Mako Vunipola has revealed that new coach Eddie Jones has taken an interest in his heritage. At the first meeting between the two, Jones enquired as to whether the Saracens prop was Tongan or English, before telling him to try to play more like the former.
“It was a bit of an odd one actually,” laughed Vunipola. “When he first came in, in my first meeting with him, he said ‘are you Tongan or English?’.
“I thought ‘is this a trick question?’; I said I’m English but I’m also Tongan. So he told me ‘I want you to play like a Tongan’ and I thought ‘that’s easy enough!’.”
Mako was born in Wellington, New Zealand, to Tongan parents. He grew up in Wales before playing his club rugby in England, meaning he could feasibly have played for any one of four nations.
After coming off the bench in England’s first Six Nations game against Scotland at Murrayfield, many are tipping Vunipola to start when Jones announces his team to play Italy at 10am on Friday morning.
You can watch the full interview with Mako below:
Video credit: sportsbeatvideo
6 replies on “Vunipola: Jones wants me to play like a Tongan”
Love the fact that you can’t see any skin on Castro’s face in that picture!
Is that Wayne Barnes working with the squad there? Seems like a bit of a conflict of interest if he’s an official 6 nations ref?
Mako needs to lose half a stone before he decides to play Tongan style.
I take it that is tongue in cheek? Five eleven,nineteen stone seems pretty Tongan to me!
Dead serious. EJ thinks he can get another half a yard out of him (if u believe what u read in the papers). Though, watching him play on Saturday last I think he has another half a yard in him as well. He isn’t 100% match fit anyway (80 mins fitness not a cameo show) which is the latest EJ edict. Greater fitness! Ironic they weren’t fit enough under an ex PE teacher but there we go! Fitness and weight have a habit of going together (front row who ate all the pies syndrome?) no offence meant.
The refs are seconded to all the teams. It;s common practice all the way down to the championship. They will run sessions on latest thinking and manage contact situations, and games in training. You wouldn’t want a society ref would you? Also, he can’t ref England games so no conflict