London Irish Rugby

Matt Garvey, the lock for the Aviva Premiership Rugby Football Union club the London Irish has agreed a deal to sign with their Premiership rivals Bath Rugby ahead of the new season. The 25 year old forward, who came through to the academy of The Exiles, has made a total of 82 appearances for the London club, including 16 appearances in the Aviva Premiership in the current season. He is currently an international for the England Saxons and has earned a lot of acclaim for his all action style of play.

The 25 year old will join up with Jonathan Joseph, who swapped the London Irish for The Rec in the new season as well. Mike Ford, the first team coach of Bath Rugby stated in an interview with BBC Radio Bristol that the work rate of the player is exceptional, before going on to add that at 25 years of age, he is still a young player and is extremely driven and ambitious and wants to win trophies.

He went on to state that one of the major reasons he has joined Bath Rugby is because he wants to improve as a player and become a better forward. Ford further added that Garvey was sold the concept that not only is Bath Rugby is a very historic institution, but it is also making steps in the forward direction and will make him a better player on the way.

Garvey will link up with the likes of Gary Gold, Neal Hatley as well as Toby Booth, who run the coaching set up at Bath, all of whom who left London Irish to take up the mantle at Bath Rugby last season. And Garvey stated that having known these people was also one of the main reasons for moving to Bath.

It was merely three years back when Halani Aulika, the prop for the Aviva Premiership Rugby Football Union club the London Irish was immensely overweight and was kicking himself. But all that agony was soon dispelled when a chance meeting at a petrol station convinced him to return to the sport and having arrived at the Madejski Stadium just in February last year, he has gone on to become one of the key members of the side under Director of Rugby Brian Smith.

Even as recently as 2009, it seemed that he would not be able to make it as a professional rugby player. The man admitted himself that before he started playing rugby as a professional, he was extremely overweight, and he just couldn’t control his eating and drinking habits. However, a chance conversation with Keven Mealamu, the hooker for the New Zealand international team offered the man a chance at redemption and that was something the London Irish man grabbed with both hands. His brother Luke was in charge of coaching one of the clubs based in Auckland, New Zealand and they tried to get him back into shape by getting him to train.

Aulika stated that they came to pick him up and forced him to start training, and since he started training, he has gone from being 152 kilos down to 122 kilos. He admitted that he was very lazy, overweight but it was always in the back of his mind that he wanted to earn his living by playing professional rugby.

And since being given a chance with the London Irish, Aulika is absolutely relishing each and every moment and he wants to become someone the younger players with weight problems can look up to, so that they never give up when the going gets tough.