Was released by the Warriors to join Super 15 Rugby Union club the NSW Waratahs...
Waratahs Coach Michael Cheika gambles on 126kg league rookie Sam Lousi for lock position
JAMIE PANDARAM
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
DECEMBER 06, 2014 10:00PM
Sam Lousi is a huge addition to the Waratahs squad.
IT was a sales pitch that would have sent lesser men running.
Michael Cheika sat in the lobby of an Auckland hotel with Sam Lousi and his parents, and urged him to leave home and the safety of league to switch to rugby union and work harder than he ever had.
“But it really appealed to me,” Lousi said in his first interview since joining NSW.
“I was too comfortable. I could have easily relaxed and stayed where I was, but I wanted the challenge.”
That is the type of attitude that would have attracted Cheika to Lousi in the first place, as well as his extraordinary measurements.
The 198cm, 126kg giant is now the second-biggest Waratah behind Will Skelton, and has been hired to fill the gaping hole left by the departures of Wallabies locks Kane Douglas and Sitaleki Timani in successive seasons.
But that’s not the main reason Lousi has made the switch from the NRL to join the Super Rugby champions.
When Lousi would wake up early in his family’s Auckland house, heading out the door to train with the New Zealand Warriors, he would often pass his mother who was coming back in from work.
Lousi’s mum Mele has for years worked the graveyard shift as a caregiver, doing the 11pm-7am shift to make ends meet.
She and Lousi’s father Viliame, a mechanic, work tirelessly to look after Sam, his older brother Sione – an established Warriors star – and four older sisters in their Avondale house.
“I would see her walking in as I left for training, and I would think ‘I don’t want her to do this anymore’,” Lousi said.
“I had a year left on my Warriors contract, I could have taken it easy and given her the money from that but I wanted to think long-term.
“I want to learn as much as I can in rugby, and hopefully things can fall into place and I can look after my family for years to come.”
A meeting between Lousi and Cheika was facilitated by Sydney Roosters trainer Craig Walker, who used to be the Warriors’ trainer and has become a friend of Cheika’s since moving back to Sydney.
“I got a text one day asking if I wanted to play for the Waratahs, and I thought it was a prank because the boys are always playing pranks,” Lousi said.
“I didn’t have Craig’s Aussie number so I told him to bugger off, then he called and told me it was him.
“He asked if it was okay to forward my number to Michael Cheika, and I met him when he came over during the Bledisloe Cup match at Eden Park.”
Cheika’s pitch had Lousi hooked, and he was granted a release from the Warriors, for who he played three NRL games including their 48-0 demolition of Parramatta on July 12.
Lousi has only had one season of union, at school as a blindside flanker, and has been diligently learning the art of jumping for lineouts and pushing in scrums as he builds a career in the 15-man game.
But Cheika has a knack for turning gambles into gold; exhibit A being Jacques Potgieter, who Lousi would love to emulate in 2015.
“I was still living at home, I had all my friends around me, I had it all going for me, but I wanted to grow as a person,” Lousi said.
“I miss my family a lot.
“But Cheika said to me; ‘We don’t want you to come and relax, we work hard at the Tahs’. He said he rates hard work over talent, and that really stuck with me.
“It was hard for my family, and especially my mum, for the baby of the house to leave but they understood that it was in my best interests and they supported me.”
https://www.couriermail.com.au/spor...or-lock-position/story-fnp0m105-1227147242936
