For a long time, Temo Matiu, the son of international Legi Matiu, chose to follow a path other than that of his father, favoring Basketball over Rugby. Chase away the natural, it comes back at a gallop. Since 2022, it is on the fields of Pro D2 and, recently, Top 14, that this 23-year-old athlete has impressed.
Daylight has barely broken on this October morning. Outside, the sun is hidden by thick dark clouds, the wind sweeps the Avenue du Maréchal Juin and the rain crashes against the windows of the Gochoki restaurant. Inside, a continuous news channel prevents the silence from settling. The walls are covered with flags of different rugby teams, the place is run by Jean-Philippe Versailles, who brought joy to Montferrand and Biarritz, around twenty years earlier. Behind the counter, “Coco” Versailles greets his former teammate Legi Matiu, serves him a coffee then the imposing frame of the Franco-New Zealander sits down in front of us.
Champion of France with the BO in 2002, Legi Matiu (55 years old) is the father of Temo Matiu, the last nugget formed by the Olympic Biarritz, who gave in to the sirens of the Top 14 by joining, last summer, the Union Bordeaux Bègles. “Temo, when he was little, was very easy to manage as long as he had a ball in his hand, attacks the father. Twenty years later, nothing has changed. Temo is happy when he has a ball with him, but it’s true that in recent years, everything has happened very quickly for him.”
The story of Temo Matiu is beautiful, because it is unlike any other. Rugby? He knew him at Pennes-Mirabeau, when his dad defended the colors of Aix-en-Provence, but it was on the basketball floor that he grew up and spent a good part of his adolescence. “When Temo was 6 years old, we got his sister into basketball. He wanted to imitate her, but he also wanted to continue rugby, so until the age of 12 or 13, he played both sports “says Legi Matiu. His son is talented, that’s obvious. He stood out as a leader, before sliding onto the wing and had the opportunity to join the regional basketball hopeful center in Mont-de-Marsan. The family is not really thrilled with the idea of seeing the kid leave the cocoon so soon. “When Temo received the letter telling him that he was accepted at the pole, we saw all the emotion in his eyes. His mother then said to herself “damn, we can’t say no to him”“remembers his father. Careen and Legi Matiu, however, sign a pact with their son. “If the grades weren’t good, he was taken out of the pole and his friends’ parents had the same speech. From then on, Temo and his friends were competitive on the field and at school. They wanted to see who was doing get the best grade.”
During Covid, closed rooms and open grounds
A baccalaureate obtained without incident and a few years later, Matiu, just an adult, does not really know what to do with his future. He leaves for New Zealand, following in the footsteps of his father, born fifty years earlier in Auckland. He meets his uncle, his cousins, and continues to play basketball with them, so much so that the New Zealand and Samoa teams begin to take an interest in the profile of this young man who arrived from France. The adventure goes no further. Matiu comes home and enrolls in preparatory class at René-Cassin high school, to then join an engineering school. “Besides that, Temo continues playing basketball, but this time in Labenne, says the dad. The level is lower than Mont-de-Marsan, but he could no longer go there while being in prep. It’s completely amateurish. He’s just playing to get moving while he finishes his studies before considering possibly something else.”
We are now at the beginning of 2020 and a mysterious virus begins to spread. It will paralyze the planet for many weeks and, at the same time, launch little Matiu’s rugby career. “With the pandemic, indoor sports are stopping. Temo was in contact with friends who played rugby. When he learned that they had the right to continue training, he wanted to join them. He “I was tired of doing push-ups and sit-ups alone in my room.”justifies Legi.
Direction Biarritz, therefore, where Joe Jonas, whom he knows thanks to a friend they have in common, begins to work wonders. “I remember that in the first sessions, Temo didn’t really know how to pass, note the back of the Stade français. So to make up for that, in his free time, between classes, he would go with a friend of his to play passes.” The garden of the house is also transformed into a training ground. “Every evening, for three or four months, we made 600 passes, slips Legi. At the basketball pole, he learned that you progress, on this type of thing, by repeating the movement.”
Sports director of Olympic Biarritz, at this time, Matthew Clarkin suggested to the future third row to quickly train with the first. “It was his mother who called me to tell me that Temo didn’t really know what to do. Him? He didn’t dare to take the steps, smiles the former UBB captain. When I saw it, I quickly understood. Temo is an athlete, it shows in the way he moves. He has extraordinary qualities. I didn’t need to watch him play to realize he had something worth exploring. We took the steps so that he could have a place at the training center and on the day he returned for summer preparation, he arrived faster and stronger than everyone else.” The ball is no longer round. It is now oval, but the determination is the same. “When Matthew Clarkin called him to tell him he was coming to train with the first team, I saw the same emotion in his eyes as when he received the letter telling him he was was caught at the basketball pole, a few years before”underlines his dad.
