Tamati's son chases down fame in different league

It's a long time since 1980s rugby league star Kevin Tamati dreamed of the days his kids would follow his footsteps into professional football.

None did, but that didn't stop them from becoming stars in their own right, and last night the former Kiwi from Bridge Pa was right behind now Ocker son Nathan doing his thing as part of the support act for Australian teen sensation Reece Mastin.

Nathan Tamati, or Nate, as he is better known, is one of the trio, Young Men Society, who featured last year on the same Australian X-Factor shows which shot Mastin to stardom.

While YMS finished eighth, 17-year-old Mastin won the contest, and has been mobbed, Justin Bieber style, ever since.

It's much different for Tamati who yesterday was able to have a father-and-son stroll on the boardwalk near Perfume Point in abject anonymity, save for the family dog from Bridge Pa, a jack russell-border collie cross name Zoe.

Tamati has spent little time in Bridge Pa, Hawke's Bay, or even New Zealand.

He was born in 1985 when his famous father had just switched clubs from Widnes to Warrington in English rugby league.

The "baby" of the family of league hitman Kevin Tamati and mum Tira, he did all his schooling there, and the hints were soon out that he'd be following footlights instead of footsteps.

One family video, in a collection which includes that of the famed sideline stoush his father had with Australian prop Greg Dowling in Brisbane, shows the 6-year-old Nate at mini-league.

"He was showing no interest whatsoever," said Kevin Tamati yesterday.

The video apparently shows young Nate dancing away to himself in a corner of the field, and he says: "Sadly, it wasn't my calling, Dad."

While he did appear in such things as the stage show South Pacific as a youngster, Nate never saw himself becoming a professional performer.

It was more like a career in IT, but when the study started to fall away, brother Damon, spreading his own entrepreneurial wings in Australia, told him it was time to head to Sydney. He started doing hip-hop dance classes, and "fell in love with it" when he started getting work with his talents.

YMS, formed about four years ago, is a bit of a United Nations collection, Tamati being joined in the urban pop group by Andi Tiamoura, who's Indonesian, and Joshua Fonmoa, whose roots are in Rotoma, off Fiji.

Their exit from X-Factor wasn't the most popular moment on Australian TV last year, watched "live" by the whanau who'd crossed the Tasman from Bridge Pa, but they've bounced back, with debut single We Own the Night hitting the airwaves in New Zealand this week, and available already on iTunes.