Deal is music to young Warrior’s ears
The Warriors have lured a young giant from Melbourne who supplements his modest league earnings by working as a rap artist.
By day, 23-year-old Jamayne Taunoa-Brown is a 117kg prop on a training and trial deal at the Auckland NRL club.
Elsewhere, he is known as Yung Maynie the hip hop and rap artist. The drum beats are promising. The Sydney Daily Telegraph has reported Taunoa-Brown will be called up into Laurie Daley’s Indigenous All Stars for the match against New Zealand Ma¯ori next week on the Gold Coast.
He will play alongside Latrell Mitchell and David Fifita against a Ma¯ori side including the likes of Melbourne stars Nelson AsofaSolomona and Jesse Bromwich.
Taunoa-Brown is an NRL pauper compared with those sorts of players. He is said to earn $1000 a week in Auckland, and is left with $500 after rent and tax.
“I have always loved music,” he said. “It was always a hobby, mucking around with music with my mates at school. Over the last couple of years, I started making my own tracks.
“I’ve got a little set-up at home, a little studio, everything I need, in a spare room.”
The Warriors are going into the 2020 season with very little enthusiasm around the game for their chances, and have missed out on a string of big name targets.
Warriors recruitment boss Peter O’Sullivan said tall prop TaunoaBrown, named in the Warriors’ NRL Nines team, has impressed.
“He has always been a player
I have had time for. I thought he was the best attacking prop in Queensland Cup last year when he was with North Brisbane, that’s beyond any doubt,” said O’Sullivan, who has made some of the most famous discoveries in NRL recruitment history.
“I brought him to New Zealand to train and trial. He has been terrific and the coaches want to keep him. We are hoping to upgrade him into the top squad next year.”
He played as a junior at the Melbourne Storm and Newcastle Knights before heading to Brisbane club football.
Daley was looking for reinforcements after losing props Ryan James and Andrew Fifita to injury.