Why Joseph-Aukuso Sua'ali'i must not become Folau 2.0

It is the sporting version of ‘cult of personality’ and it has cropped up in Australian rugby for far too long. Trust in the superstar athlete who can play league, union, and more often than not, Aussie rules too. Trust the demigod who can turn their hand to any sporting craft, and make a success of it with the bare minimum of time and effort invested.

In a recent interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, ex-Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan – yes, he who engineered the Eddie Jones World Cup disaster – popped his over the media parapet to tout the latest edition of the Superman theory, which has RA ripping Penrith Panthers star number six Nathan Cleary away from the NRL. This, in the wake of 21-year-old league star Joseph-Aukuso Sua’ali’i heading to union.

“I’d be having a crack at the likes of Cleary,” McLennan said. “The game needs another five Josephs [Sua’ali’is], as the World Cup for 2027 is just around the corner and the clock is ticking.

“Thank God for Joseph, because that’s all everyone is talking about. Australia is number 10 [ranked] in the world and needs an injection of talent, or there will be nothing left to sell. He’s a global rugby superstar before he has even pulled on a Wallaby jumper, and he’ll be a wonderful role model for aspiring young players.”

Apart from the obvious question: ‘where will the money come from?’, McLennan conveniently forgot to mention Australia lost wing Mark Nawaqanitawase into the bargain. ‘Marky Mark’ was well on his way to becoming a world-class operator when he signed suddenly with NRL’s Sydney Roosters, so the whole deal became a tit-for-tat, a Faustian Pact.

There was also a dangerous disconnect between what the ex-chairman was saying, and the words uttered almost simultaneously by the new director of high performance Peter Horne at a workshop in Brisbane.

“[At age-group level] a lot of people are talking about, ‘is he a league kid, or is he a rugby kid?’

“We want to invest in those players that are committed to rugby and give them an opportunity. If we have got good-quality programmes that are connected to a potential career in a professional environment, then the ones that we want to keep, we do.

“Our value proposition is around quality of programme, [and] opportunity for international touring. We tour at under-18 level, we have got competition in Super Rugby U16s, 19s. The whole package.”

In Horne’s world, it is all about alignment. Aligning the new Australia XV programme with the Wallabies and linking both back to state by selecting 64 players to tour the UK in November; connecting state programmes to age-group development and the early sighting of talents who might commit to either code by providing substantial, attractive professional pathways in union.

For McLennan, it is all about poaching the best talent, wherever it has been developed, then building a marketing show around it. Never mind the quality of our programme, feel the width of the superstar’s reach. While one man patiently digs the foundations, another sells the product with a flourish. Now look at the two attitudes, side by side, and ask yourself how growth really happens.

The most famous recent example of the Superman theory has been Israel Folau. Folau was a supreme athlete who had played both league and AFL before moving to rugby, and he made a spectacular and immediate impact on the game against the 2013 British and Irish Lions.

During a seven-year stint with the Wallabies, Folau played in five different positions, but arguably never made any of them fully his own. He was always one of the very best attacking players on planet rugby, but there remained a trove of rugby’s positional secrets he failed to unlock. The requirements of defence, contact skills and the kicking game were a mystery right to the end.

The finish when it came was suitably random, with Folau using his sporting profile as a social media pulpit to spread controversial religious views. Rugby Australia found him guilty of breaching its code of conduct and on 17 May 2019 his four-year contract was terminated ahead of time. The superstar theory did not align with Australia’s rugby values on or off the field.

Yet, the Svengali-like pull of supernormal talent remains. Only a couple of months ago, Folau was asked by former New Zealand rugby league international Isaac John on the Ebbs and Flows podcast whether he felt he could ‘walk back into the Wallabies and make an impact’ at the age of 35.

“I think I could, that’s just my mindset,” the player said.

“If I got given the opportunity to go into that changing room and put on the gold jersey again tomorrow, I think I’d fit straight in.

