Unlike Pat Lam and the countless others who blazed a trail from New Zealand to the Northern Hemisphere, Bundee Aki was both relatively young and inexperienced, having played just two years of Super Rugby before pitching up in Connacht.

It’s hard to credit now, given he has become the standout player in the Guinness Pro12, but Aki struggled in his first season.

With his partner, Kayla, and their two girls, Armani-Jade and Adrianna, back in New Zealand, he found life away from rugby hard going and he also had teething difficulties on the pitch.

“My first couple of months were quite tough. Super Rugby is a different brand of rugby. I settled in after a while in my first year, and then in the second year I started rolling, but that first year I struggled. I was trying to find my feet. My second year was a lot better, and I tried to take it to another level.”

Akin to Lam, Aki was born in Auckland to Samoan parents, Hercules and Sautia.

He is the second oldest of seven, with four sisters, and two brothers. His older sister is Becka, and after Aki come Kine, Mary Anne, Bob, Sam and Irae.

His parents met and married in Samoa before moving to Auckland, where all seven kids were born. Hercules is a security guard and Sautia ‘is at home looking after the family’.

Ask him his full name and he responds, with a loud laugh, “Bundee Aki.”

But after a pause and another laugh, the truth is finally out. “It’s quite interesting actually, it’s . . . Bundellu.”

He is named after the doctor who delivered him.

“I have met him a few times. He was our family doctor when I was growing up, but yeah, that normally never comes out, that’s for sure!”

Throughout primary school, all his teachers called him by his full name, before rugby brought about the abbreviation, and immediately too.

Rugby training

“It was my first time at rugby training, and one of the coaches couldn’t pronounce it. ‘Ah, nah, I’ve had enough of trying to call you. I can’t pronounce it. I’ll call you Bundee.’ He called me Bundee the whole time, and it stuck with me.”

This was his first coach in the local Weymouth club, where Aki began playing in South Auckland.

There had been little rugby in his family before him, though he says, “My dad’s brother played a bit of rugby,” in reference to his Uncle Simi. “I think he made New Zealand Colts as a half-back.”

Uncle Simi has always taken a big interest in Aki’s career, ever since he began to play at about five years of age.

“I still talk to him now and then, although he loves his league nowadays.”

His father has also been a keen supporter since the early days.

“Dad loves the rugby. My dad has always been at my matches. Ever since I started, he’s always been hard on me about rugby – always. Until this day, he hasn’t stopped. Even if I think I have a good game, he’ll think I could have played better,” he says, laughing again.

It's the usual story of a young boy in New Zealand. He began playing, barefoot of course, at five, progressing to his first pair of boots relatively young, at ten. And all, as he puts it, at "the same club as the late Jonah Lomu!

“I didn’t know him until I was older, but when I was at the club there were photos everywhere of him when he was young. Of course he was really good as a kid, and obviously he went on to be a legend.

“When I then played provincial rugby for Counties [Manukau RFC], where he also played, he was a legend there as well. He came into the club a few times when we won the Ranfurly Shield and the ITM Championship Cup, the lower division. I met him a few times then.

“He was a really down-to-earth guy, a really humble, good guy. He was just hanging around in our changing-room most of the times when we were playing.”

Earliest memories

Yet some of his earliest memories of rugby were not particularly fond ones. “Bare feet, oranges at half-time – I used to love that. But I couldn’t get over how parents used to yell on the sideline, thinking they were playing.

“Every time I played, I used to hate it. All the parents did it, including my mum and dad. It took me a while to get used to that. The boys in that team used to mock me all the time: ‘Hey, your cheerleaders are here again.’ And I’m like, ‘Yep, they’re here.’ Ah, it was good craic at the same time.”

It helped that he quickly realised he might be quite good at this rugby lark and was enjoying it more than he first thought he would.

“It was something to do on the weekends. Normally after school I was just strolling around with the boys and doing whatever, but then every Saturday there was something to do, and all my friends started playing as well; it was quite cool.

“At around age ten or 11, I realised I actually quite liked playing rugby. I think what I most enjoyed about it was just seeing my friends every week. And then there was the food after the game!”

Lots and lots of good junk food, as he remembers it.

“Sausage rolls, meat pies, chicken pies, every kind of pie, fish and chips. It was great. I loved it. I used to go to the game just for the feed-up. They’d always give me food after the game, so that was fine with me.”

In that innately happy-go-lucky way of his, Aki describes his childhood as “happy but a tough one, because my parents weren’t the best off financially. We had no car, so every day I’d walk to school. It was a long walk. But there was always a group of us, and it was good to have friends to share school with”.

A whipping

That was his primary school, Finlayson Park School, and at least when he progressed to his senior school at 13, Manurewa High School, it was a shorter walk, less than ten minutes, and with the same neighbourhood friends. There he started playing schools rugby.

"Our schools team was good, but it wasn't good enough to beat Wesley College, who'd always be our main rivals, but that was the bigger rugby school. That's where Jonah Lomu, Sitiveni Sivivatu, Casey Laulala, Charles Piutau and those guys went to school.

