The Blues rookie lives and travels on his own despite being the centre of attention since the age of 14. This is the other side of one of Australia’s most talked-about talents.
But it’s got to Joseph Suaalii, one of the most talked about teenagers in Australian sport during an age of wall-to-wall coverage and social media gibber, when he’s only just graduated to his 20s.
“Those personal expectations are so high and when he hasn’t lived up to what he wanted, he just keeps pushing and driving.”Pressure, as Keith Miller famously laughed to Michael Parkinson once, “is a Messerschmitt up your arse” in wartime, not anything to be found on a sporting field. “You reckon he’s quiet? Nah man, Joey’s loud as anything. He does enough talking for him and Daniel Tupou combined.Credit:“Me and my missus we’d wonder about him sometimes, living on his own , we’d worry about him.
Elders told Suaalii that it was especially rare to be anointed so young, but that it was rare to meet a teetotaller teen with both the world at his feet and convictions as strong as his, too. “But it’s kind of helped me, steadied me, having to learn about that. It’s pushed me to put my head down and work hard, do my own thing. It’s all helped me get to this point of playing an Origin and putting on a Blues jumper, it’s been a goal since I was a four-year-old kid.
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