Adam and Mark: Where it all began for Doueihi and Nawaqanitawase

There are three things few people know about rising Waratahs star Mark Nawaqanitawase.

The first is how to pronounce his surname, which has tripped up friends, teachers, team mates, coaches and now commentators his whole life. For the record, the name is Fijian and has the trademark Malayo-Polynesian abundance of vowels and paucity of consonants. The 'q' in the middle is said like an English 'ng' sound, and the rest is just a matter of wrapping your mouth around the syllables.

Mark Nawaqanitawase, 19, scored two tries in his Super Rugby debut. Credit: Wolter Peeters

The second, is that despite his grounding in rugby league (Nawaqanitawase played for the Concord-Burwood Wolves and then the Leichhardt Wanderers as a wee tacker), his first love - and rugby's only real rival for his talents - was basketball.

And the third little known fact about the NSW winger is that when Nawaqanitawase made the St Patrick's College Strathfield 1st XV as a Year 10 student in 2016, the five-eighth was a Lebanese kid called Adam Doueihi.

"As much as Mark was young and we were reluctant to throw him in too soon, he had the next-best set of ball skills to Adam so we picked him and put him at fullback, which kept him out of the defensive line a bit," St Pat's rugby coach Anthony Calavassy said.

"They were a handy pair, but it was their mindsets that made them really good. You could see how much both of them wanted to play rugby, really give it a crack. Mark ended up giving up going to schoolies just for an opportunity to train with the (NSW Rugby) Gen Blue, which shows you how much he wanted it."

A 14-year-old Nawaqanitawase runs support for Adam Doueihi with St Patrick's College Strathfield's 1st XV in 2016.

That year Doueihi played for the Australian Schoolboys and, after graduating, made his international debut for Lebanon in the 2017 Rugby League World Cup. Now the 21-year-old is generating serious excitement at his new home the Wests Tigers, and both have established themselves as players to watch in their respective codes.

But in 2016 Calavassy was just relieved to have secured Nawaqanitawase for his rugby program. Earlier in the year he'd heard a rumour the quiet 14-year-old was only going to play basketball in Year 10.

As any self-respecting school rugby coach might, Calavassy cornered Nawaqanitawase's mother, Fiona, at a parent-teacher evening - for her other son, Albert.

"I taught his older brother in construction so when she came in for a chat, at the very end, I said 'What's this I hear about Mark not playing rugby this year and playing basketball instead," he said.

"Fiona said 'I’ll speak to him' and a couple of weeks later he approached me and said he'd changed his mind and wanted to play. I said 'we've already started so you'll have to start in the 2nd XVs' but within a matter of half a game he was scoring tries at will and running everyone ragged so I said 'ah okay, we’ll keep him for the [1sts]'."

That was the start of Nawaqanitawase's rugby story. Unlike Doueihi and some of Nawaqanitawase's NSW team mates such as Australian Schoolboys Will Harrison and Angus Bell, his story was a slow burn rather than an instant bestseller.

He was not picked for a single representative side during high school and it was only a call from women's Aussie 7s coach, Eastwood stalwart and St Pat's parent John Manenti that put him on the Waratahs' radar.

Nawaqanitawase takes a high ball in a Junior Wallabies warm-up against an Australian Barbarians side in Sydney in May last year.Credit: Karen Watson / RugbyAU Media

"Me and John's son (Harry) are best mates, we'd play every Saturday at school and John would come and see us," Nawaqanitawase said. "He’s always been there in my life, our families have been linked for a while."

Manenti called the Waratahs' Academy coach Shannon Fraser and sent over a clip. Nawaqanitawase was a centre by then, his athleticism was shining through, but something looked off.

"He was a big body, tall, athletic-looking, looked like he had a lot of potential but looked like he was just little bit out of position," Fraser said.

"The things he was doing in broken play, though, with a little bit of space, we knew there was something there."

Nawaqanitawase was about to start his HSC when Fraser called him with an offer to come in and train for free at the Waratahs. The only catch, he'd have to miss schoolies.

The 18-year-old didn't hesitate and after a couple of months in a four-day-a-week program, Nawaqanitawase's game and fitness had come on so fast that Fraser called Junior Wallabies coach Jason Gilmore, who later took his exciting young winger to Argentina for the U20s World Championship.

The steps up continued, with a full time contract offer from the Waratahs. The quiet, studious teenager devoted himself to learning the game, while the club's fulltime professional program started to make the most of Nawaqanitawase's Israel Folau-like physical gifts.

Fast forward to Feb 1 this year, just 14 months after that call from Fraser, when Nawaqanitawase made his Super Rugby debut away against the storied Crusaders.

The 19-year-old was nervous and barely touched the ball in the first half, except to botch a high-ball. He was berating himself in the sheds at half time when Waratahs coach Rob Penney walked over.

"I'd made a few mistakes and he (Penney) knew that," Nawaqanitawase said. "Let those go and focus on what you’re going to do in the second half’. I wasn’t happy with myself so it was good to get that reassurance that I wasn’t in trouble and he wasn’t off me."

Nawaqanitawase ran back out and scored two tries in the second half, cementing himself as the Waratahs' unheralded surprise packet of 2020.