In a parallel universe, Samu Kerevi could be a mainstay of the All Blacks midfield. When he was seven years old he was forced to flee a coup in the Solomon Islands and boarded a cargo plane bound for New Zealand. As fate would have it, however, the flight was diverted to Australia and though Kerevi could not speak a word of English he was provided with clothes by the Salvation Army and granted asylum to forge a life in Brisbane, where the Wallabies host Eddie Jones’s side in the second Test on Saturday.
If that sounds like a sliding-doors moment then Kerevi has had a few of them. He moved to the Solomon Islands because his grandfather – Kerevi was raised by his grandparents – was stationed there for his job with the Commonwealth. The 28-year-old had left Fiji to be with his grandfather as a young child – in part because he was born out of wedlock, and in part because his parents could not afford to raise him and his two brothers, Josua and Jone.
