'He's got no fear' - Australia pin hopes on hometown hero Valetini

BBC News

19 hours ago

Australia v British and Irish Lions, second TestVenue: Melbourne Cricket Ground Date: Saturday, 26 July Time: 11.00 BSTCoverage: Live text commentary on the BBC Sport website and app with post-match analysis on BBC iPlayer, Radio 5 Live and the Rugby Union Weekly podcast.
On the back row of an old team photo, chest puffed out with pride, stands Sione Tuipulotu.Now a Lion, back then Tuipulotu, born and brought up in Melbourne, was representing Victoria's Under-12 state team.The ready smile and hefty build make him easy to pick out more than 15 years on.The boy standing in front of him is less readily recognisable though.The hair is shorter, the frame is slimmer, but Rob Valetini, the Wallabies' great second-Test hope, stares out of the same frame.Had a few sliding doors lined up, Valetini and Tuipulotu could have been on the same side this weekend.One side of Valetini's family, like Tuipulotu's, has Scottish ancestry. Captain William Sinclair, a diplomat, was dispatched to Fiji in the 19th century and is his great-grandfather.On his father's side, a route to Britain and Ireland opened up more recently though."I was supposed to come to England to play for Bath," Valetini's father Manueli tells BBC Sport.Manueli was a fast, strong runner, capable of playing in both the back row and centres, long before Levani Botia pulled the same trick.He had played against the Wallabies for one of Fiji's regional teams and was on the fringes of the national team when, in 1985, Bath offered to sponsor a move to the other side of the world."It was very close to happening, but my dad told me 'no, England is too far, you had better go to Australia or New Zealand'."I think I made the right choice to come to Melbourne."
Instead of Bath, Manueli turned out for Harlequins - a team who play in the famous quartered shirt but in south east Melbourne, rather than south west London.It was the start of a family dynasty. Rob is the youngest of Manueli and Finau's eight children, their sixth son. Every weekend, all the boys would play rugby for Harlequins."He was always very strong for his age," says Manueli of his youngest."He's got no fear of anybody, Robert."Aged five, Valetini would come home from school on a Friday and change straight into his Harlequins kit, sleeping in it that night so he was ready for action on Saturday morning.Aged 12, tasked with writing about his ambitions for his future, Valetini still had rugby first and foremost in his mind."When I grow up I want to play for Australia in rugby," he beganJohn Carey was one of Valetini's coaches during his time at Melbourne Harlequins."You think of him as being very physical now, but that was true even at a very young age," Carey says."At under eight level, we played touch - a tackle was if you got two hands on the hips."But at the end of the season, you'd always get the tackle bags out so that the kids who were moving up to full contact could start to practice."You'd get volunteers from the parents to hold the tackle bags, and normally you've got these little kids who would just bounce off."But none of the parents wanted to hold the tackle bags for Rob. He hit the tackle bags really hard even then."The family would go in the backyard every night and play rugby - full-on tackle, so at a young age he got used to being tackled by much bigger kids."When he went out on the field on a Saturday he wasn't scared of anyone."
Valetini's brother Kemu, four years older than Rob, plays fly-half for Super Rugby's Fijian Drua, while wing Bill, three years older, had a season with French Pro D2 side Colomiers before injury ended his career.But it is Rob who has risen highest in the game.He missed the Wallabies' first-Test defeat by the Lions in Brisbane last weekend with a minor calf strain.A winner of the John Eales medal - awarded to Australia's best player - for the past two seasons, his return is key if the hosts are to force their way back into the series.Carey knows the feeling."Rob was always the most important player in our team," he remembers."But because he was the youngest, if someone in the family wasn't going to get to a game on the weekend, it was going to be Rob."So every mid-week training, I'd always go to Fi and Manu and offer to give him a lift, just to make sure he'd get there on Saturday."Scouted by NRL side Melbourne Storm, Valetini opted to stay in union and signed for the Brumbies in Canberra at 17. He was only the second forward to sign a full contract with an Australian Super Rugby side while still in school.Four days after his 21st birthday, he made his Wallabies debut.
This Saturday, back in his hometown, will be the biggest of his 53 caps so far.There will be 15 members of his family in the stands, returning the support that an infant Valetini used to shout from the sidelines of their games."We are all going to watch it - all the brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews," says mother Finau."It will be a proud moment for the family watching him play at the game at the MCG [Melbourne Cricket Ground]."But I believe most of all a proud moment for Rob - playing against the British and Irish Lions, it comes up every 12 years and has always been one of his goals I think."He loves Test matches, he loves playing for the Wallabies."It won't just be a family of 15 cheering him on either.Every Australian rugby fan knows they need their prizefighter back rower at his hard-hitting best to have a chance of taking this contest to a final round.