LEAD STORY - RUGBY: Sona has Tongan fire in his belly

ANENDRA SINGH
IT was 1986 and a Tongan boy in the coastal village of Ha'akame, on the main island of Tongatapu, was playing touch rugby with a group of other children.
Clad in his tupenu (similar to the Samoan male wraparound lavalava), the shirtless 11-year-old dug his toes into the sand and dreamed of the world.
With a coconut for a ball under his arm, Fakaanaua Taumalolo dived over for a try.
As he got up, dusting the off the sand, young Fakaanaua turned to his five-year-old brother, Lulu, to staunchly declare that one day he would play in New Zealand.
He then reflected on his grown-up cousin, Siua Taumalolo, returning from one of his many Tongan international tours abroad.
``He played fullback for Tonga and when I was young I looked up to him,' Taumalolo, better known to Hawke's Bay Magpies fans as Sona, told SportToday.
``Every time he played overseas he came home and gave my parents some money . . . so I want to be just like him,' the now 26-year-old Magpie explains, his command of the language dramatically improved from the end of last season, thanks to his girlfriend and Lindisfarne College English teacher Diane Malcolm. (If New Zealand rugby had adopted a language policy the women's professional golf association flirted with recently then the Bay fans would have been robbed of the pleasure of watching Taumalolo propping up the Magpies scrum for the past two seasons.)
The 112kg prop's acclaimed explosiveness at McLean Park, Napier, during the height of the season in the Air New Zealand Cup competition has made him a crowd pleaser. That menacing 1.85m frame, conspicuous in the field with his bald strapped head and sporadic spurts upfield has many times had the McLean Park faithful on their feet, cheering and clapping.
That contorted face of aggression charging in with the promise of a bone-crunching tackle is enough to make any opposition player on the end of a pass take his eye off the ball.
``I make myself more angry on the field. If [I'm] too friendly then I'm not a good rugby player,' he says almost apologetically in an interview sandwiched between his hectic public relations commitments for the Magpies and training sessions before tomorrow's game against Counties-Manukau at Growers Stadium, in Pukekohe.
``People sometimes say I look like I'm going to kill somebody but I'm not a dirty player, just hard player, ' he says.
To understand the metamorphosis from a gentle giant to raging bull, one has to understand the history of the warriors from a country dubbed ``the Friendly Islands'.
His ancestors waged wars against their South Pacific neighbours, predominantly of Fiji and Samoa, and that, he says, is still prevalent when the three nations run on to the playing field.
``I have some Fijian in me, too.' ``My grandfather was from Fiji.'
He realises that to a certain extent that's what it'll be like against his foes, the Steelers, tomorrow.
Acknowledging the Pacific Island-heavy Counties-Manukau are not favourites, he reckons the hosts will throw the kitchen sink at them but Taumalolo believes the Bay will weather the storm.
For the man who, in the time-honoured tradition of islanders, still says a prayer before and after each game, still longs for his family in his mother's village and his father's village of Halonga, in the Vava'u group of islands.
``I always send money to my parents when there's some left after two weeks,' he says.
His father, Siope, was a subsistence crop farmer and his mother, Tati, a fulltime mother of six.
His dad was no rugby player but he enjoyed being the ``waterboy' for his children during matches.
``I ate a lot [as a child] and mum worried about me. She kept me full so I didn't cry,' he said.
Often his father's homegrown taro and lamb flaps were a treat.
He has fond memories of boarding at the ``top rugby school' of Tupou College, near Nukualofa Airport, and saw his family only when they brought his laundry each Friday and when they worshipped at the village's Methodist church.
At the school he learned the discipline of hard work, punctuality and serving God, something he still does religiously at the Methodist Church in Hastings.
Arriving in Auckland in his early 20s, Taumalolo played for Tepapa Rugby Club for two seasons when his talent was spotted at a Pacific Nations Rugby League tournament.
The promise of a contract with house and car to play rugby beckoned him to Taupo but on arrival he discovered he had only two weeks rent and he needed a job to make ends meet.
Joining three Fijians, Taumalolo pruned pine trees along the motorways from Taupo and Hawke's Bay and often spent mights in the Bay. On one of those nights he spotted a group of Samoans playing touch league at Maraenui and becasme friends.
He says his Samoan was poor ``so we had a very funny time'. . He played rugby league for Phoenix and Pacific teams when coach Mia Tere suggested he play rugby.
``I'll never forget him,' says Taumalolo who had always played in the No.8 position, up to the Tongan under-19 level.
Tere took him to Havelock North Rugby Club training for a fortnight but when things didn't move quick enough he drove him to Clive Rugby Club one night.
``I never played prop and when we discussed it in the car I was scared,' he says. But the then Clive coach Gordon Falcon and ex-Magpie prop Alex Tuhi took him under their wings.
``People smashed me over [and] I wanted to quit and be No.8.'
That persistence paid off for the man who found himself lost in rucks and mauls that baffle even some of the seasoned players nowadays.
Having copped his share of argy-bargy in the tight five, Taumalolo is adamant he won't be pushed around.
``I look the other prop in the eye [as if to say] `you never gonna bend me and push me back in scrum'.'
For the prop who dreams of playing for the ABs some day, the next step is make it into a Super 14 franchise. But if his All Black dream doesn't materialise there's always Tonga to fall back on and give something back to his country.