BRISBANE — How do the British & Irish Lions stop Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii?
The 21-year-old is still a fresh face in rugby union, with just a dozen matches behind him after his signing from rugby league by Rugby Australia in 2024, a move reportedly worth £5m over five years and partly pushed by the then Wallabies head coach, Eddie Jones.
Suaalii’s danger to the Lions in the Test series starting here in Brisbane this weekend is clear and present, even if based mainly on his prodigious initial career in the tough environment of the NRL in the 13-man code, and then a staggering first match in professional rugby union last November.
It was not any old club or state match here in Oz, but a Test debut for the Wallabies against England at Twickenham.
And it featured a highlight reel of jaw-dropping moments: two restarts nicked away from Maro Itoje high off the ground; a sharp take-and-give in his own 22; a chasing cover tackle to haul down Tommy Freeman; a pick-up of a bouncing ball turned into a nonchalant one-handed offload standing up while withstanding a double tackle from Henry Slade and George Furbank; another one-handed pass to put Tom Wright in for a try; and a no-look pass made in mid-air above the flummoxed Furbank.
While Suaalii was quieter in his subsequent Tests against Scotland, Wales and Ireland, those of us watching at Twickenham could see how he spread confidence through the Wallabies.
The ex-Australia captain Michael Hooper recently told Sky Sports that Suaalii is formidable “defensively, aerially, and in attack”.
Hooper said: “He just creates space for other people. I think that’s a really unique thing about really talented players – the best of the best type of player – is you spend so much attention thinking about these guys, and then you forget about everyone else around him. There’s [other code-crossers] Israel Folau, Mark Nawaqanitawase and Suaalii. Those guys are just levels above.”
Suaalii is 6ft 5ins and weighs 15 and a half stones, and he is set to bring this mighty frame to Australia’s outside-centre position in the opening Test at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium on Saturday.
The former Wales and Lions centre Tom Shanklin says the “multiple threat” of Suaalii reminds him of another wonderful cross-code player in the same position.
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“I played against the young Sonny Bill Williams,” Shanklin tells The i Paper, remembering a Wales-All Blacks Test in 2010 among his 70 caps.
“A player that’s so tall and has such a good offloading game is really difficult to stop, because when they take the ball flat to the line, they have such a long reach they can go over the top of you, and the ball can go either way.
“Offloading like that is a skill. Suaalii is big and he’s strong, and he wiggles his body and he knows how to hold the ball correctly – which sounds strange, but not everyone can offload like him, to manipulate your body, know the angles and know the force you’ve got to put through, and when to back off or when to go through hard.
“The issue for the Lions is going to be shutting down Suaalii’s space as fast as possible and giving him no time. And the player probably best placed to do that would be Garry Ringrose.
“Ringrose really does like line speed, and he’s such an intelligent player, he makes good reads, he puts so much pressure on players, and even if they do get the ball away, it’s not clean, it’s not crisp, and the rest of the team got time to recover, and corner flag.”
It’s bad news, then, that the Lions may be without Ireland centre Ringrose due to concussion protocols after a problem in last week’s win over the Brumbies in Canberra.
Restarts and the rest of the aerial threat
Suaalii’s height makes him a huge threat in the air (Photo: Getty)Former Australia centre Tim Horan told The i Paper before Suaalii’s Test debut that “we’re just pleased he’s grabbed rugby because going up for the high ball, his leaps, his vertical jumps, his sidestepping – he’s as good of an athlete, as you’ve seen; an athlete first and a rugby player second.”
Shanklin says: “That is another issue for the Lions – how good Suaalii is in the air, and how Australia are going to attack what everyone calls the third set-piece now, which is the kick-offs. That’s just as good as his offloading game.
“Because he’s in the centres, it’s not so much the crossfield kicks they have to worry about, but it will be the kick-offs, and it will be the little dinks over the defence from nine or 10.
“The Lions might want to counter that with size at full-back, but then they have another injury worry with Blair Kinghorn. It’s a lot to think about. Hugo Keenan is better aerially than Marcus Smith, and full-back is his position, but he has had a quiet tour so far.”
The Lions could try man-marking him but that would keep pulling a player out of another area.
