Tuipulotus

Four times a year, one church in the Welsh valleys is packed to the rafters, standing room only, both young and old. Tongans have made a big impact on more than just rugby in Wales and, if you ask the Tuipulotus, the feeling is mutual.

Across the road from the sadly now defunct Ponty Computers in the Pontypool suburb of Pontnewynydd, there’s a seemingly unremarkable Methodist church. A big block of pale blue and white, with red-framed arched windows and doors, it stands at a junction of roads going to nowhere in particular and seems to be little more than a gathering point for an ever-dwindling, ageing congregation – no different to countless others across the country. 

Except, it isn’t. Several times a year you’ll find it packed to the rafters, almost touching them in fact, with God-fearing people, who’ve come to call this place home.

Renewed faith and a resurgent church community hasn’t come from the reborn, but from the south Pacific, specifically Tonga, the country of 171 islands that 200,000 souls consider the motherland, even if only half of them actually live there. Instead, they live in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, America, England, and as part of a rugby-driven cluster, in Wales. 

Since the 1990s and the advent of professionalism, the valley town clubs, and latterly the regions, have drawn Tongan after Tongan. Faletaus, Molitikas, Fisilaus, Vunipolas, Taumalolos, Tiuetis, Moas et al have arrived to grace fields from Pontypool and Pontypridd to Ebbw Vale, Bridgend and Caerphilly. And when they’ve come to give thanks, they’ve come to Pontypool and this church. 

The first influx came on the back of the 1997 Tonga tour to Wales, when the late Jonah Lomu’s agent Phil Kingsley Jones helped sort a couple of the touring side’s players for his son Kingsley, who was then captain of Ebbw Vale. 

The trickle became a flood after the 1999 Rugby World Cup in the UK and Ireland, with the number of Tongans playing professionally in the Principality reaching double figures. It included the Tuipulotu cousins Kati and Sione, a number eight and scrum-half, with sixteen and 28 caps respectively for their country. Kati joined Ebbw Vale and Sione Newport – where he’d also play for the Dragoons in the early days of regionalism. Both undertook the kind of rugby tours akin to people with the ‘have talent, will play rugby’ mindset. 

Kati’s rugby journey took him and his family to Dunvant, Neath and to the Wirral and New Brighton, before returning to Wales; Sione would take in Worcester, Plymouth and even Japan, before also returning to Tongan rugby’s spiritual European home-from-home – and the even more literally ‘spiritual’ home, Pontnewynydd’s Methodist Church.

As with most weeks, today’s Sunday service is bolstered by six of their offspring. For Kati, it’s daughters Lupe, Eugenie – named after Ebbw Vale’s Eugene Cross Park – and son Carwyn; for Sione it’s youngest daughter Taufa, Kepu, and Sisilia. There’s also James Talamai [a cousin of ex-Cardiff lock Maama Molitika] and looking after them all today is Atu Tuipulotu – confusingly, no relation. 

 Wearing traditional Tongan dress, a ta‘ovala, which is sort of a mat wrapped around the middle, it’s Carwyn, Sisilia and Kepu who’ve brought us to the valleys. 

Twenty-one-year-old Carwyn has been making the most of every minute of game time by carving his way through defences as Sione Kalamafoni’s heir apparent at the back of the Scarlets’ scrum; nineteen-year-old tighthead Sisilia was the sensation of the recent TikTok Six Nations, scoring four tries, winning back-to-back player of the matches and being shortlisted for player of the tournament; and then seventeen-year-old hooker Kepu, at school in Harrow and on the books of London Irish, has followed the path of the Vunipolas in wearing the white of England at under-18 level where he went viral with  a wonder try of his own against Ireland. “I pretty much grew up in this church, this is where the Tongan community started,” explains the quietly spoken Carwyn. “There’s this house in Ebbw Vale, where all the families started getting together, I think the first few families were the Vunipolas [Fe’ao, father of Mako and Billy], the Tieutis [Dave], my family [Kati] and the Faletaus [Kuli, father of Taulupe], they started getting together in the house – I was born when my family were living in that house – and then they brought it to this church. Just three or four families but they all recognised that faith was a central part of our culture.”

