We are inside Suaalii’s mind now. Suddenly, those seats are full to a man – and the fans are loud. They are bellowing “Swing Loooow, Sweeeeet Chaaaariot” in unison and a game of international rugby is in play. Australia’s Wallabies versus England.

Behind the 21-year-old’s eyelids, he swerves and sidesteps, completes a one-motion catch-and-pass to his outside man. He leaps above the pack to take a high ball. He chases down an Englishman who has burst through the defence and makes a desperate tackle to save a try. He lines up his opposite number and hits him, hard, with perfect tackling technique. He can feel the fabric of his first Wallabies gold jersey on his skin. His team will be victorious in a nailbiter. He will play the kind of match they’ll still be talking about in decades.

At this venue, rugby’s spiritual home, Suaalii visualises exactly how he will tear the Poms apart. He imagines it. Maybe he manifests it. Because the very next day … it all comes true.

In hot, humid western Sydney, half a world away from Twickenham, The Australian Weekend Magazine is catching up with Australian rugby’s “marquee man” at the Marsden Park headquarters of his personal sponsor Asics.

His player-of-the-match performance against England is six months ago now – somewhat of a distant memory. Since then, Suaalii has suited up in the sky-blue of the NSW Waratahs for his inaugural Super Rugby season, but as our photographer and assistants surround him, applying touch-ups here, hair product there, it is Twickenham that is front of mind. How did he do it? And crucially, come July, when Australia hosts the British & Irish Lions for the first time in 12 years, can he do it again for the Wallabies?

Suaalii tells me about visualisation. How he saw that game before it happened. Do you think it actually works, I ask. Visualisation is about finding a connection, he replies. Connecting himself to the ground, to the stadium. The desired effect, he says, is that come game day, after already having played through the highlights of the match in his mind, he feels as if he’s been there before.

“It’s a bit weird saying all this … but the next day, you rock up and you feel like you’ve already done it. In a sense, the game becomes kind of slow,” he says.

“I’m still working on different techniques I can use. Not everything’s gonna go to plan. But I feel like that visualisation piece is powerful, and it’s key for my performance on the field. If you can see it, you can feel it, you can touch it … I feel like you have a better chance of winning the game,” he says.

Most sports fans would know that Suaalii’s scintillating Wallabies debut did not occur in a vacuum. His much-crowed-about arrival in rugby union from rugby league was one of the biggest stories in either game over the previous two years. When it was announced he would leave the Sydney Roosters and the NRL for Rugby Australia and the NSW Waratahs in a $5.35 million, three-year deal, it left fans in both sports clutching their pearls. Was he worth that much money? Would he be able to handle the hype? Would he be able to adjust to the rigours of a different game? After all, he hadn’t played a game of rugby in five years, not since he was at high school, and never in the seniors. What none of them realised was that it had always been the plan for Suaalii, this was what it had all been for: this was his destiny.

And yet, before the Twickenham match, Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt admitted it was a risk to name Suaalii in the team at all: “It’s ­unlikely it’ll go perfectly, but it will be a benchmark that he can build from,” he said.

“Once you’re in that zone, the game becomes slow, and you’re just enjoying it,” he explains. As the game unfolded, he says he spoke to himself – positive affirmations – but adds: “Honestly, I’m not thinking that much.”

Up in the press boxes at Twickenham, the hacks started bashing at their keyboards, producing columns laced with superlatives. They compared him to All Blacks great Jonah Lomu, hailing the birth of “a world star”. It was an “honour” to be “in the presence” of Joseph ­Suaalii wrote Stephen Jones in The Times. “[Rugby Australia] paid a lot of money for him, but here he looked like a bargain. Glorious,” he wrote. In the post-game press conference, Schmidt called his young charge an “aerial freak”, while English 2003 Rugby World Cup winner Matt Dawson could only grasp at cartoon comparisons, saying: “Suaalii is 6ft 5in tall with arms like Mr Tickle.”

