What It's Like To… Be Signed As A Schoolboy

NZ Sevens have been quick to snap up teenager Jacob Ratumaitavuki-Kneepkens

- Sarah Mockford

THE CALL came while he was at school. Clark Laidlaw was offering him a full-time contract with New Zealand Sevens for the next two years. It was a shock. He thought he might be invited down for training but a spot in the squad was unexpected.

“I was pretty overwhelmed,” recalls Jacob Ratumaitavuki-Kneepkens. “It took a bit of time to process that and come to grips with it. I’d have said ‘yes’ right there and then, but I thought I’d better talk to other people first.”

He spoke to his mum and his friends and knew it was an opportunity he couldn’t turn down. So at 17, he signed a deal with New Zealand Rugby and joined up with the sevens squad once he had finished his school exams last month.

So how did his friends react to the news he was becoming a professional rugby player? “My mates were stoked for me,” says the now 18-year-old. “They were asking how things were going when I’d only been here a couple of days. They’re keen to get some kit but hopefully, that’s not the only reason they’re checking in! And they’re already asking for Hamilton Sevens tickets. There is a bit of hype to live up to but I try to push it away; I don’t like hearing it.”

Ratumaitavuki-Kneepkens’s sporting talents have been obvious from an early age and a few years ago it looked like rugby league might be his calling as he got involved with the Parramatta Eels set-up in Australia. Yet when he started playing in the first XV at Francis Douglas Memorial College – also alma mater of the All Blacks’ Barrett brothers, Beauden, Scott and Jordie – union took over once more. “I fell back in love with rugby,” he says.