Potent Pacific: Katoa and Luai have changed the game

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Potent Pacific: Katoa and Luai have changed the game

Isaiya Katoa and Jarome Luai loom as the next key figures in rugby league’s Pacific revolution.

Some seven years after Jason Taumalolo’s Tongan defection from New Zealand, the duo and likes of Blaize Talagi, Lehi Hopoate and Latu Fainu can turn the Pacific’s two fairytale stories into regular contenders.

Pacific sides have long had the strength of big forward packs and powerful outside backs.

With legitimate top-line halves and future stars in their spine, Tonga and Samoa now have what it takes to make the next step.

“It is the area we are starting to improve,” Tonga coach Kristian Woolf told AAP ahead of Sunday’s sold-out Pacific Cup final against Australia.

“It’s an area we had to improve if we’re going to be up with those best teams, and an area where we probably have been behind those best teams in the past.

“It does allow us to be a bit closer on a more sustainable level. And Isaiya is at the forefront of that.”

Luai is already among the game’s premier halves, while Penrith-bound Talagi was also handed his international debut last month in an understrength Samoan side that toured England.

Talagi is a product of Samoan rugby league chapters, which are now set up in NSW, Queensland and both New Zealand islands with a focus on developing spine players and lock forwards for the national side.

“For a guy like Jarome or Blaize to select to play for us, it’s like a Godsend for us,” coach Ben Gardiner said.

“Jarome’s leadership and real skill to manage the game and make decisions in the game has Samoa in a position to move forward strongly.

“Then to complement that with young Blaize, we are in a position where we have two really strong halves who can move us forward for the next five or 10 years.”

The difference of having a half of the calibre of Luai in a full-strength Samoa team has already started to show.

With he and fellow creative players such as Stephen Crichton in the side, Samoa were able to make history with their World Cup final appearance in 2022.

Katoa has the same potential at Tonga, after piloting them to their first major final.

Penrith officials still class him as one of the best junior talents of their dynasty during his time at the club.

Now at the Dolphins, the 20-year-old had his coming-of-age moment against New Zealand last Saturday with a match-winning field goal.

It’s conceivable that by the end of the next World Cup cycle, he and Luai will be among the best halves in the game. Fainu could well join Katoa in the Tongan halves, while Hopoate already looms as a future star at the back.

And with that comes the prospect of Tonga and Samoa regularly vying for World Cup titles, and potentially even playing off for one.

“Isaiya is 20 years old, he is only going to get better,” Woolf said.

“We have young guys like Latu Fainu coming through, he would have been in this squad if not for injuries.

“We have two young fullbacks coming through in Lehi and young Isaiah (Iongi).

“We’ve just got so many more young Tongan players coming through development systems now with NRL clubs, and that’s across all positions.”

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#Potent #Pacific #Katoa #Luai #changed #game

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up