At Twickenham, the young man who had so recently created screaming newspaper headlines back in Australia, relentlessly questioning his worth, seemed to have answered the critics, silenced all the doubters and lived up to the hype in 80 minutes.

Dawson may have been on to something. Suaalii’s physical features make him a kind of footballing Vitruvian Man.

“His power is probably the best in the squad and his jumping ability is second to none,” says NSW Waratahs Head of Athletic Performance Tom Carter. “He is the perfect intersection of mental, physical, tactical and technical mastery. It’s not one facet – that just makes him incredible.” We count five: speed, power, aerial prowess, ball-playing skills and football IQ.

Of course, according to Suaalii, this was always supposed to happen. He tells me that when he was 14, he wrote a “vision plan” for his life. It contained all his goals and hopes for the future, many of which he has ticked off already. “Debut at 17 in the NRL and play for the Roosters.” Tick. “Play for the Waratahs.” Tick. “Play for the Wallabies.” Tick. What’s next? “Play against the British and Irish Lions.” Come July, he may yet get the chance.

Glenmore Park sits flush among the western Sydney mortgage belt at the foot of the Blue Mountains. Here, Samoan-Australian construction worker Chris Suaalii and his wife ­Salina, a charity worker with Cambodian heritage, settled and raised their eight kids – six girls and two boys – in the middle of a rugby league heartland. This is Penrith Panthers ­territory. A district that boasts more than 8000 junior players and a production line of top-tier football talent.

Suaalii says his parents are absolutely the linchpin of his success, but not in that terrifying-sporting-parent kind of way. “My parents never ever pushed me to do anything,” he says. “I watched them work hard and do everything they could to provide for myself and my younger siblings.”

Hamish McLennan, former chair of Rugby Australia, says the footballer’s parents are two of the most Christian people he has ever met. He describes them as “kind, caring, grateful and patriotic”.

Suaalii says the home environment created for him and his siblings was both firm and ­caring. During a costume change in our photo shoot, he’s asked if he has any tattoos: “No ­tattoos. My Mum won’t let me,” he quips, then laughs.

The Suaaliis always gently supported their son’s lofty dreams of being a professional sportsman, but the drive for success at all costs came solely from within him, he says. “Making it in rugby union or the NRL or any kind of sport – there was nothing else for me,” Suaalii says. “All my energy was focused on that.”

By 11, he’d designed a training program and was up early doing push-ups and sit-ups in a backyard gym he and his father had created from unwanted gym equipment they’d picked up from nature strips, left out for council pick-up. If he wasn’t at home, he would head to nearby Ched Towns Reserve and spend the whole day kicking the footy. He would practise for so long that he would forget to stop to eat.

“My parents always knew where I was if I wasn’t at home: Ched Towns Reserve,” he says.

At the school sports level, Suaalii was shockingly good at everything he tried his hand at. There’s a wry smile as he recalls using his athletic ability to get out of class at Regentville Public School. While a student there, he made the NSW Primary Schools representative team in five sports: basketball, athletics and all three footy codes – rugby league, rugby union and AFL.

And then there was the high jump. Suaalii decided to have a go at the discipline at the school athletics carnival as a complete ­novice, and won, finding himself at the NSW Schools Athletics Championships. He didn’t know how to do a proper high jump ­run-up. He just watched the other kids and ­copied whatever they were doing. As hi competitors dropped away, officials raised the bar to a height of 1.78m. “They asked me if I wanted to go for the ­national record and I was like, ‘Sweet, why not just go for it?’” Suaalii says. “I ended up getting it. My old man gave me $50 afterwards, and that was good … I didn’t think much of it at the time but looking back on it now, it’s pretty cool.” That Australian record still stands.

