Mathew Drew Turner ("Mat" for short) (born 18 January 1988) is a South African born

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

player who currently plays for the

Seattle Seawolves The Seattle Seawolves are an American professional rugby union team based in the Seattle metropolitan area that competes in Major League Rugby (MLR). The team was founded in 2017. The Seawolves won two MLR championships in 2018 and 2019, and los ...

Major League Rugby Major League Rugby (MLR) is a professional rugby union competition in the United States. The league comprises 11 teams. While operating outside of the governance and oversight of the national governing body, the league is officially sanctioned ...

(MLR). He also played

rugby sevens Rugby sevens (commonly known simply as sevens, and originally seven-a-side rugby) is a variant of rugby union in which teams are made up of seven players playing seven-minute halves, instead of the usual 15 players playing 40-minute halves. R ...

for

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

on the Sevens World Series circuit between 2008 and 2013. He usually plays as a

wing A wing is a type of fin that produces both Lift (force), lift and drag while moving through air. Wings are defined by two shape characteristics, an airfoil section and a planform (aeronautics), planform. Wing efficiency is expressed as lift-to-d ...

or fullback. Turner played for in the inaugural

Varsity Cup Varsity Cup is the collective name for four South African rugby union competitions involving the top rugby playing universities in the country. It was launched in 2008, with eight teams participating in the Varsity Cup competition and each unive ...

season before joining the England sevens tour. He also played 15s rugby for English Premiership side

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

between 2008 and 2010, for the

Southern Kings The Southern Kings were a South African professional rugby union team that competed in Super Rugby and Pro14. They were based in Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape province and played their home matches at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium. They w ...

in their match against the

British & Irish Lions The British & Irish Lions is a rugby union team selected from players eligible for the national teams of England national rugby union team, England, Ireland national rugby union team, Ireland, Scotland national rugby union team, Scotland, and ...

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

, and for in 2015.

Career

Youth / Varsity Cup

Turner was born in

Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. He attended Western Province Preparatory School in Claremont and then Bishops College. He was a member of the 2006 Bishops first XV which also included Nick Köster and Martin Muller; he finished as the top scorer in school rugby the country during 2006, scoring 286 points in 20 matches, which included 28 tries. He was overlooked for provincial selection, however, not being included in 's squad for the 2006

Craven Week The Craven Week is an annual rugby union tournament organised for schoolboys in the Republic of South Africa. The tournament started in July 1964, and is named after the legendary Springbok rugby union player and coach Dr Danie Craven. The ...

competition. After finishing high school, he joined the Western Province Academy and represented the side during the 2007 Under-19 Provincial Championship. In 2008, he was included in the team that played in the inaugural edition of the

competition. He made an immediate impact for the side, scoring two late tries after coming on as a replacement in the first ever match in the competition, a 17–23 defeat to . He started all of their remaining seven matches in the competition, scoring a total of nine tries to finish as the top try scorer in the competition. His try-scoring feat also included a hat-trick against and he contributed a further seven points with the boot to finish sixth in the overall points scoring charts. He was also selected in a South African Under-20 training squad at the start of 2008, but eventually failed to make the final squad that participated at the

2008 IRB Junior World Championship The 2008 IRB Junior World Championship was the first annual international rugby union competition for Under 20 national teams. All players who were twenty years of age or under on 1 January 2008 were eligible for selection. This competition repl ...

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

. In the latter half of 2008, he was a member of the squad that played in the 2008 Under-21 Provincial Championship.

