Watch every second of the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific season live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nHe weighed up the big-money move for more than two weeks, admitting he went “back-and-forth” before confirming a three-year contract extension with the Reds and Rugby Australia on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
“There was some tough nights there, staying up, constantly weighing it up, it was a lot of pressure,” he said.<\/p>\n
“‘Did I want to be potentially playing in front of family and friends at a home World Cup next year?’\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I asked myself that question as well. Even if I don’t, it would be amazing to be around a tournament like that.”<\/p>\n
It’s understood the Irish offer tabled was superior to RA’s, but, in a coup for Australian rugby, De Lutiis said the combination of lifestyle, opportunity and “what they were offering” meant he stayed put.<\/p>\n
Injuries have kept The Southport School product to just nine Super Rugby Pacific matches since late 2023 for the Reds.<\/p>\n
But in a sign of his status, he earned a call-up to Wallabies camp before even debuting and was named as unavailable due to injury on every Wallabies team sheet last season.<\/p>\n
“I remember getting the first (Wallabies camp) invitation by email and thinking it must be a mistake,” he said. \u00a0<\/p>\n
“I wondered how I’d fit in with all the big dogs, but I got nothing but amazing support and learnt so much.”<\/p>\n
The signing follows that of fellow Southport School graduate, Reds and Test prop Zane Nonggorr, still just 25, on Tuesday and Brumbies prop Blake Schoupp late last month.<\/p>\n
De Lutiis’s lightbulb moment came in year 10, watching Nonggorr lift the GPS trophy in 2019.<\/p>\n
He moved his bed into his basement, where he built a gym, and for eight weeks did workouts twice a day, emerging only to run on the beach twice a week.<\/p>\n
“Watching Zane … I was like, ‘I want to be that’,” he said.<\/p>\n
“So I said to myself, ‘My time’s now’.”<\/p>\n
Nearing a return from wrist fractures and a hamstring injury, De Lutiis \u00a0looms as a handy inclusion as early as this month’s Super Round in Christchurch, and a key plank once Kiss takes over as Wallabies coach in August.<\/p>\n
“Fair play; I take my hat off to Massimo. He’s a wise young man, no doubt he’d get some interest but he spoke to the right people, weighed up his options and made a wise decision,” Kiss said.<\/p>\n
“There’s a lot of pressure on a young man to stand firm and understand what he wanted out of it.<\/p>\n
“It says a lot about what Australian talent can offer (other nations), so it is nice to get a few wins in that space.<\/p>\n
“To keep him away from the clutches of an Ireland or Italy is good for us.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tipping the scales at 129kg and able to bench press more than 200kg, Massimo De Lutiis feels as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,12061,760,85,48013],"class_list":{"0":"post-592793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-queensland-reds","11":"tag-rugby","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-super-rugby-pacific"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592793","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=592793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}