The house in Ebbw Vale is renowned, given a moniker of the ‘Tongan embassy’, and stories of it are forever repeated of how several Tongan families called it home at the same time, and it became a place of gathering for the Pacific islands’ diaspora in Wales. “It was nice for the kids especially,” says Carwyn, “and as rugby progressed, more players started wanting to come over to start a new life, our dads saw that too and now we’re reaping the rewards.”

While none of the families live in the embassy these days – the Tuipulotus were the last to leave almost twenty years ago – this church now serves as a focal point for the community. “New Year’s Eve has to be the biggest gathering,” says Kepu, who, although the youngest, is far from shy. “There’s hundreds [of Tongans] here,” he continues. “We have a church that starts at 10.30pm and goes on until midnight. Everyone comes to that one, and we always have a big feed too...”

“Roast pig, roast lamb,” adds Sisilia. “Yeah, it’s quite meat heavy,” admits Kepu. “You don’t often see a salad,” chips in Carwyn.

“We have four services in the year,” continues the elder cousin, “but most Sundays we join the congregation – which is mostly elderly people.”

“You don’t see anyone our age here except for us,” adds Sisilia, picking up the story. “Here in the UK, we have two different congregations,” she explains. “One in Wales and one in England, Pontypool and London, the London one run by Mako and Billy’s mum, and this one run by Vika [Taulupe’s mum].”

Pretty much everyone is considered a cousin in this community, whether they’re blood related or not. “There’s two types of cousins,” explains Kepu. “There’s your blood cousins, then cousins as in the ones you grow up with. Tonga is a small place so everyone knows everyone, so you classify yourself as a ‘cousin’. But it also reflects the mutual respect there is between not only you and that person, but also between your parents.”

The respect is also between fellow Tongans. Carwyn’s dad Kati was supposed to be joining us today, but instead had another pressing engagement – with the King of Tonga, in the UK for the coronation. “Whenever the king or anyone in the parliament comes over, our mums and dads get phone calls to go and pay their respects,” says Sisilia. “They’re going to drink kava [a ‘relaxing’ drink made from a plant root],” explains Carwyn, “have a little ceremony to welcome them, and basically represent us Tongans in the UK – it’s at the Tongan High Commission.” 

The Tuipulotu elders have earned respect for their rugby lives, and it’s been hard earned, as both families travelled wherever their boots could take them. “We grew up everywhere,” explains Sisilia. “My dad started off in Newport – we were born in Newport – then he moved everywhere. Worcester, Japan... we were in Plymouth at one point and lived on the same road as the Fisilaus [centre Keni spent over a decade at the Devon club], and we’d spend all our time at one house or another.

“Although Kepu was always the annoying child wherever we went,” she adds.

“I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut,” responds Kepu, enjoying his notoriety. “I was always annoying the older ones, even the older guys and older sisters like Phoebe Faletau and Anna Tiueti – I’d just go around causing havoc, and they’d pick me up and dump me on my head. I’ve aways been the annoying younger brother to everyone,” he says proudly. 

“It’s funny though,” he continues, “because we call Vika Faletau, Ma, because she’s the grandmother of the community but she’d always have my corner when all the older kids wanted to beat me up. She’d be the one telling everyone to stop.”

Although also technically first generation from that first influx of Tongans into Wales, the age gap between them and the likes of Taulupe [32], Mako [32] and Billy [30] – combined with the brevity of a rugby career – means the Tuipulotus represent a new generation of Welsh, or British, Tongan rugby players. 

Work your way through academy squads, top-level clubs and regional rugby, and you’ll find Molitikas and Moas, not to mention Ma’asis [from Vili, who played in England], Tiuetis and Fisilaus. The community is getting bigger too. “It’s grown a lot,” says Carwyn. “There’s quite a lot of Tongan rugby league players too.”

It’s not just a professional contract that has brought them here, because with offers presumably on the table from leagues across Europe including England, Scotland and Ireland, Wales was, and still is, often a preferred choice. “Our dads were attracted to Wales because the people were friendly, everyone knows the Welsh are friendly, so it was similar to Tonga back home. Our dad spoke to the other dads and said it was a lovely place.”