Value does not depend on the number of years and Temo Matiu does not expect much to find a place in the professional group. A year after his first match with the hopefuls, he was launched into Pro D2, one evening in November 2022, during an Aurillac reception. Behind, he played fourteen matches with disconcerting ease. As if he had only known this sport. “Basketball is a discipline where you need a certain agility, you have to find your way in 360 degrees. In rugby too, you constantly adapt. When you have physical and intellectual qualities, the transition from one sport to the other is not difficult”analyzes former international second row Jérôme Thion, who left the courts for rugby at the age of 21.
Matiu’s qualities are such that internally, the staff does not hesitate, on a day when the infirmary is “full” to align its third line on the wing. It’s against Massy, in March 2023. Only 21 Biarrots are registered on the scoresheet and number eleven Matiu scores the first try of the match. “No one flinched during the week when we said that Temo would attack on the wing, remembers Clarkin. He goes fast, is good under high balls. That’s all you ask of a winger, right? I remember that he had, moreover, been quite successful in this position, but I think that his future, at a high level, is in the third line.
Blue dream
It was in this position, in any case, that he took his first steps with the UBB, in the Top 14, where Yannick Bru quickly got him into the swing of things. The boss of the sports sector used him as a flanker and number 8. “Ultimately, Temo will be fixed in the center of the third line, because on the counter-attack or high balls, he has incredible ease. He is an athlete in terms of power and dexterity. use occasionally in the corridors, because it goes very quickly, but I think Temo can have an incredible future”predicted the technician. It only took two years for the third row to move from the second division to the Top 14. How much time will he need to knock on the door of the French XV? “He must still acquire certain automatisms and gestures specific to the position”thinks Yannick Bru.
“Today, the only thing Temo lacks is experience, believes Matthew Clarkin for his part. He needs to play, to see how we perform, every weekend, for ten weeks in the Top 14. I’m not worried about him, he knows where he can go.” “It’s been a long time since we’ve seen an Olivier Magne profile among the Blues, notes Aldigé. Bordeaux can bring him, sooner or later, to the French team.” Where his childhood friend, Lenni Nouchi, took his first steps this summer. “I think he made up his mind to join him within two or three years”confides Legi Matiu, whose simple evocation of the blue dream brings back several memories.
The colossus obtained his only two selections during the 2000 6 Nations Tournament, alongside Olivier Brouzet in the cage. One of the high points of his rugby career, arriving after a week where he had just experienced the worst. “You know, between Samantha, my eldest, and Temo, we had a daughter who died. I buried her on Sunday and, on Monday, I went up to Marcoussis to prepare for my first selection, he says, looking far away. I had to play this match for her. Bernard Laporte was coach at the time. He had confidence in me and I decided to go for it. […] Recently, when Samantha got her first cap in netball (a sport derived from basketball, Editor’s note)at the moment of the Marseillaise, all the emotions came flooding back.”
Entourage, silence et Rubik’s Cube…
Among the Matiu, where the sister and father are international, the spirit of competition is never far away. “Samantha was French basketball champion. At home, Temo was always looking for a first title. When he won, with France 7, a stage of the European championship (in June 2024), he placed the trophy clearly so that his sister would notice it.”smiles Legi, whose calm diction reminds us of his son’s rare speeches, from the time when he defended the colors of the BO.
Because Temo Matiu is a well-made person and a discreet boy on a daily basis, almost reserved. Two years later, we still remember the first interview he gave to Midi Olympique. Matthew Clarkin warned us: “Be careful, he’s shy.” “It’s okay, did I answer correctly?”the young man asked at the end of the interview. “His silence is a form of respect, explains Jean-Baptiste Aldigé. In this modern rugby made up of images, of television interviews, you won’t get Temo to speak, but he is an extraordinary player.”
For “JBA”, who was its president for two years and who saw the phenomenon develop, the key to its success does not lie, only, in its physical qualities. “He is in a healthy family, with a father, a mother and a sister who are ultra-present, underlines the new boss of Nice. Temo doesn’t speak, but he’s classy, the ideal son-in-law! He is also accompanied by a healthy agent, one of the most benevolent in the profession. (Didier Chouchan, Editor’s note).” Dogs don’t make cats and in his time, Legi Matiu was not the most talkative second row in the division either. “Temo, like me, doesn’t talk much, but he hears a lot of things that make him think”he slips. “He’s a pretty difficult boy to pin down, because he rarely expresses himself, says Matthew Clarkin, but he gets it all. We see, moreover, that he is quite brilliant in his studies or in rugby.”
He is also the type of boy who succeeds in everything he does. Several years later, Legi Matiu has not forgotten the time, at a friend’s house, when his son beat everyone at ping-pong. “He played there between classes, in Mont-de-Marsan, his father whispers. That afternoon, I told him: “Temo, I send you there to play basketball and when you come back, you’re a ping-pong player. What’s going on?”“ One day when the Matiu family went to the capital, Temo Matiu came across a Rubik’s Cube. “He then watched videos,” his dad continues, “and in one weekend he learned how to do it. He’s like that, Temo…” Olympian calm and disconcerting ease.
