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Paenga-Amosa takes unconventional path to national selection

By Online Editors
Paenga-Amosa of the Reds. (Getty)

New Wallaby Brandon Paenga-Amosa has taken an unconventional path to national selection.

The 22-year-old has gone from strength to strength in his fledgling career, from an anonymous club hooker in Sydney to a potential Test debutant against Ireland on June 9 in a whirlwind 10 months.

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The New Zealand-born hooker credits his time as a teenage garbage man for giving him life skills and teaching him to make the most of his opportunities.

“Being a garbo straight out of school with the 4am starts every morning taught me a lot about myself and to work hard for things in life,” Paenga-Amosa told Fox Sports.

“You see some confronting things with unfortunate people using beer bottles for pillows between the bins.

“I learnt about life skills as well in those seven months (in 2013-14) and in those odd jobs as a labourer, a scaffolder and in landscaping as I started chasing after a dream in rugby.

“We were never on the same truck but it’s funny that (fellow Wallabies hooker) Folau Faingaa was also a garbage man around the same time.”

Paenga-Amosa has found a home this season under Brad Thorn with the Queensland Reds.

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“I owe it to the garbos and Thorny pushing me as well,” Paenga-Amosa said.

“Thorny loves the hard road.”

Paenga-Amosa was shocked when he found out he was named in Michael Cheika’s 32-man squad for the Wallabies’ June series against Ireland.

“There’s no TV at home so I was chilling at a Chinese restaurant,” Paenga-Amosa explained.

“I didn’t know anything until I got a text ‘You’re in the squad’ from Nela [Reds and Wallabies prop Taniela Tupou].

“I’m like ‘what!’… I was buzzing.”

Paenga-Amosa is one third of a young hooker crop for the Wallabies, joining uncapped Folau Fainga’a and two-Test rookie Jordan Uelese in the squad.

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The Wallabies will play the first of their three Tests against the Wallabies at Suncorp Stadium on June 9.

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Jon 9 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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