When he was accepted into recruit wing 312 at the Royal New Zealand Police College in late 2017, he went through his training with Tā Mark Solomon as his wing patron. Tā Mark recalls that when he first met the 60 aspiring new recruits, he was immediately struck by the passion they had for their new career. Matt did, indeed, have a star quality—a star that was taken too soon. To quote "For the Fallen": 