LONG READ Can 'Tongan Thor' rediscover his strength before the Lions arrive?

Exactly 12 months ago, mighty prop Taniela Tupou was replaced after only 32 minutes for the now-defunct Melbourne Rebels against his old club the Queensland Reds. My colleague at RugbyPass, Finn Morton, offered up this punishing precis of the Tongan Thor’s performance cameo:

“Tupou just hasn’t looked like his old self this season. There haven’t been any terrorising runs down the field, and not many big hits to note either.

“Playing against his old club, Tupou didn’t carry the ball once. The tight-head prop also made the fewest tackles of any starting forward – and only one more than fly-half Carter Gordon, who made four stops.

“Inside the opening 10 minutes, Tupou was walking more than any other player. In one instance, he was the last to arrive at a lineout and one of the last to leave as the play moved on.

“Tupou did receive some praise from the Stan Sport commentators after winning a penalty at the breakdown early on, but that was about as good as it got.”

If there is one player Joe Schmidt needs to be firing at full power for the visit of the British and Irish Lions in July, it is the man nick-named ‘Nella’. The Lions are likely to be stacked with power down the left side of the scrum, picking from the likes of Andrew Porter, Ellis Genge and Pierre Schoeman at loose-head prop, with a pair permed from Dan Sheehan, Jamie George, Luke Cowan-Dickie and Dewi Lake alongside them.

An Australian scrummaging right side featuring 135kg of Tupou, with 145kgof Will Skelton behind him and 120kg of Brandon Paenga-Amosa next door, would give those grizzly Lions ample food for thought. But it all depends on the Tongan Thor turning up in the right mindset to play. Without a fully-focused Tupou the fear factor, and one potential Wallaby point of difference will mysteriously disappear, stolen by a thief in the night.

Playing for his new club, the New South Wales Waratahs, against the Reds at the Suncorp on Saturday evening, Tupou generated stats which rivalled those one year earlier. It was like Groundhog Day. He stayed on for slightly longer [46 minutes, equating to 25 minutes of actual ball-in-play time], but he could easily have been given the hook well before oranges.

His time on the field generated two runs for one metre, and six tackles with one penalty against for a hit delivered with no wrap of the arms. To put those stats in perspective, Tupou’s partner in the starting front row Angus Bell stayed on for 58 minutes [including 30 minutes of active ball-in-play], making 13 runs and the same number of tackles. That is one action every three minutes by the Tahs number three compared to one every minute by their number one. That is not a sustainable situation for the 2025 Wallabies.

Dan McKellar and Schmidt need the fiercely-motivated, 2021 version of Taniela Tupou: the tight forward in the van of back-to-back wins over the world champion Springboks; the dark destroyer of proud ball-carriers in the tackle, the wrecking ball on the carry and at scrum time. If he still exists, that man is indeed a hammer-whirling Thor, not a lazy, lounge-lizard Loki.

The prop who finds his feet struggling to stay in touch with Mother Earth in that second clip is none other than Alex Hodgman, Tupou’s immediate opponent for all but three minutes of his time on the pitch at the Suncorp.

‘Nella’ did not make quite the same dramatic impact on Hodgman at the set-piece this time around, but the area which illustrated his lack of physical and mental application more clearly than any other was his defence at the lineout.

The basic rule for the defender on the open-side edge of the maul is he must promote as far as possible around the corner to stop the drive developing on that side of the field. He cannot afford to lose containment on the edge, at any cost. But Tupou finds himself dragged towards the centre of the drive, and the maul rolls around him far too easily for comfort.

He also looked dazed and confused in scenarios where forwards are required to protect the acting half-back.

On this occasion, the Waratahs successfully defend the lineout in the air with Hugh Sinclair knocking the ball down in the middle. As soon as the steal is made, Tupou [standing at the back] needs to switch on and compress down the line so no Reds forward has easy access to the acting half-back [hooker Dave Porecki] who is going back to pick up the loose ball. But in this instance Tupou’s ex-teammate in Melbourne, Josh Canham gets a clear run at Porecki. If anything, Taniela is ushering him through the sky-blue line.

The climax came in the 34^th minute, with a piece of lineout drive defence which left McKellar fuming.

The ball is won at the front-middle, and the strongest forward in the Waratahs squad has 22m and 13 seconds in which to engage the drive. In the event he never gets within two or three metres of involving himself, and it is left to the Tahs scrum-half Teddy Wilson and right wing Triston Reilly to do the last-ditch defending up the middle instead. Without naming any names, McKellar commented acidly: “That maul try was borderline embarrassing for all involved. It’s hard to stop a rolling maul if you stand there and watch it.”

The forward who did himself the most favours in terms of Lions selection was Queensland number six Seru Uru. In several previous articles, I have recommended the selection of Uru in his optimal spot on the blindside flank, especially in any arrangement of the back five forwards which includes Skelton starting in the second row. The Queenslander is the best lineout jumping option in Australia from six, and he is also the most dangerous big man running the wide channels on attack.

As soon as Uru passes beyond the 15m line, he always makes the right footballing decisions and has he has the elastic arms to keep the ball away from the tackler and offload it successfully. That keeps play fluid in the most important attacking segment of the field.

Sooner or later, the accumulation of effective offloads and good decision-making reaches a tipping point, and pays out its dividends in the form of line-breaks and tries.

Without Uru’s all-in-one transfer in the second clip, his back-row brother-in-arms Fraser McReight does not score one of the outstanding tries of the SRP season so far in the left-hand corner.

The Super Rugby Pacific equivalent of ‘State of Origin I’ turned out to be all maroon, down to its bootlaces. The 35-15 scoreline will have put McKellar on red notice for the work that remains to be done with his charges generally. It will also have persuaded him of the not so gentle mental massage needed to coax the best out of his blue-riband tight-head prop.

It was less than 12 months ago Tupou’s signature was being chased by champion club Leinster, with a reported offer of $950K AUD per annum on the table. It has probably cost Rugby Australia much more than a million a year to keep him at home. But the goodwill will evaporate rapidly if the Tongan Thor cannot come up with the goods before the Lions arrive. Australia will need all hands on deck, especially up front, for that visit by the best of Great Britain and Ireland.

Uru meanwhile has done his chances of selection no harm at all. The Lautoka-born hybrid looks settled as a big, ball-playing blindside flanker who can slip into the middle row when necessary – not the other way around. He has a combined skill-set at lineout and in the attacking 15-5m channels no other Australian big man can rival. He has established his point of difference. One way or another, the prospects of success against the Lions may depend on those who bleed maroon red – whether the cut comes in secret, or it happens in plain sight.