The Samu Manoa Interview: Part Three

In Samu Manoa’s case, he spent two summers happily considering the prospect that he may get the chance to reignite his Northampton love affair.

Because Saints wanted him back - and they tried everything they could to make it happen - not one, but twice.

Manoa had made a big-money move to Toulon in the summer of 2015 and it was to be another year before Saints were able to call on another world class No.8.

Jim Mallinder had tempted Louis Picamoles to make the move across the Channel in the summer of 2016, and the France player would end the campaign as player of the season after some stunning displays.

But as with Manoa, the Top 14 came calling, and Saints weren’t able to resist as they sold their prize asset to Montpellier for a sizeable transfer fee.

It again left the black, green and gold frantically searching for the game-changing big No.8 that they had enjoyed so much since Manoa’s arrival at the club from San Francisco Golden Gate in the summer of 2011.

And they decided it was he who they wanted to fill the void, with a dramatic return from Toulon on the agenda.

But as Manoa explains, it just wasn’t to be. Not because he didn’t want it, but because Toulon refused to play ball, not once but twice

"They (Saints) came at me two times while I was at Toulon, they tried to buy me back," Manoa said.

"Two years in a row they came after me.

"After my first year in Toulon, they contacted me. Shieldsy (Saints’ team manager at the time, Paul Shields) said they wanted me back and they were willing to do whatever it took to get me back.

"But (Toulon owner) Mourad (Boudjellal) gave them a price and they said they could pay out my contract but Mourad was asking a ridiculous transfer fee so they couldn’t do it the first year.

"Then they came back the year after and I just told them straight up if we’re going to do this again, they just had to pay me what Toulon were paying me and I would come.

"They said they would pay me what Toulon were paying me and I was like ‘okay’ and they called back and Mourad put the transfer fee at something ridiculous, like £750k.

"They would have had to pay that and then the wages. Mourad was just being an a*******.

"I told my wife and she was hella happy.

"I said it all depends what Mourad says but Shieldsy called me back up and he said we could do the contract but not the transfer fee.

"I asked what Mourad had asked them for because he had bumped it up.

"The first year he asked for something like a £500k transfer fee and they couldn’t do it and then Mourad shot it up even more when they came back the second time.

"I spoke to Saints and they said they just couldn’t do it unless I told them that I wanted to leave.

"The second time was when Picamoles came back to France.

"I just told Shieldsy ‘don’t call me again unless it’s for sure’ because the first time if it happened, it happened, but the second time I was really looking forward to it, to come back to Northampton.

"I didn’t think Mourad would pull that move and it meant I couldn’t do it.

"It’s just crazy because I do wonder how it would have been if I had gone back."

It may not have meant so much to Manoa to return to Saints had his new relationship not been a rocky one.

While the south of France was clearly a great place for him and his family to live, they always missed their Northampton home.

And life at the club wasn’t all it was cracked up to be for Manoa and the galaxy of stars that Toulon had assembled.

"I’m going to tell you like this, my experience of Toulon was that I liked the whole lifestyle - it’s like paradise, but rugby wise I only really liked it when Bernard Laporte was coach," Manoa said. "When he was coach, it was dope.

"We would train two or three hours for the whole day and we were out of there by 11am so we had the whole day and I enjoyed that.

"But at the same time, you sign world class players and there’s no real coaching, they don’t really need to coach you because they just let the players run the training.

"But when we got the new coaches the following year it started to go downhill for Toulon.

"The President started to get more involved, he would be acting like a coach, coming into the locker room, yelling at people, firing coaches every other week so it wasn’t stable at Toulon.

"It wasn’t a regret for me moving there.

"Rugby wise, I saw it as ‘maybe we’re not doing so well, but I’m still collecting this cheque and I’m going to collect it for as long as I can’.

"But at the same time, the medical staff were s***, the coaching staff were s*** and everything that they were running over there wasn’t good.

"It was all based around the President and it messed things up for the coaches and players because if the President wanted something different, they had to switch it up otherwise they would get fired."

Toulon had won the Champions Cup for three successive years (2013, 2014 and 2015) before Manoa’s arrival, but they have not won it since.

And as things continued to turn sour, Manoa, who Boudjellal had described as a ‘rugby phenomenon’ when signing him, sought a way out.

"I signed for four years, I did three years and then in my fourth year some of the boys were leaving and I didn’t want to stay," Manoa said.

