Sione Mata’utia fights back after concussions almost forced him out
Sione Mata’utia is the youngest Kangaroo in history and was on track for an NRL career that could have made him a legend of the game. But a series of concussions almost forced him into retirement. Now, he’s back and he wants another shot at stardom.
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Sione Mata’utia cannot remember convulsing on the oval at Hunter Sports High.
Nor being loaded into an ambulance.
Waking up? Yeah, he remembers that.
Just as others will tell you how, aged 17, and a schoolboy prodigy, Mata’utia was this particular day attempting the simplest of training drills — charging into a bump pad — when he spun sideways and went, thwack, straight into a head clash.
Which is when the teenager dropped, concussed. Within seconds, suffering a seizure.
One severe enough to see paramedics packing him unconscious soon after into an ambulance.
And as for what happened next?
“Dunno,” the Newcastle backrower shrugs, now five years on. “Maybe I played the next weekend, I’m not sure.
“What I do remember is waking up in the back of that ambulance ... no idea what was happening.”
And not for the last time, either.
Take his 50th NRL game, when Mata’utia was twice removed from the field concussed. Or weeks earlier that same 2017 season, when a head clash against South Sydney also had him removed from the game.
Within a year, Mata’utia suffered five serious head knocks in play, while off the field, he admits now, even soft training collisions “were rattling my brain”.
Some days, his vision blurred. On others, migraines set in.
“Which really started playing on my mind,” he admits. “Not only the long-term health effects, but also giving up rugby league.
“If I had to do that, I wondered what I’d do.”
Which isn’t how this story was supposed to go, right?
No, when The Daily Telegraph ran a spread earlier this week asking ‘Who is rugby league’s greatest player’ ... well, you’d reckon the youngest Kangaroo ever would be in.
Especially, at age 22.
Yep, twenty-two.
Mata’utia still so young, he played NSW Under-18s with Latrell Mitchell.
Yet unlike Mitchell, this largely forgotten hero was also a Test footballer at 18 years and 129 days. Or quicker than anybody ever, including Israel Folau.
Indeed, Mata’utia played for Australia at the same age Brad Fittler debuted for NSW. And Ben Ikin, Queensland.
No small thing when considering Ikin’s yarn about looking so young when he entered that Maroons team hotel, coach Paul Vautin mistook him for a fan.
Which is why, overnight in 2004, Mata’utia was backpage. Captain Everywhere.
Alongside older brothers Peter, Pat and Chanel, hyped as Generation Next.
“And while I wouldn’t exactly call everything since a fall from grace,” he says, “it’s definitely been tough.”
Seated now outside Knights HQ, another Tuesday morning ballwork session in the bag, Mata’utia is opening up on a fight story so inspiring, you almost expect to see a set of Philadelphia steps.
Understanding that in the four years since rewriting Australian sports history, this youngest Kangaroo has earned three wooden spoons, five serious concussions, six months on the sidelines, even one horrendous season where he went all year without winning a game.
Elsewhere, Mata’utia has busted his jaw, fractured an eye socket, earned the Knights captaincy, been stripped of the Knights captaincy, moved from centre to backrow, moved from backrow to bench, and watched all three brothers moved on.
Sometimes, he’s partied too hard. Strayed from his faith.
For a time, he concedes, “lost in the hype”.
And still this Saturday afternoon in Magic Round against Canterbury, Mata’utia will play his 97th NRL game.
“Because my desire to be here,” he insists, “it’s never left.”
And for proof, consider his battle with concussion.
A saga that in 2017, and after spate of knocks, saw him flown to Melbourne for a series of scans so serious, the longest lasted two hours.
“And those scans,” he says, “they showed parts of my brain had fallen asleep.”
Fallen asleep?
“Yeah, not sure why,” he shrugs. “But it meant other parts of my brain were being overworked, trying to compensate.
“And that’s why I was getting migraines.”
And so aged 20, Mata’utia was ordered out of games, drills, everything for six months.
“Best thing that could’ve happened too,” he insists.
Which isn’t to say the Knights forward hasn’t required a HIA since. He has. And as recently as a fortnight ago against Parramatta.
“But now, I’m standing up straight away,” Mata’utia continues. “In the past, that wouldn’t have happened.
“Same when I’m pummelling the boys at training, it doesn’t rattle my head anymore.
“So for me now, it’s all about moving forward.”
Which is why you should know, too, about the handwritten list stuck, of all places, behind the backrower’s toilet door.
A checklist setting out some dozen goals for the year 2019, including two ticked boxes for both starting round 1 and buying himself an investment property.
And still to go?
“There’s a few that can’t be ticked until the end of the year,” he says. “One is to keep my first-grade spot.
“Another is to play consistently the whole year. Then stay on the field consistently ...”
But the biggest goal?
“Ah, that’s not on there,” he says. “For me, the biggest thing is to play representative footy again. To play NSW Origin.
“I’ve got a real fire to achieve that.”
And for anyone wanting to write Mata’utia off, remember this is the same fella who was one of six siblings and two cousins raised by single mum Matalena.
A kid who knows what it means to have all three daily meals consist only of bread. Or nothing at all.
At Christmas, the Smith Family played Santa. On birthdays, there was no money for even a cake.
And as for those days where the refrigerator sat empty?
Well, mum would also remind them, between working two jobs, how it’s better to have a roof over your head.
“Growing up, all us boys slept in one room,” Mata’utia recalls. “And all the girls in another.
“I learned a lot about being humble, grateful, and working hard.”
As he is now.
Already a father to baby girl Amiyah, Mata’utia and partner Hannah are expecting their second child, a boy, in September.
Elsewhere, this piece of rugby league history is continuing his charity work, adjusting to life as a forward and, only recently, framed and hung his Kangaroo jersey at home.
A reminder, he says, not only of what has been, but what may yet come.
“And that, for me, it’s the biggest thing,” he says.
“Knowing that while it’s been a real rollercoaster, I’m making my way through.
“That despite everything, I’m still here.”
Originally published as Sione Mata’utia fights back after concussions almost forced him out
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