One of the epiphanies of Leinster’s win over Toulouse last week came via the eye-catching 53-minute impact of Charlie Ngatai. The New Zealand centre hadn’t been seen since the first week of January against Ospreys.
Then, when Leinster dropped him in beside Garry Ringrose 113 days later, Ngatai thrummed around the Aviva Stadium. From being invisible for almost four months, he produced a performance that made it difficult for people to take their eyes off him.
The former All Black was told a few days before Saturday’s Champions Cup semi-final that Robbie Henshaw’s injury had ruled him out of the match.
“Yeah, leading in on the Thursday when I found out that I was starting and then on Friday and Saturday, they knew I wasn’t going to go the full 80,” says Ngatai.
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“So pretty much all they asked was that I empty the tank and ‘give us what you can’ and we’ll bring on the reserves to finish the game and that’s what I tried to do.
“It is cool. But there were a lot of nerves as well, given I’d been out for so long and the occasion of the match being a semi-final against Toulouse, an open style of team where they love running similar to ourselves.
“There were a few nervous people, even my wife and the physios as well, leading into that. But I managed to come through all right and that sets up the next few weeks pretty well.”
Ngatai has played inside centre for all his 10 starts for Leinster this season. His pace, ball handling and, as he showed against Toulouse, aggressive tackling were an important part of the Leinster package, especially in the earlier stages when French legs were giving most.
By the age of 32 he could have so easily strayed away from the collision game. Not only did Ngatai suffer serious concussion in 2016, which kept him out of the game for almost a year, but as a schoolboy in New Zealand he excelled at cricket and was a talented sprinter.
As a teenager he was fast enough to compete in the Sydney Youth Olympics in 2007 in the 100m and 4x100m relay events, qualifying for the ‘B’ final in the 100m. He ran in the low 11s over 100m, with his best time 10.9 seconds.
“Yeah 100m and 200m. But I was skinnier,” he says. “I did a lot of training for that in the off-season in the year leading into the Youth Olympics. I made a lot of sacrifices and it sort of gave me a perspective on individual sport and team sport.
“Obviously you’re training on your own, you’re doing a lot of things on your own. The coach can only give you so much. I quite liked it and, from there, athletics kind of transferred into rugby. It certainly helped with speed and fitness.
“There was a point when I had started going professional, so when I signed my first contract, I couldn’t carry on with athletics because of the preseason in rugby in the summer leading into the next season, so that sort of went on the back-burner. Certainly, athletics helps running.”
He has played with and against most of the current international New Zealand cricketers, including Tim Southee and Kane Williamson through school. Southee, he says, was a loose forward, a six, and Williamson a fullback who could play outhalf.
But it was never in any doubt that the professional contract when it came would be with rugby. He went on to play with Lyon for four years, there’s not much about Ronan O’Gara’s La Rochelle he doesn’t know.
“From when I was first there to now, they’ve definitely grown into a powerhouse team,” he says. “They kick the ball well, they’re well coached, they have got forwards who are powerful and speed out wide, so definitely they’re a team to watch, a dangerous team.
“But I know the Top 14 season is long and that’s probably the hardest competition. It is tough, not many teams can do it. Obviously, Toulouse can do it.
“La Rochelle are starting to do it now and they’re the two powerhouse teams in France. Given they’ve got a lot of depth in their squad, not only the squad but also their Espoirs that they really trust.”
Another run-out against the Sharks will tell Leinster coach Leo Cullen and Ngatai where he is physically. With an impressive hour in the bank, he will be thinking of more involvement over the coming weeks and will hope another gap opens early in the game as it did against Toulouse.
“Don’t get injured. That’s what I was thinking,” he says about charging into the space. “Just don’t pull anything. Hopefully the calf or the Achilles will hold. I think a few people, even my wife in the stands, were thinking that as well.,The physios were thinking that.”
It held and Ngatai is back with his All Black moves.