"I was really close to giving it to Mourad, ‘I was like ain’t nobody flushed the s*** out of this President yet’ and I thought I was going to be the first one.

"Some s*** went down while I was over in America in the summer time and he was talking about selling me to Toulouse but I just opted out and told them to pay me what they owed me for the season and I’d leave.

"There was so much going on and I decided I was just going to leave because they didn’t want to pay me.

"I bounced, I knew Mourad had money for days if I wanted to run with a lawyer to get them to pay the rest of my deal.

"It was what it was and I took what I had."

Three years after arriving at Toulon, Manoa was gone.

But with his rugby CV continuing to gleam, it was only going to be a matter of time before another European club came calling - and so it proved.

However, it was to be a short stint as concussion hit during a clash with Saracens at the Arms Park on December 15, 2018.

"Cardiff hit me up right when they knew I was available and they offered me something nice, a three-year deal," Manoa said.

"I went over there, played for half a year and I had a real bad concussion.

"I’ve seen that all online (testimonies from former players in the media recently) and I had a real bad concussion while I was at Cardiff and the medical staff didn’t check up on me for like two weeks.

"I was in a black hole over there in Cardiff and at that time they didn’t allow me to fly back to see my family for Christmas.

"I hadn’t seen them for four or five months and it was just me over there by myself.

"When we moved from France, the plan had been to move everyone to Cardiff, but they went back to the States while I moved to Wales and my kids didn’t want to move back. They were around their family at home and I told them to stay there and told them I would stay out in Cardiff and play.

"I told them whenever they wanted to visit me they could fly up but the kids were in school so the kids couldn’t fly up.

"So when I had that concussion and was in that dark hole for two weeks, I was like ‘I need to get the f*** out of here’.

"I left without telling Cardiff I was leaving and I came back home for Christmas.

"I was drinking at Delon Armitage’s house in London and I woke up on the Sunday, when I was supposed to be driving back to Cardiff and I was like, ‘man, Delo, how far is Heathrow from here?’.

"He told me it was like 15 minutes away so I booked a flight and flew back.

"Then the coach, (Nigel) Melville, called me and he said ‘are you in California?’.

"I told him I was and he asked why I didn’t tell him, he told me I could get in trouble but I said ‘to tell you the truth, I don’t really care - I’m in a happy place right now’.

"I told him the medical staff didn’t check on me for two weeks and I was in a dark place, the light was f****** me up and I was getting bad vibes. My flat was just black 24/7.

"It was the worst time of my career when I was in Cardiff and had that concussion."

While Manoa doesn’t have any kind words for Cardiff’s medical staff at the time, it is different when it comes to their then coach, Nigel Melville.

"Melville was a good man," Manoa said.

"He told me to stay for a week, fly back and none of us would get in trouble, but I woke up on Saturday, looked around, saw my family and I was happy.

"I was like ‘no money can buy this’ and I just called coach Melville and said ‘I’m not going to come back, bro - I’m happy with where I’m at and I just need to be with my family’.

"He told me to take a couple of days to think about it and I called him and told him I was sure and I was happy with where I was at.

"I thanked everyone over there and he told me I would leave with immediate effect. They didn’t explain why, they just said they’d let me go.

"Melville understood why I left and made the decision I did. I just needed my family."

So bad was Manoa’s concussion that he admits he can’t remember much of his Cardiff stay.

"The only game I really remeber playing for Cardiff was the Cheetahs game in South Africa," said the forward, who played seven times for the Blues. "I don’t remember any of the other games."

Manoa returned home, and that is where he has stayed, taking a break before dipping his toes back into the rugby waters for one final club, Seattle Seawolves.

He joined them in May 2019 and went on to help them win the Major League Rugby title with a final victory against San Diego Legion.

That was his final rugby match and in the crowd that day was a very familiar face.

"I wasn’t worried about anything after leaving Cardiff - I didn’t do anything for the next four or five months, just chilled straight," Manoa explained.

"I just spent time with my family and then the MLR was running and all these teams were hitting me up because they saw on social media that I was back home.

"I wasn’t ready yet and then maybe another month went by and Seattle hit me up, booked me a flight.

"Most of my boys with USA were playing with Seattle so I came up just to have a look and then I was like, ‘why not, I’m not doing anything anyway and let’s see what’s up with this MLR’.

"I was flying back from Seattle to California every week for three or four months, I’d come and train for a couple of days, fly back and then fly in for games.