It was as part of a school-level representative rugby team that Suaalii first visited The King’s School at Parramatta. The manicured grounds, acres of football fields, basketball courts and cricket nets of the almost 200-year-old institution blew his mind. This storied school, a rugby union nursery that has produced players such as former Wallabies captain Stirling Mortlock, won his sporting heart.

When he returned home to Glenmore Park that day, he announced to Salina: “Mum, I want to go to King’s.” Her succinct reply was: “These kinds of schools are expensive.” She told her boy he could do whatever he wanted – but he would have to find a way to fund the $60,000-a-year education. Suaalii felt a calling to push his limits.

“I just knew I needed to get out of my ­comfort zone, if that makes sense, because I grew up in Kingswood, Glenmore Park, Western Sydney, and I believed going to these schools [like King’s] … I just knew that could open up different opportunities for myself,” ­Suaalii says. “I was young but I knew this school could help me achieve my dream.”

Fatefully, the family of childhood friend Will Penisini, now an NRL star at the Parramatta Eels, had “dropped his name” to the staff at King’s. He scored an interview and just days ­before the school term began at the start of Year 7, The King’s School granted him a full scholarship. He became a boarder for the next five years. “It all just happened so quickly,” he says. So quickly that he remembers not even having the school’s regal military-inspired ­uniform ready for his first day.

Such was his talent that by 14, Suaalii was granted special permission to play for The King’s School’s first XV to contest Sydney’s prestigious GPS Rugby competition – the kind of unlikely early call-up mirrored maybe only by Harry Potter being recruited to ­Gryffindor’s Quidditch team as a first-year at Hogwarts.

Soon enough, articles were popping up in the newspapers describing him as the “next Israel Folau”. Professional footy clubs began to circle the “once-in-a-generation player”. The South Sydney Rabbitohs signed him on a $5000 development contract, despite having three years of schooling left to complete. “He is a once-in-a-lifetime athlete,” reflects Souths’ former football manager Shane Richardson, who helped secure Suaalii’s signature.

But the fight for Suaalii’s brilliance had only just begun. At 16, he was being courted by Rugby Australia. Then Wallabies coach ­Michael Cheika went to meet him and said he admired the young Suaalii’s maturity and ­interest in the game; meanwhile, the Roosters and Rabbitohs vied for his signature on a ­senior NRL contract.

By June 2020, Souths tabled the richest-ever deal offered to a teen footballer – a $1.7 million offer over three years. The next month, Hollywood star and South Sydney owner Russell Crowe used a private plane to jet Suaalii and his family to Crowe’s property near Coffs Harbour. Suaalii famously went quad biking at Crowe’s farm. It’s now NRL folklore that the 16-year-old declined the Gladiator star’s offer.

Enter Nick Politis. The Greek-born auto ­industry billionaire who has served as Sydney Roosters chairman since 1993. A rugby league powerbroker without peer. Suaalii was invited to Politis’s lavish Circular Quay apartment in the Toaster building overlooking Sydney ­Harbour and when he arrived, Politis had a pitch. The Roosters were a family club, he said, interested in him not just as a footballer but as a young man striving to become the best he could be. Suaalii was taken in by the man they call “Uncle Nick” and was impressed further by the philosophy of the club’s triple-premiership-winning coach Trent Robinson.

“When I went to the Roosters, it was spiritual in a sense,” Suaalii says. “The reason I wanted to go there was I felt like my energy came across to Nick and Robbo quite well. And once I got there, I felt like I was learning so much on the spiritual side, different breathing techniques and things besides footy, that will make me better as a human.

“That environment allowed me to be myself and they gave me the confidence to be myself. I’m very comfortable in my own skin. If I want to go and visualise a thing on the field, I’ll go sit there and do it, or if I want to journal, I’m very comfortable doing that.”

He smiles and insists: “I can be a pretty weird dude!”

In addition to being unashamedly himself, Suaalii also likes to be by himself. He lives alone in Sydney’s eastern suburbs (Mum is a frequent visitor – “she’ll help me clean sometimes”) and in the off-season he has taken solo trips to Japan, Costa Rica and Ecuador.

