All Black Tu’inukuafe joins the Blues

Having gone from part-time nightclub bouncer to an All Blacks jersey in a few months, prop Karl Tu’inukuafe knows a good deal more about life outside rugby than the young talents who typically travel New Zealand’s elite pathways to the big-time. That life experience was just one of the qualities that proved attractive to Tana Umaga’s Auckland Blues, who announced on Thursday that they had snapped up the 25-year-old on a three-year deal