Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii: I switched codes for games like the Lions

Times

a day ago

Even the star of the show can find himself a little starstruck. Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii is in a hotel in Brisbane, lowering himself into a top-table press conference seat next to Will Skelton, the massive Wallaby lock, when he realises how many journalists are in the room.
It is British & Irish Lions Test week, and so everyone is piling into this small room on the third floor of the Wallabies' city centre base. Suaalii is enjoying this: he counts the Dictaphones placed in front of him, then takes his own picture of the assembled media.
When he switched codes to become Rugby Australia's £900,000-a-year man — a contract which could rise in value if he re-signs from 2027 to 2029 — it was for this. Attention, spectacle, the biggest matches and occasions.
Suaalii is 6ft 4in and 17st 4lb, a superb athletic specimen at 21, and exudes main-character aura, even if he stresses he is only one part of a team. He speaks clearly and confidently, and relishes the role he has been cast in. So how does it feel to be the saviour of rugby union in Australia, Joseph?
'The first thing is it's a team sport,' he says. 'It's not just me. I'm just trying to be my best self for my team-mates and that's it. I don't really buy into, you know, who's going to save this, who's going to do this.
'The Lions was probably the biggest carrot [to come to union]. I've always dreamed I wanted to be a part of something so special that happens every 12 years.
'I was nine [in 2013]. I remember watching it. In my house, at home in Penrith, all the young kids sit on the floor and I just remember being real close to the TV, watching it. It's something so special as a kid that sparks you to do something great in your life, so to be a part of this squad, it's amazing.'
If Australians are looking for reasons to believe they can beat the Lions, Skelton is a good place to start, not least because his Champions Cup victories with La Rochelle over Leinster have greater significance against Andy Farrell's Irish-loaded Lions. Yet even a rugby figure as experienced and successful as Skelton cannot hide his excitement at Suaalii's involvement in this series.
'He does all right, doesn't he?' Skelton says. 'He's himself, he's not being anyone else, even when he is wearing his Louis Vuitton and singing his album, he's being him. He's a great asset to have in the team.'
Suaalii is trying to stay 'neutral' and chilled, because he knows what happens when he is too amped up. In Suaalii's only State of Origin rugby league game, for New South Wales against Queensland last June, he lasted seven minutes before committing one of the most dangerous tackles seen in Australian rugby league.
The threshold for being sent off is so high that only six players have ever been dismissed in 45 years of Origin matches — but Suaalii's shoulder to the head of Queensland's star man, Reece Walsh, was genuinely shocking.
There is the potential for personal confrontation in the first Test on Saturday if Sione Tuipulotu is in the Lions team. The pair of Australian-born centres went at it, as they say over here, when Scotland played the Wallabies in November, with one battle culminating in Suaalii telling Tuipulotu, 'I'll see you next time, mate'.
Tuipulotu has spoken about it on podcasts, and how he wants another pop at Suaalii, but has been told by Eoin Toolan, who was his analyst at the Melbourne Rebels but now works for Joe Schmidt's Wallabies, to stop mentioning it as Suaalii will be listening, and out to get him. Suaalii does not want to go there on this personal rivalry in public. But Skelton is the hype man.
'Ah, that's what you want, isn't it? Our 12s going against their 12s, 13s against 13s,' he says. 'No matter what, it's going to be a physical battle and we're up for the challenge.'
Suaalii plays it down. 'Once you do things on the footie field, you keep them on the footie field. I am ready to go and play,' he explains. 'I always focus on myself first before I put energy into something else. Obviously fans want to see a rivalry, but at the end of the day it is a team sport. Whatever is said on the field, stays on the field.
'The biggest thing I learned from Origin was my off-field prep and the way I was leading into that week just taught me a lot about myself leading into these big games. It is just about being neutral — not being too high or too low, and not playing the game before playing it.'
Suaalii's process now involves a 'grounding' ceremony, where he stands barefoot between one set of posts before a game, listening to meditation incantations.
'I am a pretty weird person,' Suaalii says. 'I like to take in the crowd, where I am right now. I like to connect with the ground and just be where I am right now with my feet. I don't want to look too far ahead or look too far back. It's all about being as present as I can.'
The next part of his pre-match routine is juggling three tennis balls. 'That's just hand-eye, just getting my stuff going with my peripheral vision and getting all those little details that you get on the footie field because you're going to a lot of different pictures on the footie field,' he explains.
Suaalii realises that he is here to promote the game, the code, and Australian sport. He is ready to embrace all of it. The Australians desperately want — maybe need — him to light up this series.
'These are the biggest games,' he says. 'It happens every 12 years, it is so exciting just for the young Australians and the kids that have played rugby and are trying to be the next Wallabies. It is so exciting for that next generation and even old Wallabies watching it too.'