I owe Australia’: Tongan Thor
Brisbane: Fresh from helping dominate the Pumas scrum, Australia’s ‘Tongan Thor’ has declared he owes it to Australia to stay home and reject the big money on offer in Europe. Rampaging Reds tighthead prop Taniela Tupou said he hadn’t “done anything” yet in the gold jersey and indicated he would take up a three-year extension worth up to $1 million per season to turn that around.
The move would keep Tupou at Queensland until the end of the 2023 Super Rugby season and ensure he is available for the next World Cup in France that same year. “There’s an offer on the table and we haven’t made a decision yet about what I’m going to do for the next few years,” he said.
“I owe Australia, I haven’t done much here, I guess I need to stay here.
“I’ll make my decision in the next few months but I think I still owe Australia something and I think I might end up staying here.”
The signing would be a major coup for Rugby Australia, with so many players heading overseas at the end of this year’s World Cup. Tupou’s Reds teammate and captain Samu Kerevi is among them, along with veterans Sekope Kepu and Will Genia, and top halves Bernard Foley, Quade Cooper and Will Genia. Tupou was tipped to join them at the start of the year, as rumours swirled he was unhappy in Australia and looking for a way out of the last year in his contract.
The former New Zealand schoolboy star, who signed with Queensland in 2015 as an 18-year-old on a two-year development contract, now says he was in a lonely place but turned his season around after learning to ask for help.
“At the start of this year I went through a lot, some personal stuff, and it was really tough for me,” Tupou said.
“There was one point there when I didn’t think about the World Cup, I just forgot about everything.
Tupou joins a trio of players RA has pinpointed as anchors for the Wallabies in the lead-in to the 2023 World Cup. Brumbies prop Allan Ala’alatoa, young Reds back Jordan Petaia and Australian captain Michael Hooper are all on long term deals.
But Tupou will etch his name in the history books when he signs this deal, which will make him the highest paid prop in Australian history. The three-year contract scales up from about $850,000 to $1 million-a-year over the course of the deal, putting him in the top band of players in Australia.