Career
His first-class career consisted of eight matches for Otago. A graduate of Samoa College, Matatumua is first recorded as playing in New Zealand during the 1960-1961 season, when he appeared for a Wanganui district team in the Hawke Cup. A right-handed batsman and right-arm medium pacer, he played for the Otago under-23s during the 1963-1964 season, but did not make his first-class debut until the 1966-1967 season, in the Plunket Shield.
On debut against Auckland in January 1967, Matatumua took 2/61 and 1/31 opening the bowling with another non-New Zealander, Barbadian Rudi Webster.
Coming in eighth in the batting order, he made 24 in the first innings and a duck in the second, dismissed by future Test spinner Hedley Howarth in both instances. Matatumua went on to feature in Otago"s final two matches of the 1966-1967 season, and all of its matches in the 1967-1968 season.
Still batting at number eight, in the opening match of the latter season, against Wellington, he scored 69 runs, his only first-class half-century. In the next match, a home fixture against Auckland at Dunedin"s Carisbrook ground, Matatumua took career-best figures of 3/38 in the first innings, including the wickets of Test players Terry Jarvis and Graham Vivian.
He finished the season with eight wickets at average of 34.75, behind only three players for Otago – Jack Alabaster (27 wickets), Gren Alabaster (19 wickets), and Rudi Webster (nine wickets).