KNIGHTS speedster Akuila Uate is every bit the athlete, right down to the brashness and the cheek.

"Yeah, I could run 10 seconds," he calmly told The Sunday Telegraph. "Like anything, if you work hard then you can do it."

Uate might be on P-plates but he is the fastest man in the NRL and the game's next sensation, according to former Test five-eighth Matthew Johns.

"He's an excitement machine, no doubt he's the next personality player of the NRL," Johns said. "He has great ability and, coupled with his blinding speed, he'll be a terrific player."

Uate is yet to play an NRL game yet his name is already on the lips of everyone in the Hunter.

"Smithy (Brian Smith) held him back last year for good reason, but there's definitely been an expectation about him for a while now," Johns said.

It took five phone calls for The Sunday Telegraph to receive any data on Uate's sprinting prowess.

"We're a bit hesitant to make his times public. Let's just say with heavy footy boots on and on a muddied grass track, he can run about 4.9sec over 40m," a Knights official said of the 20-year-old.

However, Uate's NRL career might never have happened, with the Olympics being his boyhood dream.

"I always used to love watching the Olympics, the 200m and 400m," Uate said. "I could watch it all day. I use to sit back at home thinking, 'oh geez, I want to do that'."

Uate left his homeland, Fiji, in 2003 on the wishes of his father. "He wanted me to get better schooling ... and for footy," he said.

But the lure of Olympic medals and the running track almost stole him.

With little more than a year's worth of track sprinting experience, the teenager travelled to Homebush and ran 100m in 10.9sec at the 2005 NSW Combined High Schools carnival.

"When I came here it was heaps hard to choose between running and league," he said.

"I used to catch the train straight after school from the Central Coast and travel to Newcastle for SG Ball training every afternoon, then travel back at around 11 o'clock at night.

"I did it for two years. I had to make one decision, and that was to play rugby league."

In Uate's quieter moments, when memories of his sprinting drift to the Games in Beijing, he re-focuses on the people and players around him.

"I look at all the big boys up here helping me, like Mad Dog (Adam MacDougall). He's taught me everything. He's taught me so much, how to work on the wing. I look up to him and all the big boys, like Bedsy (Danny Buderus) and Simmo (Steve Simpson).

"I'm hoping that I get a run this year in the NRL," Uate said. "As far as my running technique is concerned, it's the best I've been. I'm sure I could be the fastest player in the NRL."