“Tonga is known as the friendly islands,” says Sisilia, “and this place just feels like that, like home.”

All three children speak fluent Tongan, something that also helps keep their bond with the land of their fathers. “We spoke Tongan before we spoke English,” says Carwyn. And Welsh? “I’m learning,” says Sisilia. 

Four tries from a teenage tighthead in their first full TikTok Six Nations campaign is not an achievement to be sniffed at or go under the radar. Against Ireland, five defenders couldn’t stop her going over, and a brace against Scotland made Sisilia a marked woman. “She’s stealing all the headlines,” says Carwyn. “Watching her club games at Gloucester, you could see her potential.

“I’ve got all my Scarlets team-mates saying I should move to tighthead. I’m the second best in the family now, no third best – but I’m a proud big ‘brother’.”

“Yeah, my mates are saying they want to call up Sisilia instead of me too now,” says Kepu, adding, “Cheers, lads.”

Sisilia smiles with embarrassment as she hears the platitudes. “The first try, I couldn’t stop smiling,” she says, recalling the tournament. “I was like ‘oh my days, I’ve scored here’, but I wouldn’t have had all my tries if it wasn’t for my team-mates,” she adds quickly. “If you look at the tries, my team-mates had to carry and carry and it sucked in the whole of the defence to make a hole for me to go into, and then every try after that would be off a set piece, so if the set piece hadn’t gone right, I wouldn’t have scored. Yeah, I’m thankful for my team-mates because every try I had was because of them.”

Winning the back-to-back player of the matches also saw her set a record. “Someone on the management team came up to me [after the second one] and told me that no one in the women’s game has ever done it. I was buzzing.”

“I was watching her followers go up, thinking, ‘oh her head’s going to be bigger...’,” laughs Carwyn who incidentally still has a healthy lead on both Sisilia and Kepu in the Insta stakes (more than double at close to 9,000).”

“That first game, when she got twenty-plus carries, we knew she was moving,” says Kepu. “She’s only been playing a short period of time, so to see her go to where she is now is quite humbling. It’s quite cool, seeing her go from strength to strength, and it’s your sister too...”

It was only when, aged sixteen, she went to college in Hereford that a coach – possibly noting her surname – asked her if she fancied trying her hand at rugby. “Oh, I loved it,” says Sisilia. “I loved the contact.”

“I remember her telling me about her first game and she’d hospitalised someone,” recalls Carwyn, “I thought, ‘oh, my God’.”

“In netball I’ve always been told I’m too aggressive,” responds Sisilia, acknowledging her passion. “You’d literally touch someone [in netball] and the ref would blow up, I loved rugby from the start, it was literally like a switch. 

“For years I wasn’t allowed to play [her mum wasn’t a fan], and I just found this anger in me that I didn’t know I had! Once I started playing, I knew it was my sport. 

“I’d spend more time with my dad, talking about simple things and little key things that could change things in a game...”

While she didn’t initially tell her mum about rugby – “I didn’t tell her for a few months, she’s a big worrier, she’d get so stressed...” – Dad, Carwyn and Kepu knew from the start. “Before the first training session I told Dad,” she says, “and he gave me his old boots from the garage to go training...”

“They were too big and still had a load of tape keeping them together,” adds Kepu. “She’d come back from training with two black eyes, and Mum would be, ‘oh, go and wash that off.’”

“She was being protective,” Sisilia says of her mum’s reluctance to let her play. “She didn’t want me to play a contact sport, she didn’t accept it until I made my debut for Gloucester Hartpury. And even then, she never came to a game until last season because she was scared of watching me play.”

Despite coming from such a rich line of rugby pedigree, her family background wasn’t something Sisilia wished to make widely known. “Our coach at Gloucester is Welsh, and he’d played against my dad so kind of already knew that Billy, Mako, and Toby were cousins. 

“But once I got into the Welsh set-up I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want the pressure on me. I felt like people expect me to be as good as them even though I’ve only just started playing the sport. I want to make it on my own, and make my name, and not be under anyone else.”

