Can Wallabies star Joseph Suaalii save rugby union?
With the Lions Tour underway, Rugby Australia hinges its hopes on the 21-year-old star it dramatically poached two years ago.
It was just another Friday night for Joseph Suaalii. He’d made the 45-minute walk from his home in Sydney’s leafy Double Bay to Allianz Stadium, where he has played representative rugby for two codes for the past four years (more on that later). His team, the NSW Waratahs, was holding a seven-point lead over interstate rivals the Queensland Reds. So far, so good.
As play shifted to the sidelines, a rolling tackle by the Waratahs’ Andrew Kellaway on Queensland outside centre Filipo Daugunu was about to bring him to ground, when Suaalii joined to seal the deal. As Kellaway’s body shifted around Daugunu, Suaalii made a dive for his legs but instead found Kellaway’s knee. Suddenly, one of the game’s most dynamic players was transformed into a crumpled mess, his head slumped and arms flailing. Suaalii was out cold. Jaw fractured. Game over. Season over.
This wasn’t just any injury for Suaalii – he later tells us he fractured the other side of his jaw in a game a month earlier – and the vision of him being fitted with a brace had more than just his family concerned. There was a lot riding on the 21-year-old. It’s not entirely hyperbolic to say that as the bosses at Rugby Australia watched Suaalii being stretchered off the field that day, they likely believed their sport’s opportunity for a revival was leaving with him.
Six days later, Suaalii is speaking with GQ. The following morning he is undergoing surgery. The good news is he can actually talk; there’s no discernible change in his voice or demeanour, and he’s confident of being back on the field in no time.
“I’m hoping maybe like a month,” he tells us.
“Yeah, I reckon a month. That’s what the professionals are telling me.”
No doubt Rugby Australia is hoping the doctors are right. Even with the opportunities that will almost certainly exist for Suaalii down the line, the timing is of utmost importance because in the first week of July, the Wallabies play Fiji in a friendly. A fortnight after that, the first test against the British & Irish Lions takes place in Brisbane.
It’s perhaps the biggest test for Suaalii since he was dramatically poached across codes by rugby union in March 2023. The beleaguered sporting code lured the then 19-year old from the NRL with a three-year-deal worth a reported $5.35 million.
It exacerbated tensions between the rival codes, the NRL having spent many years already taking their pick from rugby union nurseries all over the country. This was union finally getting one back. Suaalii was pegged as the game’s local saviour. He was believed to have the pedigree and talent to help make Australian rugby competitive once again.
Many lament the decline of the 15-man game. The ailing sport has suffered from fractured balance sheets, dwindling in-person support and disappointing international results. Some blame its narrow-sighted dependence on the private school funnel for selection, others the way the rules of the game have changed. Regardless, it had lost its way and many thought the powerbroking that got Suaalii in a Wallabies jersey was yet another financial misstep, perhaps the death rattle for a sport that couldn’t help but go out with a bang.
Only it wasn’t. Well, not yet. Suaalii’s debut against England at Twickenham during the Autumn Internationals last November was breathtaking. He was the game changer everyone hoped he would be. That was one game, but he’s quickly converting doubters and has carried strong performances at a club level with the NSW Waratahs right up until his season-ending injury. There’s a renewed flash of hope for the sport, but Suaalii is fiercely reluctant to get too far ahead of himself, especially about his own impact on the game.
That’s not to say he’s not reflecting on what the future holds. “I’ve always been a deep thinker and a big dreamer,” he says. “Coming from where I come from, you always aspire to do great things.” The hunger, at least today, goes beyond scoring more points than the other team. It’s about what the win represents for rugby here in Australia.
Many have mythologised Suaalii. His imposing frame, as chiselled and finely tuned as something out of Michelangelo’s atelier, saw him get special permission to play for his school’s First XV at just 14. Three years later, he was getting an exemption again to play in the NRL early. At 6’5” and close to 100 kilograms, he was still one of the game’s fastest players during the 2023 NRL season. He’s made for contact sport and he relishes it.
It’s not just his statuesque build that speaks to something older, wiser in Suaalii. You get a sense that he’s not chasing glory – he’s following something much quieter, less flashy. He keeps himself balanced, almost to a fault. Everything comes back to an impartial point that neither touts his abilities – everyone else does that for him – nor downplays his own talent. In his own words, “I tend to take things really neutral,” he explains. “Anything that’s negative or anything that’s positive – I just try to keep it really neutral. I don’t really like to boost my own ego or have a shot at myself.”
