Month: August 2022

As it stands, after the second review of Australia’s overseas eligibility rules, the system still requires a player to establish themselves at Super Rugby and Test level before they can have their cake and eat it too.

“It was tough. Not fun. Not fun at all. It sucks. You can see why it breaks people.”

Matt To’omua on the breakdown of his marriage to Ellyse Perry.

Wallabies coach Dave Rennie has just three picks per series, but recently muddied the waters suggesting he would petition to have that increased to four. RA shot down the talk, but there is strong speculation Rennie will be given whoever he wants next year in the lead in to the World Cup.

To’omua, and many others in the game, believe the current arrangement has put the Wallabies in a sort of no-man’s land.

“If we are going to be running this trickle-down economics thing, let’s not restrain the Wallabies in any way, shape or form, because that’s just silly,” he says. “If we need Rory [Arnold], we need Rory. If we need Will [Skelton], we need Will. Samu [Kerevi] – why is he not playing all the time? We can’t just have them for a two-game tour. We have to have these guys.”

Worse, two changes in seven years and the likelihood of more on the horizon, is risking the organisation’s credibility, To’omua believes.

“As a player, it’s quite frustrating,” he says. “I signed a contract last year on the basis that the Giteau Law was in play, so you do the depth chart, you look at it and think, ‘I’ll probably be around here’. And then the rules get changed.

“It’s only a rule until two blokes decide it’s not a rule, so I feel like it’s dying a bit of a slow death at the moment.

“Let it go, let the costs go, some other young kid is going to shine, be the face of the game, and we’ll still have our international stars playing for Australia, and we’re not crippling ourselves by not having all of them.”

In a reminder of how fast professional sport moves, it was less than a year ago that To’omua pulled on a Wallabies jersey. He started at No.12 outside Noah Lolesio in the first Bledisloe Cup Test, but injury ended his international season prematurely.

A poor season with Melbourne followed – including news he was being stripped of the captaincy in favor of Michael Wells – and it was topped off with the dreaded call from Rennie to let him know he hadn’t made the cut for the England series.

“It was humbling in all sorts of ways,” To’omua says of his final year.

“I finished last season with a head knock, that kept me out for a fair while. I came back and I wanted to be part of the [Rebels] leadership group, so that wasn’t a decision made on my part. I was pretty disappointed by that.

“It was a few blows. I was playing No.12 [with Melbourne]and I’d always expressed my desire to play No.10, then I got put back in 10, but then the Wallabies said they see me as a No.12 and me playing No.10 is not really helping my chances of playing at No.12.

“Towards the end, I just had to come to the position that I wanted to play rugby and a position that I wanted to play, and if it’s not good enough for the Wallabies, I’m OK with that. I’ll do my best, I’ll do everything I can. But if that’s not enough, I am actually quite proud of what I’ve done at a Wallaby level and the experiences I’ve had.

“I do really, really like the environment in terms of the coaching set up there. I spoke to Dave Rennie on the phone when he called me to tell me I wasn’t in. I said, ‘Mate, I genuinely wish I was a few years younger, playing a little bit better’.

“For me, it’s just the natural cycle of being an athlete. You’re good for a bit and, hopefully, you take advantage of that little bit, and then you become not very good for a bit. I don’t think I’m completely out the other side, but I’m setting myself up for that because it does eventually happen. I want to be pragmatic about that.”

There was also a marriage breakdown thrown in for good measure, although To’omua’s best season with the Rebels, 2020, coincided with the year he and cricketer Ellyse Perry decided to end their four-year marriage. He was Super Rugby AU’s joint top try-scorer with James O’Connor as his personal life crumbled around him.

It was not an amicable split – To’omua says they have not spoken in more than a year – but the 32-year-old wants to keep the details out of the public domain out of respect for his new partner and soon-to- be wife, Naomi Cameron, a forensic psychologist.

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“It was tough,” he says. “Not fun. Not fun at all. It sucks. You can see why it breaks people. I’m very lucky that I’ve found someone now who’s amazing, but at the time, it was brutal.