“That’s an all-boys school with great facilities, very rugby-orientated. We used to lose to them all the time, get a whipping sometimes, like 70-odd points.

“That was in my first year or two in high school. As I grew older, the margins closed, but I don’t think my year ever beat their firsts.”

After school, Aki played with Manurewa Rugby Club for two years and then Patumahoe High.

“I jumped around a few clubs,” he admits. “We won two championships at Patumahoe High.”

From there he joined his last club, Karaka, although he reckons he only played one game with them, as by then he’d begun to play provincial rugby for Counties Manukau.

This in turn led to New Zealand Under-20s trials.

“I got into all three camps, but then I had a kid at the age of 18 and took a year off rugby to work as a bank teller. I started working to raise my oldest [Armani-Jade].”

He says he actually quite liked working in the bank, but noticed himself becoming quite ‘edgy’ whenever he tried to watch games or when rugby was discussed, as it is in pretty much every New Zealand workplace.

“I used to tell myself, ‘You’re here to work, your rugby time is finished, you’ve got a family you need to look after now.’”

Unbeknown to Aki, one of his best mates with whom he grew up, fellow Counties centre Tim Nanai-Williams, brother of another good mate, Nick Williams, recommended him to Tana Umaga, then coaching Counties.

“One day, as I was serving, I saw Tana. I thought he was just there for a normal everyday transaction. I said, ‘How are ya? How can I help you?’

“He said, ‘Oh, I’m here to see you.’

“I was like, ‘Who? Me?’

“ ‘Yeah, I’m here to see you.’

“And I was like, ‘Oh, okay, what’s this about?’”’

They went into a room and began talking.

Good footballer

“I’ve heard a few good stories about you. You’re a pretty good footballer?” said Umaga.

“Aw yeah, it’s been a while, though,” Aki replied.

“I was over 100 kg then. I was pretty fat,” he admits with a chuckle, looking back.

Umaga continued, “I’m pretty interested in seeing how good you are and seeing how you play. I’m not going to promise anything. Just come along and train. If all goes well, all goes well.”

Aki had a long think about Umaga’s offer.

“I spoke to my partner Kayla. At that time, it was quite tough, because we were expecting a second baby.”

They agreed he’d try to balance the two, so spoke to his boss about taking a little time off here or there to resume his rugby career. Nagging at Aki was the knowledge that he hadn’t really given rugby what he calls ‘a good crack’.

This was the tough year.

Now living in West Auckland, he’d set his alarm for 5am, drive 35 minutes to the Counties ground to train at 6am, then drive another 35 minutes to work, do a full day and drive back to Counties or his club, Karaka, to train most evenings.

That might not finish until 8.30 or so, meaning he usually returned home after 9pm.

“It was quite tough at that time, because I wasn’t paid either for missing the hours at work or for rugby. Then I had a few ups and downs with my partner, just because it was so rough – especially when you leave at six in the morning and come home at night.

“But I knew I had to do the hard work. You can’t go anywhere in life without the hard work.”

Umaga duly included Aki in his first-team squad in 2011, which went well enough on the pitch, with three tries in his nine appearances, four of them off the bench. But off the pitch, it was still hard going.

Golden year

“The salary wasn’t great, because in your first year playing provincially you start on a minimum salary. It was around 10k really for the whole year – a lot less than my earnings at work. But then in 2012 I found my feet.”

In 2012, he made his breakthrough with Counties Manukau, playing 11 games, scoring six tries and being voted Player of the Year as they won promotion to the Premiership.

Then 2013 was a golden year. The Chiefs had won their first Super Rugby title the previous season and now went on to retain it, beating the Brumbies in the final on August 3rd.

Counties Manukau then won the 2013 Ranfurly Shield with a 27-24 victory over Hawke’s Bay on September 7th.

“It just all went well from there, really,” he says, seemingly as surprised as anyone.

He owes Tim Nanai-Williams, his Counties and Chiefs team-mate, and Umaga plenty.

“I do. Tim knows that. I owe them heaps, and I tell him every day. I still keep in contact with him, and I still keep in contact with Tana.

"Those two gave me my chance to play rugby again, and I was quite fortunate to work with some good coaches too: Tana at Counties and then Wayne Smith and Dave Rennie at the Chiefs. Everything I've learned and know about rugby I learned from people like them."

It’s hard to believe it now, but initially he played as a scrum-half, or half-back as the Kiwis call it.

“But I could only pass one side, from right to left,” he admits, laughing again. “I couldn’t do the left to right, so I had to turn around and do the pass the other way,” he adds, and demonstrates by swivelling 360 degrees.

“People used to mock me all the time at school. So slowly, as I put on the weight, I moved out, first to winger, but I was too slow for that, so I moved in to centre.

“And that’s when Tana took me under his wing and started teaching me how to play centre. I learned heaps from him.”