Ex-Tiger hit 149kg, traded NRL dream for NFL

2 years ago 100

A erstwhile Junior Kiwi and Wests Tiger is 1 of a radical of 5 Aussies and New Zealanders attempting to marque a bold interruption into the NFL.

Etuale Lui is simply a antheral upland astatine 149 kilos - and the 21-year-old is inactive growing.

He starred for the Junior Kiwis against the Junior Kangaroos successful 2019 and whitethorn good beryllium playing archetypal people for the Tigers present but for COVID.

The pandemic saw the large front-rower sent location to Auckland - and his value ballooned.

"He is simply a Willie Mason benignant - a immense feline with a immense property and a spot of a joker," Lui's manager Dixon McIver told Wide World of Sports.

"But his subject arsenic acold arsenic grooming and his fare fto him down and helium stacked connected the kilos.

"He inactive has an diversion large assemblage that is astir apt much suited to the NFL present and we are precise excited astir his prospects."

Lui is trialling arsenic an violative oregon antiaircraft lineman and was enactment done his paces on with his chap Australasians astatine a peculiar harvester campy successful London earlier this month.

The different players, Australians Brendan Oswin, Lachlan Amosa, Patrick Murtagh and Kiwi Jaylen Raymond Chan-Tung, are hoping to emulate Sydney calved Jordan Mailata, who went from a league reserve grader astatine South Sydney to a $US64 cardinal ($101 cardinal AUD) violative tackle with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Some 44 hopefuls from astir the globe trialled successful London, and that volition beryllium chopped to a shortlist of 12 for the adjacent signifier of the harvester to beryllium held successful Florida precocious successful the year.

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