In the air on restarts, the Lions’ captain Itoje could not cope with Suaalii the first time they met, and Shanklin says the tourists may need two or even three pods of lifters to cover the width of the field, and including backs.
“And that means quite a bit of training, learning a new skill set. If Tommy Freeman is on the Lions’ right wing, we might see him switch to the left on kick-offs, and he could get lifted by Bundee Aki, or whatever pod is there.
“The Lions have got to be constantly thinking because it’s a nightmare if you lose the ball at a kick-off – it is the cheapest way to get in someone’s 22.”
Suaalii wears his dark hair with a Superman quiff but some say his Kryptonite is the very short time he has spent in rugby union.
He suffered concussion when his head collided with an opponent’s knee in just his seventh appearance for the Waratahs against the Reds in mid-May and a hairline fracture in the jaw was picked up a few days later, and needed surgery to strengthen the affected area.
A toe injury earlier in 2025 had already restricted Suaalii’s adjustment, plus he made all but one of his starts for the Waratahs at full-back, not centre.
The knee that did the damage belonged to a blameless fellow Wallaby, Andrew Kellaway, who said: “Nobody wants to crash a Ferrari… I was worried I was going to go viral as the guy who damaged Joseph before the Lions series.”
That nightmare scenario has been avoided, but Suaalii was out of action for two months, off solid foods and losing 5kg, in addition to suffering at least three other concussion episodes during his time in rugby league.
He is widely regarded as a ‘once in a generation’ talent (Photo: Getty)Suaalii returned to wear the 13 jersey in Australia’s first match of the calendar year, against Fiji last week, and barely touched the ball, but it was reckoned to be head coach Joe Schmidt keeping his greatest weapon up his sleeve.
Still, Mat Rogers, a code-crosser in the Noughties who played in the 2003 Rugby World Cup final, told Aussie broadcasters Stan Sport it could take Suaalii “a couple of years” before he can play the 15-man game properly “on auto-pilot”.
And Wallaby legend David Campese in The Daily Mail criticised Suaalii, who was sent off in a State of Origin match last summer and banned for four weeks, for making the no-arms tackles often associated with converts from league.
Horan pointed out: “No 13 is one of the hardest positions on the field to defend in.”
But others insist the youngster’s grounding in rugby union at school has warded off the discomfort of unfamiliarity.
Getting under his skin – while keeping it low-key
Shanklin says: “Part of me really hopes Sione Tuipulotu plays this Saturday because of the beef there.
“In the Scotland-Australia game in the autumn they ran into each other, and you could see there was a bit of bite. And Suaalii goes off with his bad wrist, and it looked like Tuipulotu was going to take the brunt of an injury, but he didn’t.
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“Yes, the Lions could plan to rough him up. But I think the key is don’t mention it too much.
“The more you mention it, the more people get it in their heads, and it’s very easy now to get yellow and red cards for a hit off the ball, and it’s so important to keep 15 men on the field for as long as possible.
“You’ve been talking about him all week, you want to put a big shot on him, you put a late one in, you mistime it, and then there’s a potential red card.”
Suaalii himself smiled at the Tuipulotu subject in a Brisbane press conference on Monday, saying: “It’s just footy; whatever is said on the field, stays on the field.”
But second-row Will Skelton, sitting next to him, relished the prospect of a rematch between the pair: “That’s what you want – our 12s going against their 12s, 13s going into 13s. There will be a physical battle all over the field.”
Overall star quality
That doesn’t stop the rest of us talking about Suaalii, and Shanklin, who shared a Cardiff Blues changing room with Jonah Lomu in the latter part of the great All Black’s career, sums up: “I’m really excited by Suaalii.
“I cannot believe that England game was his first in professional rugby union. It was incredible. That is a once in a generation talent – there would be a handful of players you could name who could do that, over the span of 50 years.
“Jason Robinson could have been one, but he didn’t go straight into international rugby, I remember playing against him in a Wales-England A match and he didn’t really shine. Jonah Lomu, maybe, when he was young. But there aren’t many with that lack of union experience who could make that impact.”
An impressively composed Suaalii spoke on Monday of his pre-match ritual of standing barefoot on the pitch, getting grounded and purposefully taking in every moment. “I’m a pretty weird person, a lot of people know that,” he said.
Many more of us in the rugby union world are about to pass judgement.
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