Nemani Nadolo: 'My rugby enjoyment probably was not there in France... Leicester have brought that back'

Swapping the sprawling vineyards of Languedoc for the rugged Leicestershire hills might sound like a rotten deal to most, but Leicester’s summer arrival Nemani Nadolo would disagree. The rampaging Fijian wing arrived from Montpellier in July and, air temperature aside, he is loving his more rustic life in the East Midlands.

“Being in England and being in Leicester, it has really brought the love of the game back. I have never been in a clearer mindset,” Nadolo says.

“My enjoyment for rugby probably wasn’t there when I was in France. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed my time there – my son was born, and I had some good matches – but when you’re in a place for that long and things are not going [the way you want], you tend to lose the love of what you’re doing.

“Coming to Leicester was really to try and get my love for the game back and I can tell you now it has worked wonders. I don’t have too many years left in the legs so I wanted to leave the game how I came in – loving it, with happiness.”

That happiness is quite something, especially when you consider that, upon arrival in Leicester, Nadolo faced every player’s worst nightmare. Having not played in five months and having spent most of the summer locked down in France, he was marched to the strength and conditioning department. What followed was a six-kilogram weight loss, leaving him perfectly primed for Leicester’s “exciting rebuild”.

“The set-up here is really good and the coaching guys, the strength and conditioning guys, have been working really hard with me,” he says.

“But it’s also the demands of the training here. Steve [Borthwick] demands high intensity at training; it’s not like in France where it’s a bit of a slog and you can sort of get away with the extra pounds.

“I can’t speak highly enough of this place and I’m just grateful to have had the opportunity to come over here.”

There is a sense that, despite his relatively recent arrival, Nadolo already feels part of the furniture at Leicester. That sense is heightened, too, by his willingness to throw himself in at the cultural deep end - even if he is yet to try a pork pie or a curry, two delicacies with which the region is synonymous.

“The places that I’ve lived in, I’ve always wanted to be a part of what it is known for,” he says. “In Montpellier, I lived by the beach and here, in the countryside, I have a place on an old farm paddy; an old barn. It helps me get to know the area and once you do that it gives you a sense of what this club means to the city.

“I actually don’t live too far from the home of pork pies, so I’m ashamed to say I haven’t tried one of those. But we have a bit of time off coming up so I’ll try and sample some of the local stuff – but not too much!”

If it is Nadolo's environment, the “local stuff” as he puts it, that drives him off the field, then it is very much from within that the on-field drive exudes.

“When I first signed I had a lot of people doubting me, saying you’re too old, you’ve got a lot of injuries,” he says. “That was my driving motivation. I’m the sort of person whereby if you tell me ‘no’, I’ll prove you wrong. The big motivation is trying to prove to the fans that Leicester have not signed an old guy, they have not signed someone who is past his use-by date. That’s what drives me.

“Hopefully I can just keep going and prove people wrong.”

Out of Europe at the hands of Toulon and languishing in 11th place in the Premiership, Leicester, with their size and esteem, should be doing better. And while Nadolo is fully aware of that, he is confident that they will be back on the straight and narrow soon. “There is a lot of potential here,” he adds. “There is a big mix of young and old, with a lot of guys who are under 25 years old. They are very young, they are coming into a very demanding environment in the Gallagher Premiership.

“We are trying to build something here; it’s going to be a big learning curve for these guys.

“We are going in the right direction – that’s for sure.”