Montauban’s Clarkin hopes to put name in lights once again

THERE’S probably quite a few rugby players who will look back on their careers filled with pride but there’s not many folks who can say that they’ve hounded and harried Frodo Baggins and Ronan O’Gara in the same breath.

That’s a claim to fame that Montauban backrower Matthew Clarkin could easily make but that just wouldn’t be the 28 year-old Kiwi’s style.

Born into a polo-playing family in Waikato and blessed with the same horse riding ability, Clarkin appeared as one of the ‘Dark Riders’ or Ringraiths in the first film of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring.