Just a reminder about this story from 2021 in the SMH. Four key surnames in this article ... Olakau'atu, Fainu, Fulton & Lambkin
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Nearly every good rugby league player is spotted when they are young and on the football field.
Manly wrecking ball Haumole Olakau’atu was spotted in a car park.
Olakau’atu has been one of the many excellent young stars who have shot to stardom for the Sea Eagles this season.
The 22-year-old has terrorised rivals on the right edge. Manly skipper Daly Cherry-Evans is only half joking when he describes Olakau’atu - all 196cm and 112kg of him - as “the scariest man in rugby league”.
NSW coach Brad Fittler is a fan, and confirmed he was about to bring Olakau’atu into the extended squad ahead of Origin III, only to realise Manly did not have a bye that weekend.
Sadly Saturday night’s rivals, Parramatta, never rated Olakau’atu and snubbed the Fairfield junior not once but twice from their Harold Matthews and SG Ball sides.
Which brings us back to 2016 and the car park at the Sea Eagles’ Narrabeen training base.
Olakau’atu was training with the Southern Districts colts team when Manly hooker Manase Fainu asked him if he could keep him company during the long drive from Sydney’s south-west to the northern beaches a couple of times a week.
“I’d sit in the car and just watch Manase train,” Olakau’atu said.
“Manase said I should join him at training, he asked if it was OK, I started training on a Monday, we had a trial that week against the Dragons.
“I played, [coach] Wayne Lambkin liked the way I played, [recruitment manager] Scott Fulton liked the way I played, and then I was signed.
“It was all Manase’s doing in the end. I’m so grateful to him.”
Lambkin, who was only in his first year of coaching Manly’s Holden Cup team, took one look at the giant seated in Fainu’s Audi and said it made sense for him to pull on the boots and have a go.
“I remember asking the boys if he could play, and I was like, ‘far out, he’s big enough’, and ‘is he the right age?” Lambkin said.
“I spoke to him and said, ‘do you want a train-and-trial with us?’ instead of just driving your mates to training.”
For the record, the Manly under-20s team won the premiership in 2017, with Olakau’atu and Cade Cust forming a lethal combination on the left edge.
Fainu quipped he was still waiting to be paid the 6.5 per cent management fee for delivering his good friend to the northern beaches.
“I even gave him my bank details,” Fainu said.
“He’s always been a gun. We played juniors together. We’re related. His father and my grandmother grew up in the same village in Tonga.
“We even played in the same under-13s team at Wentworthville. [Penrith winger] Brian To’o was also in the side. He was a centre. Haumole and I were the wingers. I’m so happy for him. ”
Olakau’atu is related to North Queensland enforcer Jason Taumalolo, the man whose decision to
defect to Tonga before the 2017 World Cup breathed new life into international rugby league, but he has never met nor spoken to him.
He has now played 14 games this season, made the right-edge back row spot his own, and continued to develop his on-field combination with Cherry-Evans.
“He’s the scariest man in the NRL - he just looks it - but he’s such a great fella,” Cherry-Evans said.
“He’s always had potential, he’s been in our full-time squad a couple of years. We all knew how good he could be, we were just waiting for him to understand it. For whatever reason it’s clicking for him this year and we’re getting to enjoy it”
