Covid can’t keep Tuala down long
DESPITE having played just seven games, Ahsee Tuala is having an eventful season.
Against Wasps last weekend, the 31-year-old Samoan almost cost his side a victory by declining to hoof the ball out to touch with his Northampton Saints 22-17 up at the hooter.
In December he escaped punishment following a citing for a “kicking” incident in a 29-10 win over Worcester Warriors.
Most dramatic of all, the softly spoken full-back has recovered from a bout of Covid-19.
“Ah, it wasn’t too bad actually,” he says in a tone that feels too casual for the subject matter. “At first I thought it was just ‘manflu’ but then I got tested and it turned out to be covid. It knocked me down for a few days. My wife got it, but not as bad. I was basically alone in my bed for a little while.”
Whether speaking about his brush with a disease that has killed around 2.5 million people or his love of rugby, Tuala delivers each line with levity. His Instagram feed is a wellspring of positivity and his approach on the field can easily be described as joyous.
He knows what the opposite of joy looks like.
Born in Moto’otua in Samoa, he moved to South Auckland with his parents when he was two. “It was pretty rough at times,” he says of the underresourced and poorly governed region on New Zealand’s north island. “There were a lot of lost kids around me.
“I know a few who turned to drugs and gangs.
Rugby was my way out.”
Tuala’s talents were not honed in an elite rugby factory but he did have role models at the state run James Cook High School. Along with Rugby League star Joe Galuvao and onetime All Black Lelia Masaga among the school’s alumni, Joe Rokocoko was a living testament that Tuala’s humble surroundings would not stifle his ambitions.
But it was Counties Manukau that truly gave 23-cap Tuala a sense of belonging. “It’s more than a rugby club,” he says. “It was a rallying point for people like me who wanted to feel part of a community. I owe them everything.”
Tuala represented New Zealand at the U20 World Cup and was also part of his adopted country’s Sevens programme, but the call from his home land was impossible to ignore.
“I grew up in a traditional Samoan family and that heritage meant a lot to me. I got the opportunity to continue my work with the New Zealand Sevens and chose not to. Our house was always blue. That’s where my heart was.”
It is partly this thread that tugged Tuala to Northampton. Of the 21 men inducted into the Northampton Hall of Fame, only one was born outside the United Kingdom.
Pat Lam, the Kiwi-born Samoan No.8 now leading a renaissance at Bristol arrived at Franklin’s Gardens to find a club in transition. After 54 games in four seasons, which included lifting the 2000 Heineken Cup as captain, Lam retired as an undisputed champion of the East Midlands.
“Pat’s journey and success played a big role in my decision and interest in the club,” Tuala explains. “I’d love to leave the same impact when I leave”
He joined a club fresh from its Premiership triumph in 2014 but a cup in 2019 is the only silverware Tuala has seen.
Yesterday’s 13-12 win away at Exeter, his 129th game for the club, nudges the side into the top four. If he can bring the glory days back to Saints, there’ll be more than one Samoan in their Hall of Fame.