In Leicester they simply adore watching TV. Not the gogglebox in the lounge but the box-office attraction who wears the No15 shirt. Telusa Veainu’s surname may be full of vowels but it spells consistent trouble for opposing defenders. Name a Premiership category – defenders beaten, metres made, clean breaks – and the 26-year-old is usually in the top three. There are few better steppers in a confined space anywhere in the world.
But hang on a second. For all the dynamite in Veainu’s feet, focusing only on his athletic prowess ignores one of modern rugby’s more remarkable personal journeys. Forget, for a moment, the blur of boots and the ridiculous elusiveness; before the first of his club’s European crucial back-to-back collisions with Munster on Saturday, Veainu’s life story should be compulsory for those who think professional players are all born lucky.
A career in sport, in his case, is a blessing he counts each morning and evening. As the eldest of 11 siblings – he has five brothers and five sisters – growing up in a poor Tongan community in an unfashionable suburb of Christchurch, New Zealand, easy street was never an option. “It was definitely a tough upbringing. We didn’t have much money wise – there would be four or five of us sharing a bedroom – but there was always food on the table. Dad used to drive concrete trucks, among other jobs. Mum worked at a retirement home. They’re probably my main motivation. I always picture them working hard and they’ve instilled those values of commitment and sacrifice.”
His Leicester wages, consequently, have been a godsend. As recently as two years ago, however, he was without a club contract; even 12 months ago, despite a fine start to his Tigers career, he was still fighting wave after wave of east Midlands loneliness: “Even though I was playing good rugby I didn’t really enjoy it. I was so homesick. You go from being surrounded by people all the time to just being on your own. You’ve got no one to fall back on. It’s really tough.”
Such is the painful reality for too many European-based players with Pacific Island heritage. In Veainu’s case, Manu Tuilagi, Logovi’i Mulipola and Niki Goneva ultimately helped him through the worst. “They know the struggle, they’ve been there. They just said to me: ‘Keep your head down, work hard and it will come.’ They were right.
“We’re here to support our families back home and to get a better life. Pacific Islands people are family orientated and we’re deeply religious as well. When you take someone who is comfortable in that environment over here it’s a whole different world. Over here, you don’t have anyone to share the cool memories with. It probably took me a good year to settle in but it’s better now.”
Also burning away inside was the knowledge he could not afford to mess up again. A scholarship to a private school on the other side of Christchurch had already offered him one route to a better future, only for his early promise – he scored a hat-trick to help New Zealand win the 2010 world junior final against Australia – to be replaced by doubts about his application. The Highlanders, Crusaders and Melbourne Rebels all decided they could do without him and had he not been chosen for Tonga at the 2015 Rugby World Cup in England he might have ended up joining the police and trying to help some of the troubled youths he grew up with. “I was just taking things for granted,” he says. “When you’re young you think you deserve a lot more. It’s something you have to learn the hard way. You get complacent. I had to take a big fall and I learned so much from that. Looking back now everything I went through shaped me and got me to where I am. Sometimes, the best foundations are rock bottom.”
His saving grace turned out to be some blinding displays for Tonga, so good that Leicester offered him a deal. His sidestepping ability has brought him 23 tries in 48 games for the Tigers, rewarding all the hours spent playing barefoot on a school pitch that, fortuitously, was situated close to his parents’ house in Rowley Avenue, Hoon Hay. “We used to idolise people like Benji Marshall and some of the other rugby league players,” he says. “They had awesome footwork and you’d try and model yourself on them. We used to like the flashy things. We’d be playing 10 on 10 games and the next thing you’d know the whole neighbourhood would be out.”
Like every other Christchurch kid, he initially wanted to play for the All Blacks but is now a firm supporter of the proposal that players of island heritage unwanted by New Zealand should be allowed to revert to playing for their lands of their fathers and mothers. Veainu is already looking forward to Tonga being in England’s pool at the 2019 World Cup and hopes his country’s squad can be reinforced between now and then.
“The whole squad would be all for it. Heaps of the boys want to come and play for Tonga. I would love to be playing with all those guys.” As he reels off the theoretical Tongan representatives – Charles Piutau, Israel Folau, the Vunipola brothers, Frank Halai – you can almost hear the nervous gulping echoing around the rugby world.
It might yet be the same with Leicester when their optimum backline – Ben Youngs, George Ford, Matt Toomua, Tuilagi, Jonny May, Nick Malouf and Veainu – finally appears together. “A perfect storm is coming,” says the Tigers backs coach, Geordan Murphy, and Veainu is also among those struggling to contain their excitement. “When the whole backline is back firing it is going to be quite a sight to see,” he says. “Playing with those guys is infectious; when they are all playing you want to impress them.”
The Tigers must wait a little longer for that happy day, with Tuilagi’s comeback potentially due next week. In the meantime a trip to Limerick will be a serious tester, with Munster having won last season’s corresponding fixture 38-0. “Facing Munster is one of the toughest games I’ve played in my career,” Veainu says. “It’s not on for 10 minutes, it’s on for the full 80.”
Whenever the pressure starts to mount, though, he will think of his family back home and dig that little bit deeper.
