One of the first things Eddie Jones did as Wallabies coach was pick up the phone and dial a French number. On the other end was a mountainous Australian living in Toulouse called Emmanuel Meafou, or Manny, as everyone in his home town of Ipswich knows him.
Jones cut to the chase: Am I too late?
“Eddie called, and he was straight up, he said, ‘I have seen your games and I am really impressed, but I heard you have committed to France’,” Meafou recalls. “He just asked if that’s true.”
Meafou confirmed it was and Jones said he respected the decision but left his number, with an offer to call if the 24-year-old changed his mind.
You may not know much – or anything for that matter – about Manny Meafou but the fact an 11th-hour call to Jones is highly unlikely is not great news for Australian rugby.
Indeed, by the time Meafou runs out in a France rugby jersey this year or next, the 202cm and 145kg forward will go down as one of Australia’s biggest “one that got away” tales – physically and psychologically.
Emmanuel Meafou on the charge for Toulouse against Sale in the European Champions Cup.Credit:Getty
“I see my future in France,” Meafou tells the Herald. “France is where I built my professional career and France is where I was given the opportunity to grow into my skin. I speak with the French coach regularly. They see how they can try and help me and how I can get better.
“They’re willing to help and that’s something I hadn’t really got before with Oz.”
Jones’ phone call was a fourth-quarter Hail Mary, but the discomfort of watching Meafou wearing the tricolours jersey in the future will be most acute for a sizeable group of people who had been involved in the first half of Meafou’s career in Australia, but missed multiple chances to steer the wrecking ball lock towards a gold jumper.
Meafou’s size had always made him one to watch.
Meafou sees yellow for the NSW Country Eagles in 2018.Credit:Getty
After moving from New Zealand with his family when young, Meafou lived on Sydney’s northern beaches for a few years before the clan moved north to Ipswich, west of Brisbane. As the biggest kid on any field, Meafou and rugby league didn’t click, but he proved a damaging second-rower in rugby, and played alongside future Wallaby Izack Rodda in the Ipswich Grammar first XV.
Meafou played for the Queensland schoolboys B team but had to go to Melbourne to keep developing, playing for the Rebels under 20s. It wasn’t a full-time contract but when he returned to Brisbane and began dominating for Brothers rugby club, he hoped Super Rugby clubs would start to come knocking.
However, beyond some NRC games for Melbourne, no Super clubs were keen to take him on, and even after moving to Sydney to play for Warringah under now Waratahs coach Darren Coleman in 2018, Meafou couldn’t rise any higher than playing for the Country Eagles in the NRC.
“The thing for me was because I was so big, we were just trying to get me a full pre-season,” Meafou says.
Manny Meafou (left), playing for Melbourne Rising in 2017, and Will Skelton (right) with the Waratahs in 2014.Credit:Getty
“We weren’t looking for a big Super Rugby contract, we weren’t looking for much money even, we just needed a pre-season and a chance to train professionally. That’s all we were looking for, and we just couldn’t get it. There was a little bit of chat with the Brumbies, for an academy stint, and it still wasn’t full-time.
“Near the end of the NRC I had some talk with the Waratahs, but it was also part-time, just coming in for a couple of training sessions. I ended up going into the Tahs for a physical and just never heard back.”
With limited money, limited spots and short-term priorities, Super clubs put Meafou in the too-hard basket. And working as a scaffolder during the day, Meafou struggled to put in the time needed to transform himself and reach his potential.
“I could see the game and I could see where I could make an impact, but my body just couldn’t get there,” he said. “I knew if I was to be able to do that physically, I believed I could be pretty good.
“It was kind of like a Will Skelton situation again, for them [NSW]. At the time, I was just too big, and they wanted me down at a certain weight, but all me and my agent were pushing was we just wanted a pre-season deal where I could be in there and do the training, to have the help of them to get my weight down. But it felt like they wanted me down before I got there.”
