Waikato utility back Aki Tuivailala has labelled new All Blacks Sevens sensation Oli Mathis “a freak” after the teenager’s strong start to life on the HSBC SVNS Series. Mathis debuted at the season-opening Dubai Sevens before backing up a week later at Cape Town’s DHL Stadium.
When New Zealand Sevens revealed their travelling squads for the first two SVNS Series events, the inclusion of Waikato’s backrow-wing utility grabbed headlines. Mathis started the NPC season on the flank before seamlessly shifting to the wing for crunch matches later on.
Mathis scored a double off the pine in Waikato’s loss to Canterbury in round nine before moving into the starting side on the right wing for elimination blockbusters. The prodigal talent scored a try in the Quarter-Final win over Taranaki and the tense Semi-Final loss away to Wellington.
All Blacks Sevens coach Tomasi Cama included the 19-year-old in the squad for Dubai and Cape Town, and Mathis went on to stand out as one of the team’s best. Ngarohi McGarvey-Black was another top performer as the team’s chief playmaker, but Mathis had the world talking.
At last weekend’s event in South Africa’s Western Cape, Mathis finished off both a bizarre and incredible try against reigning overall Series champions France. Even the referee was knocked to the ground as Mathis showed pace and poise to recover from a slip to score the five-pointer.
“Bro, he’s a freak,” Waikato teammate Aki Tuivailala told reporters in Christchurch. “The things he does, he just comes on and plays on the wing for three games and he’s already scoring like four, three tries a game.
“He’s a freak. He’s always been like that in school, I played with him in school. He’s a good man.”
Mathis has signed on with the All Blacks Sevens for two seasons, but some fans have already earmarked the utility as a future All Black. Former New Zealand hooker James Parsons and Crusaders scrumhalf Bryn Hall were left impressed during Waikato’s NPC season.
In the quarter-final loss to Wellington, the rising star scored a sensational try that any winger would love to score – let alone a talent who started the season in the backrow. Former All Black Aaron Cruden passed the speedster the ball, and what happened next was simply brilliant.
The No. 14 kicked the ball forward before chasing with a sense of desperation, and the bounce was kind which saw Mathis get his right foot to the ball for a second time. Mathis showed some skill to pick up the loose ball at full pace before diving over for the decisive score.
Not bad for a flanker.
That score led Hall, who won multiple Super Rugby titles with Scott Robertson’s Crusaders during their incredible dynasty of seven championships in as many years, to compare New Zealand’s “hybrid” player to two-time Rugby World Cup-winning Springbok Kwagga Smith.
“Oli Mathis is he a seven or is he a winger, like genuinely because we talked a lot about the Springboks and about guys being in different positions with Kwagga Smith and that but I think he’s just taken it to another level,” Hall said on the Aotearoa Rugby Pod.
“Like if you watch him play for the first time and you didn’t know he was a flanker, you’d think he’s a winger but that try, individual brilliance try, that he scored (against the Wellington Lions) from 50 metres out chip and chase, put it on his right foot, and then the ability to be able to pick it up under pressure – I was like, ‘There’s no way this guy can be a seven.’
“If you’re talking about one for the future and one in a hybrid role, we have had a few questions in the past right about having hybrid players, Oli Mathis right there can show you what a hybrid and what the future might look like because he was outstanding, I love watching him play.”
