Tongan Thor eyes first Wallabies test
Taniela Tupou has been living with overblown hype since his schoolboy days in Auckland where the first YouTube footage surfaced of a kid hulk skittling defenders and running in 50m tries.
But now he’s on the verge of turning all that hype into reality after being called into the Wallabies squad in London a week before he becomes eligible to don the green-and-gold.
Over the past 16 months, the 132kg Tupou has proved how much substance there is to his game as a quickto-learn scrummager. The explosive 21-year-old can still run amok with the ball but is mature enough to know he’s an apprentice prop.
“I’m eligible next week but it doesn’t mean nothing,” Tupou said after joining Michael Cheika’s Wallabies squad.
“If he [Cheika] thinks I’m ready now, that’s good. If he thinks I’ll be ready in two year’s time, I’ll wait two years.
“Guys like Sekope [Kepu] I grew up watching as a little boy in Tonga. Now I get to train with him, learn off him and hopefully I get the chance to play with him before he retires.”
All the same, Tupou wants to play that first test so his fans know he’s far more than a YouTube sensation.
“I want to change it so people are not saying ‘I saw you on a YouTube clip’ but ‘ I saw you playing hard in a test match’,” Tupou said.
Even so, Tupou finds it hard to resist watching the footage. There’s something about a young giant with a sidestep, tree-trunk thighs, defenders being skittled like Lilliputians and tries galore.
“Yes. It comes up on Facebook and some of my mates will tag me in it and why not watch it and see all the comments,” Tupou said with a laugh.
“Sometimes I look at it and I’m like: ‘Maybe I shouldn’t eat that much, that jersey looks tight’.”
Tupou is grateful to former All Blacks lock Brad Thorn, as coach for Queensland Country and the Reds, for nailing down his standards and former Reds coach Nick Stiles for a strong scrum education.
“Brad Thorn is not just a normal person. He’s someone who has done it all, won everything, and you’d want to listen to him whatever he tells you to do,” Tupou said.
“He told me before one game to do something in the lineouts and I didn’t do it. He wasn’t going to pick me in the next game if I did it again,” Tupou said.
“I had one job, lifting the guy at the back of the lineout and I was more focused on getting the ball and running out. Just like that I fixed it. Little things, the one percenters, win games.”