“I like soft, simple things about life – going to a cafe meeting or for a walk and, you know, just be weird, take in the trees and see the ocean. It allows me to decompress away from rugby ­because it’s such an intense sport.

“I have a big family, so I love to spend time with family and friends too. But when I’m by myself, I tend to go into deep thought – I tend to reflect on where I am and how I got here. Ever since I was young, I’ve always had that [tendency].”

Before long Souths dropped out of the race for Suaalii’s signature, and he was being collected for his first day of training by Roosters captain Luke Keary – a tradition that would continue for the next two years. Keary, who spent part of his childhood in Sydney’s northwestern Hills district and represented his country as a schoolboy rugby union star, tells The Australian Weekend Magazine over the phone from his base in Perpignan in France, where he plays in the Super League for the Catalans Dragons, that he’d never encountered a teenager like young Joseph. He was mature, wise, and had a level of professionalism that reminded him of another dual international, Sonny Bill Williams. “He wasn’t rough around the edges at all. He was completely ahead of his time,” Keary says.

Suaalii’s zest for journaling, goal-setting and lofty ambitions didn’t go unnoticed among the playing group but Keary says he immediately admired how the teenager went about his ­business with self-confidence, and not a hint of arrogance. “He’s just really comfortable in the person he is, where he’s come from, how he ­behaves like he’s got nothing to hide,” Keary says. “He doesn’t drink. He’s got no demons.”

At the Roosters, Suaalii says he found inspiration in the professionalism and generosity of the side’s Kiwi stars Joseph Manu (now playing rugby union in Japan) and Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, as well as Australian international winger Daniel Tupou, and Keary. He was more or less happily ensconced at Bondi, scoring tries and kicking goals, and settled into life as a full-time professional rugby league footballer. But, of course, his “vision plan” had set out other plans, and there was no time to spare.

“Is this Joseph? Hi, it’s Hamish McLennan here. Are you interested in playing for the ­Wallabies?”

In 2023, rugby in Australia was not in a good place. The sport had been left in the wake of the AFL and NRL, which had secured billion-dollar broadcast deals while their grassroots participation was booming. On the pitch, the Wallabies were simply not winning, and neither were the Australian Super Rugby sides; star players had departed local competitions for the dollars on offer in Europe and Japan.

The national team was then ranked ninth in the world. Wallabies coach Dave Rennie was sacked. Meanwhile, off the pitch, the code’s finances were under a microscope. The situation was so dire that it led me to write and record a podcast for The Australian titled The Breakdown, which charted in forensic detail just how far “the game they play in heaven” had fallen.

The one bright spot amid all this negativity was that Australia had been named the host ­nation of the 2027 Rugby World Cup. Former adman McLennan, then chair of Rugby Australia, knew Suaalii could be the spark on and off the field for the code.

“I could see he could be a genuine poster boy for the game,” McLennan says.

McLennan, armed with the 10 digits of Suaalii’s phone number, made a characteristically bold bid to change his code’s fortunes. So, was Suaalii interested in playing for the Wallabies? Of course he was; it was always part of the plan.

McLennan’s phone call led to contact with Isaac Moses, the former player-manager of ­Israel Folau, who now represents Suaalii, which led to dinner with Joseph and his parents on a balmy summer’s night at McLennan’s harbourside family home. Also invited were new Wallabies coach Eddie Jones and former Wallaby and Rugby Australia director Phil Waugh. Notably, left off the invite list for dinner was then CEO Andy Marinos, who privately was against signing the young player.

It wouldn’t be the first time that a Portuguese chicken, roasted up by his wife Lucinda, featured in a Hamish McLennan story. What was unusual, though, was what happened at the end of the roast chook dinner. “To my disbelief, Joseph began picking up the plates and clearing the table with my daughter, Olivia,” McLennan says. “I thought to myself, not only is this guy a freak athlete, but he’s a brilliant, grounded human.”

