Waratahs rookie prop David Lolohea worked as a bouncer two nights before making Super Rugby debut

DAVID Lolohea’s Super Rugby debut call-up was so unexpected that 48 hours before he became a Waratahs prop he was working a door at a pub.

Rookie prop David Lolohea is making a big impression with the Waratahs.

FORTY-EIGHT hours before he made his Super Rugby debut, David Lolohea was working a door at a pub.

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He’d done a full days training with NSW but such was his unexpected selection for the Waratahs’ round one team last week, Lolohea had already agreed to a shift as a bouncer at the Australian Brewery Hotel in Rouse Hill.

“One of my last shifts. I couldn’t pull out,” Lolohea said.

As usual, and perhaps unsurprisingly given Lolohea is more behemoth than bouncer, there was no trouble. His Waratahs’ debut two nights later off the bench at Allianz Stadium was never in peril.

“I have honestly never been in a punch-up,” Lolohea said.

Rookie prop David Lolohea is making a big impression with the Waratahs.

“You just use your words. And mostly there is another guy behind you. They get the picture.”

It’s easy to imagine NSW coach Daryl Gibson not being stoked with his reserve tight-head talking down drunks a few nights before a game, but given Lolohea’s backstory, he’d probably let it slide.

Indeed, it was only a few months ago that the sight of Lolohea turning up to NSW pre-season training still bleary-eyed after work was proof for Gibson that the 24-year-old rookie was going to play Super Rugby.

“Seeing someone prepared to work around their commitments but not let up on the training, that told me he has an excellent work ethic,” Gibson said.

Lolohea’s debut against the Force brought smiles in all parts of western Sydney.

Born in Mount Druitt, Lolohea grew up playing juniors in Blacktown and Baulkham Hills. before landing at West Harbour. He progressed from colts to first grade at the Pirates and caught the eye of a few good judges.

In a phone call in 2013, one identified himself as Michael Cheika. He wanted Lolohea on NSW’s post-season trip to Argentina.

“When I got that call, I was actually sitting in the hospital holding my newborn daughter (Michelle),” Lolohea said.

“Usual story, I have gone: “this is a stitch-up, who is this?”. Anyway, it was him.”

David Lolohea made his debut against the Force last weekend.

Lolohea was now on the radar and two more solid seasons with West Harbour and the Western Sydney Rams in the NRC followed. Last year Lolohea shifted to Parramatta and superb club and NRC seasons saw the radar pings get louder.

Cheika flew him to France to play in the Wallaby XV squad against the French Barbarians but before that was an invitation from Gibson to come in, train over summer and see if he could get into professional rugby shape. No guarantees.

“I was getting smashed. It was just me by myself for a while and then one of the other boys got called in,” Lolohea said.

“It was trying to prepare me to get into the rhythm of the high intensity training that they do here.”

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Lolohea had always been a big bloke but before long — and with his beloved KFC now banned — the scales dropped from 140kg to 130kg. He’d passed the test, and a squad spot was earned.

“You could tell straight away he wanted it,” Gibson said.

Lolohea called on four people to get him through the longs days and nights: his wife Polly-Ann and their daughter, his late mum Michelle and the Big Man upstairs.

“I promised my mum before she passed away (in 2007) that I was going to pursue this and become a professional rugby player,” Lolohea said.

“Since that day I have never stopped, and I am lucky to have such a supportive wife and daughter who push me every day.”

Lolohea returned to church last year and credits God for opening all those doors last year. God and — just maybe — Lolohea scrapping some funny superstitions helped, too.

David Lolohea in his days with West Harbour.

Infamously, he used to wear his West Harbour speedos from the day before a game, but stopped when he moved to Parramatta. And a pair of Pirates socks given to him by Campese Ma’afu in 2012 — which he wore for years but never washed — were also lost.

“That was probably what was holding me back, eh? Look what happened?” Lolohea laughed.

Five Parramatta players featured in the Tahs-Force game, pointing again to the undervalued rugby resource of western Sydney.

“Growing up in Mount Druitt, hearing about Kurtley Beale and knowing he is a Mount Druitt hero, to be another to come from out there it just shows people that rugby players can be found out there,” Lolohea said.

“We need to go out there more and bring the game up, because out there it’s league dominated.

“There’s heaps of guys like me, heaps of Kurtley Beales, heaps guys like Senio Tolefoa.”

Lolohea is in South Africa this weekend to play against the Lions, so there’ll be no IDs to check or shoes to reject this week.

There’s one superstition left, though. A big pre-game bowl of spaghetti.

“Smothered in barbecue sauce,” Lolohea said.

“Don’t judge.”

Originally published as Waratahs rookie prop David Lolohea worked as a bouncer two nights before making Super Rugby debut