The gargantuan Meafou was an attractive prospect for NFL scouts, who invited him to an International NFL combine on the Gold Coast. He accepted to get a free flight home, but ended up being selected to go to Florida for a three-month training camp at the IMG Academy, and a crack at the NFL draft thereafter. It was the same journey Jordan Mailata had taken the year before, as part of the NFL International Player Pathway Program.
“At that time I’d given up on rugby and so I was going to pursue an American football career,” Meafou says. “They wanted me to go over and get bigger and stronger, and have a shot at making it.
“I told everyone I am going to America and told Mum and Dad. There was zero [contracts] for me in rugby, so I was ready to go.”
Meafou charges with the ball for Toulouse.Credit:Getty
Meafou’s agent had also reached out to French rugby clubs, however, and within a week big clubs were lining up. Lyon, Toulouse and Clermont offered three-year deals, based on his size and his athleticism alone, and with Mailata yet to achieve success in the NFL and provide a road map, Meafou chose the certainty of moving to France.
“I still had that love for rugby and wanted to play professionally,” he says.
On an academy deal designed to qualify him as a “JIFF” (or non-foreign) player, Meafou played and developed with the Toulouse junior team, before becoming a regular in the club’s top side in 2020.
Trimmed down, fit and with years of development now under his belt, Meafou began to stand out with his physicality and size, even in a powerhouse team that won a rare Top 14-European Champions Cup double in 2020-21.
Emmanuel Meafou pulverises Tadgh Beirne of Munster last month.Credit:Getty
French rugby officials made it known they were keen on Meafou declaring eligibility for them, based on residency, and he was open to it. At the end of 2020, Rugby Australia also made contact via former director of rugby Scott Johnson, and Meafou had a choice to make.
“I guess I was a bit torn … but I also felt really let down,” Meafou says. “I don’t know what was going on at the ARU and that’s not my business, and I am sure they had their reasons. It’s nothing personal.
“But I felt let down, and the other thing was it was only after I came here and started playing good that they contacted me. Then they started chats about me coming back. We had literally been in Australia and I was pretty much begging just for a full-time training deal, nothing special. Just to develop me. And we were asking for that and it didn’t happen.
“I have come here and developed myself, and Toulouse gave me the chance to grow into the player I am now. It’s nothing personal.
“There are a lot of good Wallabies locks going around and, for me, I made my commitment to France and it’s nothing against Australia. I will always call Australia home, but French rugby gave me my opportunity and I wanted to give back.”
Meafou has become one of rugby’s most dominant locks this season and social media highlights featuring him sitting down big hitters like Manu Tuilagi pop up on a weekly basis.
Last week he was named on the 15-man preliminary list for European player of the season, which takes in all the players in Europe and South Africa.
“I guess I was a bit torn … but I also felt really let down.”
Emmanuel Meafou
Meafou had hoped to play for Les Bleus in the Six Nations and at the World Cup in France later in the year.
But World Rugby’s updated residency rules now require a five-year stand down, meaning he now won’t be eligible until November.
“There is a lot of paperwork going into that and, hopefully, we can overturn that,” Meafou says.
“They’re going off the new rule. I had finished under the old rule and done the three years. But they say you have to have been picked or it goes to five. But there were no games within that space.”
Meafou is otherwise content, playing for Toulouse and living happily in the city with wife Jada and their pooch, a Pyrenees Mountain dog called Masina.
Manny from Ipswich has become good at playing the long game.
“It’s good to share my story, because there are a lot of young boys who grow up aiming for Super Rugby and don’t get that chance,” he says.
“But there are other paths. You don’t have to give up on your dream.
Watch all the action from the Six Nations with every match streaming ad-free, live and exclusive on Stan Sport. Round 1 kicks off on Sunday, February 5, with Wales v Ireland (1.05am AEDT), England v Scotland (3.35am AEDT) and Italy v France (1.50am AEDT).
