her father coaches the Roosters<\/a>. <\/p>\nLucy Murray will replace her in the back row for Saturday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
EMOTIONAL MOMENT THAT HAD NRL HARD MAN IN TEARS<\/p>\n
Haumole Olakau\u2019atu has hardly ever seen his dad cry, but his parents were in tears when they found out that their son was going to lead the Sipi Tau ahead of Tonga\u2019s World Cup opener against England.<\/p>\n
Leading the traditional war dance before matches is the highest honour any Tongan player can receive.<\/p>\n
Jason Taumalolo and Siliva Havili have done it in the past, but Tonga unleashed a new leader on Saturday in Perth with the Sea Eagles back-rower chosen by his peers to do it.<\/p>\n
Olakau\u2019atu had no idea it was coming, with senior players Taumalolo and Addin Fonua-Blake telling him in camp that he would lead them into action. <\/p>\n
He was still emotional talking about it this week given the sacrifices his parents made when they left Tonga for Australia almost 30 years ago. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think by default it\u2019s meant to be the most experienced, so I was going into camp thinking I\u2019m not doing it at all,\u201d he told the NewsWire. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut then Jason and Addin came up to me and told me, it was more so \u2018you\u2019re doing it, no questions asked\u2019. But I put my hands up and took it with both hands, so I\u2019m very proud to lead the boys out again and hopefully I can do many more. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere were a lot of emotions, and I was just happy and privileged to be able to lead the Sipi Tau.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially when I told my family, my parents got very emotional. My dad was tearing up, which he hardly does, so it was a very emotional moment for me to be able to do that, and hopefully there will be a few more along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Haumole Olakau\u2019atu was honoured to lead the Sipi Tau for Tonga. Picture: Janelle St Pierre\/Getty ImagesSource: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Olakau\u2019atu is no stranger to the famous red jersey, but you could tell even before kick-off that this Test meant more to him.<\/p>\n
The destructive edge forward was in tears during the anthem and then had a steely look during the Sipi Tau before he went on to score two crucial tries in the statement win. <\/p>\n
\u201cEvery game starts off with the Sipi Tau, and mentally for me, if the Sipi Tau is good, then you go into the game with that relentless mentality,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI needed to make sure that I had the boys rallied up, and the boys felt it. They told me after the Sipi Tau as we were getting ready to kick-off, so that was just a small part of our success and I\u2019m just happy to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Olakau\u2019atu scored two tries for Tonga in the win over England. Picture: Janelle St Pierre\/Getty ImagesSource: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Tonga looms as a genuine threat to win the World Cup and should be far too strong for Lebanon on Friday.<\/p>\n
And while they\u2019re red-hot favourites, they won\u2019t take their focus off the Cedars even with a game against old foes Samoa next week where the Sipi Tau will come up against the Siva Tau. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s going to be a lot of emotions for everyone, so I\u2019m looking forward to that,\u201d Olakau\u2019atu said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut our main focus is this week against Lebanon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England has suffered a \u201cdevastating blow\u201d with premiership-winning Rooster Jasmin Strange ruled out of the World Cup after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":936358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-936357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936357","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=936357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/936358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=936357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=936357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=936357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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