“I’m very fortunate that we had no children and, of the divorces, it was a good one in the sense of the separation of those things. The one unique thing being it was public. Getting sprayed while I’m goalkicking or getting abused on some social media platform isn’t great, but they’re minor things.”

Onwards and upwards for rugby’s “Pup”, who is now working with host broadcaster Stan Sport. There’s just one final point to make before he leaves.

“It’s super exciting what’s coming up, with two World Cups and a [British and Irish] Lions tour, but there’s a responsibility for whoever’s in charge to make sure they set us up,” he says. “If we don’t benefit from those events you can’t say we didn’t have a chance. In rugby we’ve always had that in our back pocket, against anyone who played league: we could say that we’re the international game and they’re big in western Sydney. We genuinely have a chance now. I hope that we lock in the benefits for the future.”

Watch every match of The Rugby Championship on the Home of Rugby, Stan Sport. Kicks off this weekend with South Africa v All Blacks (Sunday, 12.30am, AEST) and Argentina v Wallabies (Sunday, 4.45am, AEST). All matches streaming ad-free, live and on demand on Stan Sport.

“Tomorrow there is no point,” she said. “Were I to form a view that the detention application is made good, there’s simply no one to take Mr Fainu into custody, extraordinary as it might seem.”

She increased Fainu’s bail conditions, so he must report to police on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and is not to leave his address unless in the company of his mother and father, who were among those in court to hear the verdict.

As Fainu left court, met by over 30 family and friends and flanked by security and Manly teammate Josh Aloiai, his lawyer Paul McGirr said, “there’s nothing that he wants to say at this stage”.

Supporters of Fainu during his trial in Parramatta District Court included his agent Mario Tartak, Manly coach Des Hasler and Aloiai, who appeared on the same day as the Sea Eagles’ game against the Roosters and was one of seven players to sit out after objecting to wearing a pride jersey.

The jury was told Fainu had not played NRL since 2019 under the code’s no-fault stand-down policy.

During his day in the stand, Fainu claimed he had been at least 10 meters away from the brawl between his friends and Levi’s group.

He said two friends, including Uona “Big Buck” Faingaa, had earlier been kicked out of a charity dance in the church hall where Faingaa said he intended to pick up money for a concreting job.

Fainu said, after that incident, he jumped over a fence back onto church grounds expecting to collect the money himself, but his friends followed him over, and then he saw “like a brawl going on”.

“I backpedaled,” he said, adding that his NRL training was to walk away and not get involved.

Fainu said he ran after hearing “knife, knife” and claimed he did not know who stabbed the victim.

It is an agreed fact that Fainu had an operation on his left shoulder in September 2019 and was wearing a sling on the night of the stabbing. He was captured on CCTV jumping back over the fence and picking his sling up off the ground.

Levi gave evidence he and his best friend had walked two men to the front gate after a fight on the dance floor and told them to go home.

“I said … this is a church activity,” Levi said, adding that one shook his head and replied, “F— you.”

“I don’t know who was calling out, [saying]’Come out and see what you want,’ but I said, ‘Goodbye, we’re going back inside.’”

He said he had “never experienced this kind of thing”, and a fight later erupted next to his car.

Levi felt a stab to his lower right shoulder and said he “was in pain that I can’t explain”, but did not see who had knifed him.

His housemate, Tony Quach, said he saw Fainu holding a steak knife with a clenched fist, his right arm bent at a 90-degree angle and his left arm in a sling, looking “angry” as he stabbed Levi’s back.

Quach said he “recognized Manase” after the incident.

Levi’s friend Kupi Toilalo was “adamant the person with the knife was the person with the sling”, Crown prosecutor Emma Curran had submitted.

Cunneen had said Fainu’s sling “drew the eye” and was a “distinguishing feature” of the group of five men, but argued there was no one else’s DNA on it.

She told the jury her client had “really suffered by his position as a football player”.

“It was easy to blame it on him because some people knew him and the sling stood out.”

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