Former All Black Ngatai’s resilience a key factor in forging a rugby career

Charlie Ngatai appreciates the fickle nature of injury more than most having suffered career-threatening concussion related issues six years ago.

Leinster’s new signing suffered the nightmare trauma of an enforced 11-month spell on the sideline as he battled to recover from a brain injury sustained in a Super Rugby match on May 7th, 2016. He spent almost a year dogged by severe headaches and dizziness.

Speaking in an interview after his return in a club game for Waikato at the time he said: “You get a lot of thoughts over that time. You get positive ones and bad ones. You never know what is around the corner with concussion and I was able to do a little bit of training with a little bit of symptoms, pushing myself towards not getting symptoms.

“I wanted to do exercise, but I kept getting headaches. Some thoughts you get are that you’re never going to play rugby again or can I do it? Can I get back out on the field again and can I take a few hits? I’ve overcome those and here I am, back out there and having a crack.”

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Before the incident the talented centre looked a model successor to Ma’a Nonu and Conrad Smith in the All Blacks midfield having made his New Zealand debut the previous year against Samoa in Apia. It would prove to be his only cap.

The Gisborne native had learnt to be resilient earlier in his career, the formative years of which were plagued by injuries. Having represented New Zealand as a sprinter at the Youth Olympics in Sydney, Ngatai won an Under-20 World Cup with the Baby Blacks under Dave Rennie, but for two years was frustrated by injury and limited to a couple of appearances for the Hurricanes.

In 2012 he joined the Chiefs and quickly established a reputation of a superb player with a high rugby IQ to complement his physical attributes of power and pace. He formed strong midfield partnerships with Sonny Bill Williams, Seta Tamanivalu, Tim Nanai-Williams, and, in the latter years, Anton Lienert-Brown among others. The only drawback was the injury profile.

He did collect 12 caps for the Māori All Blacks, one of which came against Warren Gatland’s 2017 British & Irish Lions. Ngatai decided to accept a contract from French Top 14 club Lyon at the beginning of the following year and since then has gone on to play 88 matches across the league and European Champions and Challenge Cups.

Indeed, he played against Leinster in a Champions Cup match in the 2019-2020 season. He was in the run-on team in 68 games for Lyon, scoring 20 tries and six penalties (118 points), and in the season just gone started 20 of 21 matches for the club in helping them win the European Challenge Cup in Marseilles.

Leinster head coach Leo Cullen said: “I first came across Charlie back in 2014 when I visited the Chiefs late on in my playing days and as I was preparing to make the transition into coaching. Even then, as a young man, you could see the influence he had on that Chiefs squad and that influence I think has only increased over the years, with Lyon most recently.

“He’s a New Zealand international and I believe would have been capped far more only for his injury issues which were well-documented at the time. But he has been back playing now a number of years and you could see even in the Challenge Cup final in Marseilles just how influential a player he is.

“The important element for us I think, when you look at some of the experience we are losing out of the environment this season with departures and retirements, is that Charlie will be an ever-present figure around UCD and will be a great asset to our younger players in terms of his leadership and experience. We look forward to welcoming Charlie and his young family to Dublin very soon.”

Speaking to leinsterrugby.ie, Ngatai admitted: “I’ve had a great few seasons in Lyon but I’m now excited to get started in a new environment, a new team culture and to take on new challenges. I’ve had a few good chats with Leo [Cullen] and it will be exciting to play alongside some new and also some familiar faces.”