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\n Ativalu Lusati with family members, including his parents, after making his NRL debut in Townsville.
\n \u00a9Scott Davis\/NRL Photos
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Storm rookie Ativalu Lisati would walk one hour each way to school in West Auckland rather than pay for a bus and saved his lunch money for a year so he could pursue his rugby league dream.<\/p>\n
Lisati, whose parents had never seen the inside of a hotel room until his NRL debut in Townsville, is just one win away from a fairytale grand final appearance after being selected in the secondrow in Friday night\u2019s preliminary final against the Sharks.<\/p>\n
Yet the 24-year-old\u2019s journey to the NRL is one of determination, hard work and sacrifice \u2013 values in keeping with his strong religious beliefs and which also align with the ethos at the Storm under Craig Bellamy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t come from the richest of families and my parents wanted me to go to university straight after school,\u201d Lisati said.<\/p>\n
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\n Ativalu Lusati with family members, including his parents, after making his NRL debut in Townsville.
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\u201cThey wanted me to become a chartered accountant or an architect, but all of my hopes of playing footy would have been finished then.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead, the Glenmore Bears junior used savings he had made from pocketing his lunch money each day, and walking to school instead of paying for a bus, to travel to Ipswich, where his brother Faatupu lived.<\/p>\n
Within 12 months he was rubbing shoulders at the Panthers with the likes of Stephen Crichton after being scouted while playing in Queensland’s Allan Langer Cup, named after another former Ipswich State High School student.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy brother went to school in Ipswich a couple of years before me and he stayed there,\u201d Lisati said. \u201cHe told me to come over if I wanted the opportunity to go to Ipswich State High School and play a bit of schoolboy footy and give it a crack.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had been saving up all of my lunch money to get a pair of shoes and then when my brother gave me the opportunity, luckily, I hadn\u2019t bought the shoes at the time, and I had just enough money for a one-way ticket to Brisbane.<\/p>\n
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Ativalu Lisati Try<\/p>\n
\u201cMy family didn\u2019t have a car and school was about a 20-minute drive away, or a one hour walk, so I used to walk to school every day and save that bus money, hoping that I would get this pair of shoes I wanted, but I ended up using it to fly to Brisbane, and now I am here today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having started in the backs before shifting to the second-row, Lisati possesses pace and recorded a speed of 36.83kph in a schoolboys game chasing Broncos superstar Reece Walsh, who was playing for Keebra Park SHS.<\/p>\n
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Match deciders: Munster v Hynes<\/p>\n
After four seasons at Penrith, he joined the Storm last year following a recommendation from former Western Suburbs and St George coach Roy Masters, who was alerted to Lisati\u2019s talents by KFC franchise owner Greg Fisher.<\/p>\n
Fisher has a mutual connection with the pair and Lisati quickly made an impact on Bellamy, who has selected him regularly this season since Round 9.<\/p>\n
He will start his 14th NRL match for the club in the secondrow ahead of fellow Samoan Shawn Blore in the sold-out grand final qualifier against Cronulla at AAMI Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes Craig likes to give me a spray but I would rather someone who doesn\u2019t beat about the bush,\u201d Lisati said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I have something I need to work on I would rather someone who is straight up and lets me know. He likes to tell us off and tell us what we need to work on. He is an honest coach and I am blessed to be at this club and have him as my coach.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bellamy handed Lisati his NRL debut in Round 26 of last season and it was a proud moment for him and his family as the club flew his parents over to watch the match against the Cowboys at Queensland Country Bank Stadium.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was pretty surreal for me and my parents,\u201d he said. \u201cThey hadn\u2019t been in a hotel room before and I just remember their reaction when I explained to them that this is what it is like for a professional footy player travelling with the team week-in and week-out.<\/p>\n
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We are not the richest of families and we didn\u2019t have much, but I am pretty fortunate and blessed to be carrying our family name each and every week.<\/p>\n
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\u201cBecause it is just me and my brother, and I was the last one to leave home, they wanted me to go to uni and just stay around and help then out, but my parents are pretty happy and proud of where I am today.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get to play on the big stage of NRL and all I think about is giving back to my parents.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Storm rookie Ativalu Lisati would walk one hour each way to school in West Auckland rather than pay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-169132","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}