-reported history. NEC coach Greg Cooper – “the first coach who saw something in me” – recommended his towering flyer to Crusaders coach Todd Blackadder and, over the next two seasons, Nadolo became the Australian Super Rugby reject who came back to haunt his homeland, topping the tryscorers’ list in 2014.
“When I got to Japan and they gave me those conditions, rugby became the primary thing in my life at the time,” Nadolo said. “It’s gotten me to where I am now, I started focusing on myself.”
On paper, Nadolo never looked back. Crusaders to Montpellier to Leicester, where now-England coach Steve Borthwick marvelled, “I have never seen a player like Nemani … he can do things that I have not seen before”, referring to Nadolo’s ball-playing ability and silky hands.
The St Joseph’s College, Nudgee, product, who counts Lote Tuqiri and Tevita Kuridrani as cousins, made himself at home in all the premier competitions in rugby. He finished up at Welford Road a beloved expat member of the Tigers family, his broad Australian strine heard often around the ground after home games. In two and a half seasons he scored 19 tries in 43 appearances, 13 of which came in the Tigers’ premiership-winning 2021-22 season.
Aaron Mauger, Nadolo’s attack coach at the Crusaders, watched it all unfold, unsurprised by the powerhouse winger’s contribution.
“He’s a special man and a special footy player,” Mauger told the Herald. “He has the ability to swing games and win games with his genuine triple threat skill sets, whether it’s with his obvious power game or his more subtle handling and offload game, or his kicking game.”
Nemani Nadolo in action for the Waratahs during a trial match in 2010 before being released by the side.Credit:Mark Logan
Despite the success and validation, however, there was a dream Nadolo could not let go and the sting of that early rejection he could never quite get rid of. Each time a contract ended, he would ask his agent whether there was any interest in Australia. The answer – until last year – was always ‘no’.
“That gives you a gauge of how much it meant to me,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, I’ve gone on and done some wonderful things in the game, I’d like to think. I’ve represented some wonderful clubs, the pinnacle is representing Fiji. I’ve played in a World Cup and I’ve played against Australia a lot. But when someone asks me, ‘Would you have liked to have played for Australia?’ Of course.
“I grew up in Australia, my parents moved over from Fiji when I was three months, I grew up in Ipswich and went to school in Brisbane, at Nudgee. You always want to have a career in the place you grew up. It was unfortunate I didn’t get that opportunity but that’s not to say I have any regrets. When one door closes, another one opens, and there’s also a saying that you go where you’re appreciated.”
In the end, it took another all-in move to fulfil Nadolo’s boyhood dream. Keen to move his family back to Australia, the 34-year-old told the Tigers he would be heading home halfway through the 2022-23 season. But with no offer on the table and years of silence conditioning his expectations, Nadolo was prepared to retire if nothing eventuated.
Luckily an old connection knew what the universe was offering. Darren Coleman, entering his second season as Waratahs coach, worked with Nadolo as Fiji’s attack coach a decade earlier. Coleman jumped at the chance to augment the talent-packed NSW roster with Nadolo’s size, power and experience.
In December, almost 15 years after the Waratahs rejected a young Nadolo, he was welcomed back into the fold.
There are reminders everywhere of the winding path life can take. It took him a minute, but at some point in a gruelling pre-season training session, Nadolo realised the young outside back he was running alongside, Max Jorgensen, was the son of one of his old Randwick teammates, Wallabies and NRL player Peter Jorgensen.
Then, on a wall in the team room at the Waratahs’ flash new Daceyville training digs, there’s a photo of the moment the team won the Super Rugby title in 2014. Nadolo is in the background, shoulders slumped, in Crusaders strip. He was equal top tryscorer that season and scored in the final, yet his revenge season – as many billed it at the time – ended with him catching Bernard Foley’s match-winning penalty goal behind the posts. The Waratahs were still out of reach.
“Rejection, you can take both ways. You can accept it or you can go and prove you are worth it,” he said.
“For most of my career I’ve had that in the back of my mind. Now that I’ve ended up back in the place where the rejection first started, the good thing is I’m very mature as a person, I’ve done a lot of growing, have a family of my own, and that stuff doesn’t get to me anymore.
“Now I’m proud that I didn’t give up and that I’m here at the Waratahs again. It’s not about anyone else now, I’ve got a final opportunity to prove to myself that I can play Super Rugby in Australia. That, for me, is the biggest thing.”
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