Jonah Lomu, Clint Eastwood and Mandela - all in a day's work for Zak Feaunati
When, in May 2008, Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School appointed Zak Feaunati as their Head of Rugby, it looked like a good move.
After all, how many schools can call on an international back-row forward with more than a decade’s worth of experience of Premiership rugby and the knowledge of what it is like to represent their country in a World Cup?
And it certainly paid dividends, Feaunati’s arrival brought a considerable amount of publicity to the school and the fortunes of the Under-16s have never been so bright having reached the last 16 of the Daily Mail Knockout Cup for the first time last season.
However, 20 months on things have changed. The engagement of Feaunati’s services is no longer viewed as just a good move, it was a stroke of genius.
The entire world now knows about Bishop Vesey’s in Sutton Coldfield, thanks to Feaunati’s unlikely emergence as a star of the silver screen.
Indeed, the 36-year-old’s face is currently being beamed into the nation’s cinemas as the former Bath and Samoa international makes his acting debut in the rugby-cum-political film Invictus.
Feaunati plays the part of All Black legend Jonah Lomu in a story that tracks the creation of the post-Apartheid South Africa through their victory in the 1995 Rugby World Cup.
Matt Damon, most known for his role in the Bourne trilogy, stands on tiptoes as he tries to recreate winning captain Francois Pienaar, while Morgan Freeman, whose place in film history was secured in The Shawshank Redemption, does the opposite as he squeezes into the wiry frame of Nelson Mandela.
Just to top everything, the whole shooting match is directed by Clint Eastwood. No introduction required.
And of course there’s Feaunati for whom a glorious door appears to have opened and the mighty oak of global fame has sprouted from the small acorn of a suspected prank telephone call from former Bath team-mate David Barnes.
The journey started last March and will come to a natural break next week when he returns from promotional and charity work in Cape Town.
“Anyone who knows Barnesy would say he is the master of all tricksters,” Feaunati says. “He is the last person I would trust in a conversation about being Jonah Lomu in a film – I was sure it was a wind-up.
“But a woman from the RPA (Rugby Players Association) confirmed it was not a joke and before I knew it I was auditioning in London.”
But this was no normal audition, there was a distinct absence of alas and alack-ing, instead it was all Ka Mate, Ka Mate and slapping forearms.
