Flutey: 'I was so excited the first time I wore the Silver Fern'
He played for New Zealand as a boy, but a lot has happened to Riki Flutey since then. He explains to Brian Viner in The Independent why pulling on a Lions shirt fills him with pride, and recalls the jail incident that kept Bin Laden off the front pages back home.
"His dark-brown eyes glitter even now at the recollection; even as an England player about to visit South Africa with the Lions, he is too honest, or guileless, or both, to play down the passionate desire, that bubbled inside him for years, to play for the All Blacks. Nor did it ever seem as if that desire would remain unrequited. He played for the national team at every age level, for New Zealand schools, and for New Zealand Maori. His schoolboy team-mates included Aaron Mauger, Kevan Mealamu and Richie McCaw, all destined to wear the Silver Fern at the highest level. But not Flutey. He joined Wellington Hurricanes where he was a victim of his versatility, wearing 9, 10, 12 and sometimes 15, never nailing down one position as his own.
"In the end, like a Kiwi Dick Whittington, he decided to seek his fortune in London (first with London Irish and then Wasps, although next season he will play for Brive). And with his selection first for England and now the Lions, the decision to switch hemispheres, which took much soul-searching and the encouragement of his mentor, the former All Black hooker Norm Hewitt, is triumphantly vindicated."
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