After the Suaalii family left that night, he and Jones had a short, no-nonsense conversation about what to do next. “I said, ‘How good is Joseph?’ and Eddie replied, ‘Yeah mate, he’s the real deal. Let’s get him.’” On March 25, 2023, Rugby Australia and the NSW Waratahs announced they’d got him with a five-sentence press statement. It concluded: “Welcome back to rugby, Joseph.”

All hell broke loose. It was rugby’s biggest recruitment coup since Israel Folau in 2013. The deal itself was mind-boggling. Blue-blooded rugby types privately balked at the figure, with the cash-strapped code struggling to make ends meet elsewhere. It isn’t uncommon for teams to spend big on a player, but for a whole code to risk it all on one, as yet unproven, rugby league player from Penrith?

Suaalii had exercised his option to leave the Roosters early, but it still meant his final season as a Tricolour would be the season after next, in 2024. Roosters powerbrokers, including chair Politis and coach Robinson, were sideswiped.

NRL supremo Phil Gould ripped into Suaalii for signing a rugby contract 18 months before his NRL contract was done. “Don’t let the door hit you on the arse on the way out. Go. Go now. Gone. He’s made his decision,” Gould said on Nine’s 100% Footy program. Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V’landys said Suaalii would be “terribly bored” in rugby union. Suaalii’s Roosters teammate and Kiwi international Brandon Smith cheekily chimed in: “A $1.6 million winger from the Roosters isn’t going to help [the Wallabies] beat the All Blacks.”

For his part, McLennan aimed at the critics and labelled them all “a bunch of crybabies”. The drive to recruit Suaalii was about more than securing one man’s talent; the idea was to shake off rugby union’s persistent elitist image as well. “I wanted to get away from the WASPy image rugby has. Rugby needs more people like the Suaalii family,” he says. “I thought, what a great role model he is for all kids, and then there was the opportunity to tap into Western Sydney – because the great talent is there, it’s just getting directed into the NRL.”

All the while Keary watched Suaalii walk around the Roosters club with an unaffected expression. This was the kid with the weight of destiny on his shoulders. “It was like water off a duck’s back,” Keary recalls. “He’s probably been the most scrutinised young kid in Australian sport. It’s hard for a 30-year-old, let alone a 19-year-old. It’s a very special trait I’ve only seen before in players like [former premiership captains] Cooper Cronk and Boyd Cordner, where nothing fazes them off the field. Everyone looks at those players and thinks, ‘Ooooh, are they hearing any of the outside noise?’ But with Joseph, it does not look like it’s bothering him at all. It’s a really powerful thing.”

Suaalii has said, “Money has never been my main factor” when making decisions about his career. “I always chase my dreams and that has always been in my heart … my heart and my dreams always come first,” he told News Corp in the days after the deal became known. “The Lions tour was one of my first encounters with union. It has been something that has always been a goal. A home World Cup, playing in Australia – I think it speaks for itself.”

When we speak, he admits that privately there were very difficult moments; but for the most part he tried to keep himself focused on the task at hand: playing footy.

“I am not gonna lie, there have been times where you read different things and you let it cycle in your head a little bit too much,” Suaalii says. “But I’ve always had great support from family and friends, just to give me a reality check. And it’s just words at the end of the day. You alone are the only one who can dictate how your life goes. I just try to be myself and keep things simple.”

Suaalii’s performances on the field during this year’s Super Rugby season continue to showcase his athleticism, despite an early toe injury halting his progression. He began the season in fine form, playing fullback in a nailbiting victory over the Wellington-based ­Hurricanes. It set the tone for the ’Tahs, who went on to post successive victories and place themselves in finals contention for the first time in many years. The crowds are coming back, and the media has renewed its interest in the game.

