Filipo Daugunu’s first Test try against the All Blacks on Sunday capped a fine debut for the former Fiji soccer junior, while underlining the growing importance of Pasifika talent to the fortunes of Australian rugby.
The winger was among eight players with Pacific islands heritage in Dave Rennie’s first starting 15 for the 16-16 draw at Wellington, where Samoa-born Hunter Paisami also enjoyed an encouraging debut at center.
One-time soccer goalkeeper Daugunu earned his place on the back of an outstanding Super Rugby AU campaign for the Queensland Reds.
Photo: AP
However, having fellow Fijian Marika Koroibete, who ignited the Wallabies’ second-half rally with an exhilarating try, in the changing room might have helped Daugunu feel more at ease in an unfamiliar environment.
“It’s got to be easier when you look around a room and you see people who have probably had very similar experiences to you,” former Wallabies vice captain Morgan Turinui said. “If you’re sitting in a room and you’re the only person with that experience, then it’s obviously harder.”
The Wallabies were not always quite so diverse.
The 22nd match day that beat France in the 1999 Rugby World Cup final featured only a single player of Pasifika origin in Tonga-born No. 8 Toutai Kefu.
Australian rugby has changed dramatically in the decades since, reflecting migration patterns and the growing strength of Pasifika communities in Australia’s east coast cities.
Turinui, whose father is Maori, was part of a wave of Polynesian players in the early 2000s who helped change perceptions of the Wallabies as a destination for a Caucasian, private-school elite.
General manager of the “Classic Wallabies” alumni group, Turinui oversees a membership base that he expects is only to become more diverse.
“The Pacific island influence has been there for a long time, but if you look at some of the numbers, just under half of all professional players are Pasifika,” he said. “At the amateur level as well, Pacific nations make up a huge number of our players and volunteers.”
While Michael Cheika, Ewen McKenzie and other past Wallabies coaches have welcomed Pasifika talent with open arms, Rennie has gone the extra mile in having his players recognize and celebrate their diversity.
The New Zealander, who has Cook Islands heritage on his mother’s side, has had players talk with each other about their roots at training camps.
Samoa-born prop Allan Alaalatoa was surprised when Rennie stood up during a team meeting in the lead-up to Wellington and announced that one of the “Tongan boys” had brought a song.
Hooker Folau Faingaa and prop Taniela Tupou led the Wallabies in a chorus of a traditional Tongan song.
“When you’re seeing the non-Pacific boys get stuck into the song — really enjoying [it] — and that genuine feeling of wanting to connect, that’s the best thing about it,” Alaalatoa said on Wednesday.
The Fijian players have also led a singalong and the Samoans’ turn is coming up.
“That’s been one of the great changes this year that I’ve felt,” Alaalatoa added. “The more we can connect off the field, the better it will be for us on the field.”
Sunday’s clash against New Zealand, the second in the annual Bledisloe Cup series contested by the trans-Tasman nations, is to be a huge test of the Wallabies’ unity at Eden Park, a venue where they are winless since 1986.
While cautious about declaring the Wallabies the “real deal,” Turinui was encouraged by their performance in Wellington and good signals coming out of the playing group.
“I think even we’ve seen with this newest Wallabies squad some more overt recognition of the different paths guys have walked,” he said. “We’re only one week in, but everything we’re seeing is that they’ve come together well.”
A runner who stopped during a marathon in China to pose doing the splits and another who hoarded energy gels have been banned for two years, the local athletics association said yesterday. The incidents happened during Sunday’s marathon in Sichuan Province’s Chengdu and were widely shared online. Videos showed a female runner stopping suddenly and dropping to the ground in the splits position, holding up her arms in a heart shape as she apparently posed for a photograph. She “committed obstructive fouls during the race, affecting the safe participation of other runners,” the Sichuan Athletics Association said in a statement, which identified
Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli yesterday vowed to “keep raising the bar” after winning the Japanese Grand Prix to become the youngest driver in Formula One history to lead the championship standings. The 19-year-old Italian took advantage of a mid-race safety car to jump into the lead after a dreadful start from pole position, crossing the line ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Antonelli’s Suzuka victory came two weeks after the first grand prix win of his career in China, and sent him top of the championship standings after three races, nine points ahead of team-mate George Russell. Mercedes are struggling to
Liverpool star Mohamed Salah on Tuesday said that he would leave the English club at the end of the Premier League season, marking an earlier-than-planned departure for one of the club’s greatest-ever scorers and soccer’s biggest names. The 33-year-old Egypt forward, who has scored 255 goals in 435 appearances for Liverpool, “reached an agreement” to quit the team a year before his contract was due to expire, the Premier League champions said. Salah’s form has dipped in his ninth year at Anfield, to such an extent that he was dropped for a stretch of games late last year — leading to the
There were some big games to be played yesterday in the NBA, with the Atlanta Hawks to play the Detroit Pistons in a matchup pitting a Hawks team who are rolling against a Pistons team trying to lock up the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed. The Oklahoma City Thunder were to play the Boston Celtics, a showdown featuring the two most recent champions, while the Houston Rockets faced the Minnesota Timberwolves, a game that could factor mightily into Western Conference seeding. Elsewhere, the Washington Wizards were to play the Utah Jazz, with the Wizards on a 16-game slide visiting against a team
RSS