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'It’ll humble you': Injury-riddled Atu Moli talks fresh start

Copyright Photo: Ashley Western / www.photosport.nz

Atu Moli is looking for a fresh start in Western Australia, joining the Force for the 2024 Super Rugby Pacific season.

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Moli, a former New Zealand U20 captain and five-time All Black, has departed the Chiefs after seven seasons and 54 appearances for the club. An eight-year stretch that saw him play less than half of the available games due to a horror run of injuries.

The youngest forward in the 2019 Rugby World Cup squad, the prop’s talent had Steve Hansen singing his praises and a huge career looked to be on the cards.

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The way things have played out though has led the 28-year-old to Western Australia, where he has a chance to get his career back on track, and perhaps look towards an international appearance for Tonga.

“To be honest, I’d like to start from scratch and keep building from there,” Moli said on the Western Force’s YouTube.

“It’s just crazy coming back from these injuries, you can get to the All Blacks, it’ll humble you if you get injured and start back at the bottom, but I’m really keen to get back into it.”

The 127kg prop has seen much adversity with plenty of playing years left ahead of him, offering a grounding and considered presence in the Force locker room, where he’ll join some familiar faces.

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“I was fortunate to play with Chase (Tiatia), Feleti (Kaitu’u) and Campbell (Parata) in New Zealand, got to know them and started to talk to them about the club.

“They were enjoying it, so I thought I’d come and give it a go. Crono (Force head coach Simon Cron) is a bit of a character. I’m definitely loving what he’s done with the Western Force and I’m just glad I’m here to be a part of it.

“It’s also good to have a change of scenery and have a different environment. I spent eight years in Hamilton, so it’s a good change for my family.”

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The Force face another tough Super Rugby Pacific campaign in 2024. Their young roster shows plenty of potential but having finished 10th in 2023, there’s much work to be done if dreams of a playoff birth are to be realised.

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The five wins the team registered this year were hard-fought encounters, including a superb result against the Brumbies in round 12, a performance that put all of the team’s promise on full display.

Moli’s experience will add valuable perspective to that promise, and the prop is keen to share that experience and rekindle his leadership skills with his new teammates.

“Everything that I’ve learned on the big stage, I’m keen to teach the young boys here.”

“I hadn’t really shown my leadership back in New Zealand so I’m keen to do something about it here.”

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2 Comments
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Utiku Old Boy 393 days ago

Would have been great to see him kick on from his early promise. Injuries were devastating. With game time, he could still compete for the ABs given his age, size, leadership and talent. Hope he holds up and it is the start of something big for him.

J
Jon 393 days ago

Can see the Force competing with Brumbies for the top Australian spot.

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JW 28 minutes ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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