Leap into unknown pays off for Taufua
Jordan Taufua can laugh about the time when he stood in a Christchurch flat and asked Nepo Laulala if he could shake some magic out of a cookbook.
Laulala returned serve: ‘‘Can you?’’ They looked at each other in bemusement. The only thing for it was to start from scratch, and fill their bellies with simple fare: delights such as mince, toast, rice and pasta were used as fuel for their big engines as they took their first steps towards being professional rugby players.
If it doesn’t sound glamorous, it wasn’t. Until he moved from South Auckland to Christchurch in 2010 Taufua had lived in a typical teenage bubble where mum and dad did everything, so when the moment came to think about dinner in his new digs the penny dropped with a clang.
‘‘We were terrible, we actually didn’t know how to cook,’’ Taufua says. ‘‘We taught ourselves. We got put into this flat and we didn’t know how to pay power bills, we didn’t know how do the washing or cook. It was all new to us.
‘‘We say to each other now ‘remember when we had no car and we lived off mince and veggies?’ That was our go-to meal, along with pasta and rice.’’
Taufua has come a fair way since those days. The heavyset back rower known as ‘‘the Beast’’ is considered an important component of the Crusaders forward pack and is capable of being equally effective at blindside flanker and No 8.
Last month he should have also earned his first All Blacks test cap against France, but a small tear in a calf muscle ended any chance of that.
Taufua is desperate to play for his country, and has been granted a release from the short-term deal with the Japanese club Mitsubishi Sagamihara Dynaboars.
The chances of getting much game time with Tasman, the province he has re-signed with since declining a move to the Dynaboars, appear slim because the 26-year-old is expected to be named in the All Blacks’ 33-man squad to play in the upcoming Rugby Championship.
‘‘I decided to stay and give it a good crack with the All Blacks,’’ he says. ‘‘Japan will always be there – my focus is stay in New Zealand and stick at it.’’
There is significant money to be earned in Japan, potentially up to six times more than what a provincial union contract offers. Taufua maintains it wasn’t a difficult decision to decline the pay hike.
‘‘It was actually pretty easy to turn it down. It might be a different story if I had the chance to play in that June series against France, but because I didn’t it was easier for me to stay put.’’
He has come a long way since those days of living with Laulala, who is now contracted to the Chiefs and has played 13 tests for the All Blacks as a tighthead prop.
Home sickness was an issue for Taufua in the early days. He missed his mum’s cooking, his mates, four brothers and the fact his dad, Faatanoa, couldn’t be in Christchurch to watch him play rugby each weekend.
‘‘I got real homesick, didn’t know anyone down here at the time. All my mates were in Auckland but luckily enough I got to move into the rugby flat across the road from Rugby Park with Nepo.
‘‘It was pretty daunting and nerve-wracking for the both of us, coming from South Auckland down into Canterbury.’’
The pair lived under the same roof for six months, until Taufua moved into the halls at Lincoln University.
Lincoln was the magnet that drew him to the South Island. Born in Otahuhu, he was raised in Takanini, played his club rugby for Ardmore-Marist, attended Alfriston College and then switched to Sacred Heart College when he was 16.
Although good enough to play in rep age-group teams for Counties and Auckland, and the NZ under-17 team, Taufua worried his rugby aspirations would suffer if he stayed in the big smoke.
A career adviser at Sacred Heart suggested he take a deep breath and consider enrolling at the university south of Christchurch.
‘‘There was an awesome lady, Mrs Harvey, she told me to have a look at Lincoln University and the scholarship programme there. I flew down with her to look to the uni and quite liked it.
‘‘It was quite scary at the time because my family . . . in the Pacific Island families, you actually stay at home for as long as you can. But I made a decision that if I was going to make it in rugby, I wasn’t going to make it up there [in Auckland].
‘‘I applied for the scholarship, and got it. I pretty much put all my eggs in one basket and came down for the opportunity to study sport and recreation management and to also play some footy.’’
CRFU academy manager Matt Sexton, now employed by NZ Rugby, invited Taufua to join his set-up and the transition led to greater riches. There was a short stint with the Samoa under-20 team, and he has played for Canterbury, Counties-Manukau and Tasman in the Mitre 10 Cup.
In 2013 Taufua made his debut for the Crusaders under former coach Todd Blackadder, and the following year he replaced George Whitelock as a regular starter at blindside flanker.
Now a member of the Crusaders leadership team, Taufua feels a responsibility to offer advice to newbies at the club – something he appreciates an old team-mate, Robbie Fruean, doing for him in the early days.
One of the big advantages of living in Christchurch is the ability to get across the town with relative ease, unlike in a sprawling city such as Auckland, and that allows the players to form solid friendships when they aren’t slogging it out on the training paddock and in the gym.
‘‘We hang around with each other almost 22 hours of the day, really,’’ Taufua notes. ‘‘If it’s not on the field it’s at each other’s houses playing cards.
‘‘That’s the good thing about living in Christchurch, everyone only lives about 10 minutes away.
‘‘We have just adopted a new game – dominoes. Andrew Makalio says ‘we should play this’. We knew how to play because our dads played it. A couple of boys in the team have a few sets in their trucks or their cars, and now if we go for coffee we bring the dominoes in.’’