Veteran Samo keen to make up for lost time

THERE have been few more intimidating rabbits in the headlights than Radike Samo but Australia’s back-row giant greets his late-blooming success in a Wallabies jersey with something approaching wide-eyed incredulity.

After a career trundling around with no recognition following an early six-cap spell in 2004, Fijian-born Samo, 6ft 6ins in his stockinged feet and almost 7ft when you factor in his afro hairstyle, is finally making an impression aged 35.

First, he tasted Super XV success with the Queensland Reds on his 35th birthday, having been plucked out of the Japanese league just three months earlier. Then he became Australia’s oldest player to appear in the Tri-Nations, notched his first international try with an incredible 50-metre break through the All Blacks defence and, to cap it off, found himself on a flight for his first World Cup.

No wonder he sounds dumbfounded by the whole sequence of events.

“I’m a bit surprised to be here,” Samo said. “I never thought I’d be in a World Cup squad this year, but it’s been about doing my best, training hard and concentrating on what I do every day and every week in training.

“That’s probably the main thing that makes me play well at the weekend. I just really love playing rugby, you see? It’s the end of my career and I want to end on a high. That’s my other goal, play for another couple of years, but I’ve got to do it now.”

It is fair to say that after starting his professional career with the Brumbies in 2000, before following coach Ewen McKenzie to Stade Francais in 2006 and then drifting to Japan, time was catching up. That was certainly the view of most when the 18st 3lbs former Fiji U19 back rower looked to come home from Japan.

“I wanted to come back and have another crack but at the time I didn’t have a team. I called around a few teams in Australia and they said I was a bit too old and a bit too slow.

“But I guess Ewen McKenzie knows me and knows who I am, because when I joined the Brumbies he was there. He gave me a chance to play and from last year to this year it has been awesome.”

Joining a franchise on the up and a squad with future Wallabies teammates Will Genia and Quade Cooper certainly put a spring in the step of the old man.

“I enjoy playing with the young boys,” Samo said. “It doesn’t make me feel old, it makes me a better player and makes me play twice as hard as the young boys. That’s part of it. Being a part of the young boys has been good, they are an awesome bunch of players. I enjoyed my season up in Brisbane.”

Queensland’s Gold Coast was also the scene of his finest hour in the gold jersey of the Wallabies when back-row partner David Pocock’s stripped a high ball away from New Zealand captain Richie McCaw’s grasp, passed to Samo who sprinted upfield like a man possessed before carrying Mils Muliana and Cory Jane over the try line.

“I never thought I’d score a try at Test level, you know, it was awesome to go back home and watch it again. My wife recorded the game and it’s really crazy to look back, to make a break against the All Blacks.

“So for us to do that, it’s going to be there the rest of my life and when I look back once I’ve finished rugby, it’s not just my first try, it was an awesome try to break through two of the best rugby players in the world, and it was amazing to cross the line for your first try in Test rugby.”