Bristol

Towards the end of 2008, Turner moved to

to join Premiership side

. He made his first class debut for the side in the 2008–09 Anglo-Welsh Cup. He started on the left wing in their first round match against the

Northampton Saints Northampton Saints (officially Northampton Rugby Football Club) is a professional rugby union club from Northampton, England. The club plays in Premiership Rugby, England's top division of rugby union. It was formed in 1880 as "Northampton St. ...

and took just three minutes to score his first try for the club. He also scored a second midway through the first half, but could not prevent Bristol falling to a 17–30 defeat. He also played in their other two matches in the competition, but ended on the losing side on all three occasions. He also made his debut in the English Premiership against

, coming on as a second-half substitute to help Bristol achieve their first Premiership win, beating Northampton 14–13. He also played in matches against

Saracens file:Erhard Reuwich Sarazenen 1486.png, upright 1.5, Late 15th-century History of Germany, German woodcut depicting Saracens ''Saracen'' ( ) was a term used both in Greek language, Greek and Latin writings between the 5th and 15th centuries to ...

and

Wasps A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. Th ...

in the same competition. He made a further five appearances for the side following their relegation to the

2009–10 RFU Championship The 2009–10 RFU Championship was the 1st season (of the professionalised format) of the second division of the English domestic rugby union competitions, played between August 2009 and May 2010. The league had been restructured from the 16 te ...

and scored two tries, taking his total number of appearances for the side to eleven.

Southern Kings

He made an appearance for the newly formed South African

Super Rugby Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It has previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Super Rugby started as the S ...

franchise, the

Port Elizabeth Gqeberha ( , ), formerly named Port Elizabeth, and colloquially referred to as P.E., is a major seaport and the most populous city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipal ...

-based , in their first ever match on 16 June 2009 against the

during their 2009 tour to South Africa, with the Kings losing the match 8–20.

England Sevens

Turner qualified to play internationally for England through an English mother and was selected for the England sevens team for the first two legs of the

2009–10 IRB Sevens World Series The 2009–10 IRB Sevens World Series was the eleventh of an annual series of rugby union sevens tournaments for full national sides run by the International Rugby Board since 1999–2000. Samoa won the IRB Sevens World Series crown for their fir ...

. He immediately established himself as a regular in the England setup and eventually went on to play a total of 34 Sevens World Series tournaments between 2009 and 2013, scoring 92 tries. In 2012, Turner was nominated for the IRB Sevens Player of the Year award. He made the final shortlist of three with New Zealanders Tomasi Cama and Frank Halai. Cama won the award.

Western Province

Turner returned to South Africa in 2015 and joined the for pre-season training prior to the

2015 Super Rugby season The 2015 Super Rugby season was the 20th season of Super Rugby and the fifth season featuring an expanded 15-team format. For sponsorship reasons, this competition was known as Asteron Life Super Rugby in Australia, Investec Super Rugby in New ...

. He wasn't included in their final squad for the competition, instead representing in the

2015 Vodacom Cup The 2015 Vodacom Cup was contested from 6 March to 30 May 2015. The tournament was the 18th edition of the Vodacom Cup, an annual domestic South African rugby union competition, and was played between the fourteen provincial teams in South Afr ...

. He made his first appearance in a first class domestic competition in South Africa in their opening match against the , contributing to a 25–10 victory against their

Western Cape The Western Cape ( ; , ) is a provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the List of South African provinces by area, fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , an ...

rivals.

Seattle Seawolves

In 2018, Turner played for the Seattle Seawolves in the first Major League Rugby season, and was awarded the Virginia Mason Alpha Back of the final championship match where the Seattle Seawolves won the championship and taking home the MLR shield.

Sri Lanka

In 2013/14 Turner played for the Central Kings in Sri Lanka at the Carlton International 7s tournament.

Coaching

In August 2015 he was appointed as the head coach of the Sri Lanka national rugby sevens team.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Turner, Mathew 1988 births Living people Bristol Bears players Commonwealth Games rugby sevens players for England England international rugby sevens players English rugby union players South African expatriate rugby union players in the United States Rugby sevens players at the 2010 Commonwealth Games Rugby union fullbacks Rugby union players from Cape Town Rugby union wings Seattle Seawolves players South African people of British descent South African rugby union players Western Province (rugby union) players Alumni of Diocesan College, Cape Town Ikey Tigers players