Carwyn can relate to that. “Yeah, so coming up through the ranks I was just known as Toby Faletau’s cousin, so there was a bit of pressure,” he adds. “I think there was a YouTube video that dropped when I was still in school too.”

The video in question was subtly called: The MASSIVE cousin of Billy Vunipola and Taulupe Faletau is about to dominate Welsh Rugby. From his days at Sedbergh School, the narrator highlights how he’s already 6ft 6in and 111kgs and then there’s a showreel of Carwyn bouncing a opponents. “Yeah, I felt like a lot of pressure to be the best player on the pitch, that’s when I didn’t enjoy my rugby,” he admits. “I was getting far too ahead of myself. It felt like there was pressure from the media.

“I think it was only last year that I found the best way I play is when I enjoy it and when I forget about other things, and just do my role on the pitch. Yeah, I just try to forget. I just get on there with a big smile and do what I do...”

Which is what he’s done as he’s slowly notching up the minutes for Scarlets, appearing in ten matches since Christmas. “This season was getting a taste for the number eight shirt,” he says, “and trying to take over his [Sione Kalamafoni’s] jersey and give him a bit of competition. Sione’s a big mentor of mine, he taught me a lot, the small things that make a difference at number eight.”

Growing up, Kepu was intent on football, as a goalkeeper at Cheltenham, until his uncle stepped in. “I came home one weekend from Worcester – where the family then lived – to Wales, and uncle Winnie [Moa] is our crazy uncle, he’s funny, he’s a big deal around here, and what he says is always the final word, you have no say. 

“Anyway,” continues Kepu, “he was picking me up from school when I was about twelve, and I said, ‘I’ve got football training’. And he said: ‘What do you say? No, you don’t, we’ll go to rugby. You’re going to Panteg [RFC] for rugby training now. So, I borrowed boots from my dad and I went to Panteg rugby.”

The transition worked, and he’s taken to the sport with ease. Not least because, being the youngest, and apparently the ‘most annoying’, not to mention Tongan, has also meant Kepu feels he has a point to prove. “I think it [being Tongan] gives you a bit of a chip on your shoulder that people think you’re quite good at rugby because you’re Tongan,” he says, “so, you’ve got to go and live up to the standard, prove that you’re good. 

“Then the surname comes up and I’m the youngest out of them so I’m Sisilia’s younger brother, or Carwyn’s younger cousin, and it gets me riled up sometimes. I want to try and go further than them, and beat them.”

His ‘rivals’ laugh but they also take him seriously. “The success that they have is quite a blessing for me,” continues Kepu, ‘because it just makes me think, ‘if they can do that, I’m gonna try and beat what they do or I’m against them’. It’s quite cool having your cousins and your sisters on the front page, getting man of the matches or throwing out back passes to win a game.”

Kepu is no slouch, he’s a mobile, action-packed hooker that’s already caught England’s eye – they capped him in a warm-up before the recent under-18 Six Nations. He duly scored in his first start, the 14-56 away win in Ireland, having come off the bench for his debut in the opener against France. “When I came back from my debut, I came back wearing match attire and as I stepped into the house, these two were like, ‘when you come into the house, you have to take that off,” laughs Kepu.

Was he always going to opt for England? “Always,” interjects Carwyn, “since day one. Every time we watched Wales versus England, he’d support England.”

“I just wanted rivalry between family members,” responds Kepu, “everyone would be, ‘Wales, Wales, Wales’, and I’d be, ‘come on England’. I remember one game, when Elliot Daly scored the winner, they were all getting louder and louder, ‘Wales are going to win this one’. Then Ford gets it to Daly, he scores, I’m out of my seat! Everyone was, ‘we’re going to kill this guy’.”

For all three of them, their inspiration and biggest influences are the same. They’re able to tap into a vast amount of international-standard Tongan experience with the likes of Billy, Taulupe and Mako, but the first port of call is always closer to home.  “I’ve always said my dad, I always look up to my dad,” says Sisilia. “As corny as it sounds, my dad was a pretty hard worker. He had to work pretty hard to provide, he sacrificed a lot, and that just inspired me to keep going to be where I am today, to just keep going. Even though I’m playing for Wales, there’s still more to come, more to work for.”