“I’m not being arrogant or anything, it’s just the confidence and the mindset that I have about being there.

“I don’t like to look down on certain players, I know the challenge of what it’s like to play at an international level. I’m 35 now and been around for a bit of time, but the mindset and the hunger’s still there as when I was 17 and just coming into the NRL.”

Whatever happens off it, on the field the necessary sense of alignment will only be built by Joe Schmidt identifying Sua’ali’i’s best spot and then sticking with it, come hell or high water, at national and provincial level, until he knows every nook and cranny of the position.

The five three-quarters Schmidt would probably like to see working together as a unit for the 2025 Lions tour are Samu Kerevi and Len Ikitau in the centres, then perming three out of four from Andrew Kellaway, Tom Wright, Marika Koroibete and Sua’ali’i in the backfield. The easiest place for the new man to start would be on the wing, with the endgame of shifting to full-back after he learns the backfield rotations required in union.

Steve Borthwick’s England will have their own version of the same predicament in November. With Exeter’s number 13 Henry Slade only recently returned from injury, there will be a strong temptation for the head coach to move Northampton’s Tommy Freeman in from the wing to outside centre. At 6ft 2ins  and well over 100kg, Freeman has the size and physicality, and his club coach Phil Dowson was in no doubt about his ability to make the switch successfully after Friday night’s hammering of Sale.

“[Tommy] is obviously adept at all those positions – full-back, wing, 13 – and the more you get him on the ball the better. He got some space today and he showed what a capable player he is.

“Henry Slade is one of the best in the league and he is back fit, [but] I would be surprised if he was not in the mix somewhere, and where he fits and how he fits and how they get him in the game is interesting.”

The first half rapidly became ‘The Tommy Freeman Show’ on both sides of the ball. I have no doubt he will be in the Lions Test XV for the series against the Wallabies, and that he will be one of the [fully-aligned] star turns of the tour.

If you want to play the sophisticated attacking shapes behind the ball Saints like to use under Sam Vesty, you need the man ‘on point’ to present a physical threat in front of them, and that is what Freeman provided.

Freeman also demonstrated he has the soft hands necessary to connect the playmakers inside with the finishers outside.

It is not just the soft hands, it is the couple of subtle steps backwards to put passer tantalisingly out of reach of blitzer that counts. You cannot buy that kind of real-time footballing nous, and it’s what makes players such as Freeman a genuinely multi-positional option.

With wings tracking the ball inside so frequently in the modern game, the centre often switches spots to provide width when they are absent. With his experience in the back three, Freeman does it naturally.

As ex-Leinster and Ireland great Brian O’Driscoll pointed out in the TNT Sports commentary, the real test for a novice 13 is in defence, where he can be expected to make the lion’s share of important decisions in the outside half of the field. Freeman took to the role like a duck to water.

Recognising the trigger to either rush straight upfield, or drift sideways to link up with the outside backs is a fiendishly delicate matter, and it is the 13’s prime responsibility. In both cases Freeman gets it right, synchronising his movement to a passer fully committed to making the delivery. In the second instance he ‘spooks’ Tom Curry into the speculator, which drops straight into the bucket for Saints wing George Hendy.

Freeman also has a few tricks up his sleeve in contact, as this clip close to the Northampton goal-line illustrated.

Freeman could very well line up for the first game of the November tour against the All Blacks at centre rather than on the wing. If he does, it will be because of an alignment of understanding between his club Northampton and his country England. The coaches know he can handle the spot, it is just a question of whether he is a better option than Slade.

Australia by contrast is still dogged by the Superman theory, and supporters of the Wallabies can only hope Sua’ali’i is given the time to find out what his best position in the sister code really is. It will take time and patience, neither of which is in plentiful supply in Aussie.

The hope must be that he does not turn into Folau version 2.0, a supreme athlete who never fully learned his positional nuances. Schmidt can ill-afford the unwanted spin-offs of the cult of personality, any more unknowns or loose ends, or another superstar without any obvious cause.