“I do believe there are figures within a team,” he adds. “But at the end of the day, it’s a team sport. I’m just trying to do what’s best for the team, as always.”
A team-first sense of camaraderie and fairness is historically what led rugby union to be dubbed “the game they play in heaven”. That idea is constantly raised when you talk with Suaalii. Everything comes back to the good of the team, the whole, an admirable sense of service to a greater good.
Even if it’s hard to get into it, there’s no mistaking the Herculean mission at play in Suaalii’s mind. Here he’s not the demigod with cartoonish strength, but rather a more classical Hercules. He’s a resolute figure, burdened by expectation, endlessly driven and yet fated to complete his series of near-impossible tasks.
He’s very into manifestation. As a child he would write down his goals for the future, and the challenges he would overcome to get there. Just as Hercules fought man-eating birds, hydras and giants, Suaalii wants to conquer every physical challenge laid out for him. Vanquishing his Nemean lion – in this case, a team of very real lions – might even save rugby union from the brink.
So why the Lions tour? It’s held every 12 years in Australia (cycling between South Africa, New Zealand and us every four years) and is the pinnacle of cross-hemisphere rugby. Winning it has been a goal of Suaalii’s since he was a child, long before school rugby and the NRL. “I remember watching that as a kid,” he recounts of the last time the tour was in Australia, back in 2013, “That’s always been in the back of my head. I’ve always been dreaming about that as a kid. The potential to play that tour this year is pretty special.”
It couldn’t come at a more pivotal time. With rugby union edging back and a young Wallabies outfit gaining confidence, this is a true test of the direction in which the sport is heading. “It’s a key moment to see where we’re at as a nation for rugby,” Suaalii says. “I believe it could be the start of something great, leading into a home [Rugby] World Cup, winning Bledisloe Cups. I feel like that’s what everyone’s dreaming, as passionate Australian rugby fans, people, players; we’re all passionate to win games and bring Australian rugby back to where it was.”
Could it be that after the Wallabies, Suaalii is onto the next thing? After all, the Nemean lion was Hercules’ first challenge and to some it represented the dangers of rushing into one’s goals. Even a hero must endure hardship and challenge before success and the idea that Suaalii is hungry for completion more than glory is not totally out of the question.
Has he counted on people speculating that after the Lions tour, his attention will shift to another of his goals beyond the sport? Suaalii is quick to remind us of what’s to come – Bledisloe Cups, the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia, the Los Angeles Olympics 2028 followed by Brisbane 2032, where he could easily find himself slotted into a sevens side – before quickly catching himself. Goals? Or just marvels of the sporting world. He centres his thoughts again. “You’ve got all these exciting things for sport in Australia,” he says before pausing. “Honestly, I haven’t finished my contract. I haven’t really looked too far ahead. Yes, I do tend to dream about a lot of things, but I do love to enjoy the moment of playing for the Waratahs now and being able to play [against] the Lions. I feel like that’s just all part of the process.”
It’s a process to which he seems fettered. What’s the end point? What does “success” look like? “People don’t ever remember a non-winning team,” he says. “You want to leave a legacy behind where [I’m] being my best self, on the field and off the field, having an impact on the younger kids and even the community.” But of course, that’s not all. “Winning the Lions tour, winning the home World Cup, and winning a Super Rugby comp with the Waratahs.”
Until then, it’s about those “pinch-me” moments to which he loves referring. Earlier this year, he was invited by Louis Vuitton to attend the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne. “That was kind of a pinchme moment, it was amazing,” he says.
And working with Defender, that’s another one. “Being able to drive a Defender, that’s pretty cool. I’m just a kid from Western Sydney who’s loving what the game of rugby is bringing.”
Is he worried he’ll run out of those moments? “Anything in life, being able to see it from the perspective of, as a kid, this is what I’ve always wanted to do. I hope I don’t stop having those pinch-me moments…” he pauses for a laugh. “But you know I’ve got great family and friends running around me to remind me where I did come from.”
Production credits:
Photography: Daphne Nguyen
Styling: Ewan Bell
This story is from the Sport Issue of GQ magazine.
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