Suaalii sat out four rounds with injury but returned on March 28. NSW coach Dan McKellar moved him from fullback into the centres, where he has excelled, dominating his opposing number, setting up tries and scoring. Come July, Wallabies coach Schmidt will be forced to consider which position Suaalii is best suited to play for his country.

Phil Waugh, who is now the Rugby Australia CEO, told the ABC’s show Offsiders that the game’s recruit was “exceeding expectations”.

“I think a lot of the attention has been on the economic elements [of his impact] but if you look at his ability on the field, even more impressive is the way that he has slotted into the environment culturally,” he said. “He’s become, for such a young man, a real leader among the group and I know it’s infectious on the players he’s playing with. Everyone is just lifting to a standard that’s a little bit ­higher than it has been, and that’s been pleasing to see.”

The Waratahs’ Head of Athletic Performance, Tom Carter, says Suaalii’s influence at the club is palpable. “You feel just this incredible presence and aura about him. I think he is wise beyond his years. While he has these ­wonderful physical attributes, his mindset was what impressed me the most,” he tells The ­Australian Weekend Magazine.

The Waratahs’ Head of Athletic Performance, Tom Carter, says Suaalii’s influence at the club is palpable. “You feel just this incredible presence and aura about him. I think he is wise beyond his years. While he has these ­wonderful physical attributes, his mindset was what impressed me the most,” he tells The ­Australian Weekend Magazine.

Carter says he has never known an ­athlete quite like him. “Joseph’s the perfect melting pot of both ­incredible genetics: very fast, powerful, and ­explosive … but complement that with this ­incredible work ethic and desire to keep getting better. He lifts those around him; his teammates walk taller in his presence.”

The last time Australia hosted the Rugby World Cup in 2003, rugby was at the peak of its powers on and off the field. The tournament was a roaring financial success, the Wallabies stormed into the final, overcoming the All Blacks along the way, only to be beaten on the bell in the final by a drop-goal from England’s Jonny Wilkinson. Rugby union was the hottest ticket in town.

At the same tournament, young father Chris Suaalii stood in the stands to watch as Samoa took on England and cradled his month-old baby Joseph in his arms. The Poms were bellowing and singing, just as they would be at Twickenham 21 years later. Baby Joseph slept as the men played.

In the coming months, if he can stay healthy, Suaalii will have the chance to run out in a gold Wallabies jersey on home soil, to contest the British and Irish Lions series – a rare opportunity that presents itself only once every 12 years. His contract with rugby union extends to 2027, to the next Rugby World Cup to be held in Australia.

McLennan, who has since departed Rugby Australia, remains close to the Suaalii family and attended the star’s first ’Tahs game back in February. He feels vindicated in his decision to chase the young star’s signature. He says Suaalii is a unicorn: “He not only has sheer natural talent but a massive amount of humility,” he says. Richardson agrees: “You won’t get a nicer kid or family.” Cheika says the good footy ­players know, “Be humble or be humbled.”

At our photo shoot in western Sydney there’s no entourage or representative of management. Suaalii arrives solo. He shakes hands and greets everyone individually. He has brought his breakfast with him, and quietly goes about eating it while chatting with the crew. He tells me that after his first game for the Waratahs, when he climbed up into the stands to embrace his family and his friends, who adorned him with a traditional ­Samoan lei garland, he was reminded why he loves playing football – whatever the code.

“My family is a big reason why I love playing – I love that [the game] brings everyone together, I love seeing them in the crowd enjoying themselves,” he says.

But the “vision plan” only plotted his rise to the year 2028. What happens between now and then, I ask. A return to rugby league seems unlikely. Could he ever be tempted to try his luck in America in the NFL? He won’t let on, but tells me he now has 12 ­journals scribbled with the stuff of his dreams. He is anticipating a day, long after footy, when he will open the journals and reflect. “It will be cool once I am an old man reading them back,” Suaalii says. He then jokes: “I might think, ‘This guy is crazy’.”