It’s also his rugby smarts that Sisilia looks to emulate. “When he was playing, he was always two steps ahead, he always read the game before it happened,” she says. “That’s what I want to do in the game. I learn every day, but I’ve not read the game early enough to know what I’m doing just yet.” 

“It’s just my dad,” says Carwyn, when asked who he goes to for advice. 

What does he say? “It’s always the same thing – just carry the ball, basically.” Good advice for a number eight.

The three Tuipulotus regularly finish each other’s stories, without talking over each other, as they interact seamlessly. Even when asked to pose by the church piano, Sisilia plays a tune, Kepu takes the vocal lead, and Carwyn provides the backing. They’re similar but different.

“Carwyn is the good boy, he’s the role model,” offers Kepu. “And Sisilia is goody two-shoes,” he continues. “She’s the straight arrow that doesn’t take a step out of line, and is always getting everyone in line.”

That includes future generations. “I think Sisilia has inspired a lot of Welsh Tongan girls,” says Carwyn. “I think she’s made a big impact on the community and around the world really. She’s changed a lot of attitudes toward women. She’s made a lot more Tongans open-minded, we’re seeing a lot more Tongan girls wanting to play and there’s going to be more to follow too...”

Sisilia hopes she can have an influence, noting how far behind the Pacific islands are in the women’s game. “At the World Cup, Fiji were playing only their seventh game, that’s crazy,” she says. “They are trying to get it going in Tonga, and now there’s a new competition – WXV – they’re trying to get into that, so let’s see what tier they get into.”

On the pitch, while Kepu intends on forging his own path through London Irish and England, Carwyn aims for more starts at the Scarlets and Sisilia continues her learning on the pitch – while sitting down opponents on a weekly basis – all three know where their priorities lie: in family and community. Rugby, despite their background, is rarely the talk of the table at home. “It gets left on the pitch,” says Carwyn, “we forget we play rugby, we’re just siblings.”

“Yeah, we talk about TikTok more,” says Kepu, “unless it’s a big game, we rarely talk about rugby. We play rugby a lot so when you come back it’s good to leave rugby at the door.”

“Our family keeps us grounded,” states Carwyn, “we don’t talk about ourselves, it’s about catching up if we’ve not seen each other in a while. 

“Even growing up, rugby was just something my dad did for a job, we were just kids,” he continues. “Of course, we took pride in seeing Toby, Billy and Mako succeeding – it was pretty cool seeing them on TV – but rugby wasn’t the most important thing.”

Instead, it’s the church. “It’s the most important thing we do,” says Sisilia.

“I always feel quite blessed when everyone comes together for the services,” agrees Kepu. “When you walk in and see everyone here [at big events], it’s quite surreal seeing everyone here, it just feels like a blessing when you walk in...”

All three of them have been to Tonga, with Sisilia likening it to Moana, and Carwyn recalling the “clear, blue seas”, and neither boy has ruled out one day wearing the red of the islands. “I’ll just need to assess what’s best for me,” says Kepu. “But yeah, I wouldn’t shut any doors just yet.”

“It’s not a closed door for me either,” says Carwyn. “I want to see if Wales is an option, but I’d love to play for Tonga one day, it’d be cool to represent.”

While the trio are unlikely to live in Tonga themselves, they believe their parents may one day return to the Pacific. “There’s more opportunity here,” says Sisilia. “Growing up, we always knew how hard our dads had to work to get to where we are, they had to sacrifice a lot, in order for us to be where we are today. But I think if they could go back, they would.” 

“After everyone’s grown up,” adds Kepu. “We are Tongans though,” he continues. “It’s quite cool that we keep the traditions alive, we keep the language alive. For some Tongans when they come over, the language tends to die a bit, but in our community we’re lucky we hear it day in, day out and we’ve always spoken it.”

“But Wales will always be home,” concludes Sisilia. “I guess the role has been reversed for us in that Tonga is our second home, but it’s nice to know we can always go back to Tonga...” 

Story by Alex Mead

Pictures by Francesca Jones

This extract was taken from issue 22 of Rugby.
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