"They knew I needed to be with my family and they were okay with that.

"We won the title, we got the ring, man.

"It was a nice way to end my career.

"The last game I played was the final against San Diego and my boy CC (Calum Clark) came and checked us out.

"He came and watched the game and we met up right after the game and chopped it up.

"I asked him what he was doing in San Diego and he said he was just there for a break, he’d seen the final was there and he wanted to come and see me play.

"He said ‘I wanted to come see my brother’ and I was like ‘right on, CC’.

"It was so good and that was my last game."

It wasn’t supposed to be Manoa’s final match as he was due to represent the USA at the 2019 World Cup in Japan.

He explained: "My whole plan was to end my rugby career and retire right after the World Cup in Japan in 2019.

"The day after they announced the team that was going, I called the coach (Gary Gold) and told them that I was planning to retire and he said ‘right now, before we’re going to take off for the World Cup?’.

"And I said yeah, because my wife was pregnant with the twins and If I would have gone to the World Cup, she would have had the girls while I was there and I would have had to miss out on that so I ended up hanging up the boots.

"Gary said he’d give me a week and give me whatever time to say I’d go, but I’d made my decision.

"It was a hard decision because that was my whole plan - the last two years playing - I was aiming for a World Cup.

"I wanted to be able to say I had two World Cups under my belt but it didn’t happen.

"There were a lot of what ifs but I’m happy with where I’m at right now. I’m cool."

Manoa, his wife and seven children are happily settled back in the USA, where he now runs a concrete laying business and a wine company.

"Back to my roots, man!" said Manoa, gleefully.

"Before I came to the Saints, I was doing concrete and I’ve ve come right back.

"I missed the hard labour so I moved up to Seattle and started my own business.

"I’ve still got my wine business as well but it’s held up right now because of Covid, which has stopped everything at the bottling company.

"I started that business in 2017 while I was in France.

"Life is all right, it’s back to how I was before I became a Saint.

"It’s cool, back to the grind."

Manoa has been back to Saints since he left the club, taking time to watch a couple of games while he was with Cardiff.

But he was eager to avoid being spotted at Franklin’s Gardens.

"When I was playing at Cardiff, I came back a couple of times to Northampton but I stayed hidden," said the 35-year-old. "I came to a couple of games but I had a hoodie on.

"I caught the last 15 or 20 minutes, I came through the tunnel and there were a couple of fans who saw me and I told them to keep it quiet because I had just been kicking with the boys and came to see them after."

Manoa’s connection with Northampton is clearly never going to fade.

It was the best time of his rugby life and he still shares memories of his stay on his Instagram page on a regular basis.

"I always get memories popping up on my feeds and then I post it," he said.

"I do miss the boys, I miss the Gardens, I miss everything, I miss the coaches, the staff, even y’all in the media!

"Northampton is always going to be a home for me, man."

And Manoa still retains so many friends that he made while at the Saints.

Just hours before our chat, he had been talking to some of his fellow Northampton title winners, who are considering joining him Stateside.

"I speak to them all the time, all the boys," Manoa said.

"G (George Pisi), Kahn (Fotuali’i) and Ken (Pisi) called me last night at like 2am, we had a video chat.

"Ken and G are doing some kind of construction thing but I’m trying to see what’s up with the boys to see if they want to come out here to Seattle.

"I want to try to get them a gig at the Seawolves.

"They’ve moved on from rugby but they want to have a go at this MLR in the States.

"They’re just waiting for Covid to die down out this way before they slide out here.

"If I can get all three of them over here, I’ll get them.

"If the owners out here are willing to pay for those three and if it looks good for them, we’ll see."

Though many of the players who Manoa knew at Saints have now left, some still remain.

And his love for the club still burns bright as he rarely misses a game.

"All the time, I always keep up with the boys," he said.

"When they play, I’m always watching on and if I don’t catch up with the game live, I watch the highlights."

And, to conclude this hour-long interview, he has this message for the current squad and the supporters.

"To the boys, tell them good luck, man," Manoa said. "I’m always keeping up with their games.

"I’d tell them to play hard and every time they play it’s got to be smack city.

"Tell my boy Courts (Courtney Lawes) to keep rocking and all those young boys over there, keep grinding.

"I wish nothing but the best for all the Saints boys.

"I love everybody at the Gardens, especially the fans. To the fans, keep rooting."