Sione 'Utukiveisini Tatafu Polota-Nau (born 26 July 1985) is an Australian rugby union player who recently played for Parramatta Two Blues in Australia's

Shute Shield The Shute Shield is a semi-professional rugby union competition in Sydney, Australia. It is the premier club competition in New South Wales. The Shute Shield is awarded to the winning team from the Sydney premiership grand final held at the end ...

. He joined the club in December 2017.

Family and early life

Polota-Nau was born in Camperdown, Sydney. He is the 2nd of three children (Moala, older sister; and Michael, younger brother) to Parents Audrey and Siosaia. He attended both Croydon Park Public School and Blaxcell Street Primary School. He attended Granville South Creative and Performing Arts School (was Granville South High). He is of Tongan heritage. Polota-Nau is the nephew of Hopoi Taione, who represented Japan in four rugby tests in the 1980s, and the 1st cousin of former professional wrestler

Tonga Fifita Tonga (, ; ), officially the Kingdom of Tonga ( to, Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), is a Polynesia, Polynesian country and archipelago. The country has List of islands and towns in Tonga, 171 islands – of which 45 are inhabited. Its tota ...

, better known by the ring names "Haku" (

World Wrestling Federation World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., d/b/a as WWE, is an American professional wrestling promotion. A global integrated media and entertainment company, WWE has also branched out into other fields, including film, American football, and var ...

) and "Meng" (

World Championship Wrestling World Championship Wrestling, Inc. (WCW) was an American professional wrestling promotion founded by Ted Turner in 1988, after Turner Broadcasting System, through a subsidiary named Universal Wrestling Corporation, purchased the assets of Nati ...

Rugby career

During his tenure at Granville South High School, Polota-Nau only began to learn the game of Rugby Union largely thanks to a teacher by the name of Paul Ridgway, who grew up and played the game as well as become a Personal Development/Health/Physical Education teacher that transferred to Granville South High. It was there that Polota-Nau took interest in not only learning the game in such a short space of time, but also to progress exponentially through the rugby representative pathway at the age of 16. Advancing to the Australian Development U17 team. Out of high school, Polota-Nau received a High Performance Unit (HPU) contract to join the ACT Brumbies at the end of the 2003 year. At 20 years of age, Polota-Nau achieved the rare feat of Test selection before playing a match at Super 14 level. His performances in his Test debut against

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

at Twickenham and in the win over

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

Lansdowne Road Lansdowne Road Stadium ( ga, Bóthar Lansdún, ) was a stadium in Dublin owned by the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) that was primarily used for rugby union and association football matches. The stadium was demolished in 2007 to make way for ...

were impressive. Tatafu Polota-Nau (L) joins Greater Sydney Rams Fans

Signed to the New South Wales Waratahs shortly after the end of the 2005 Super 12, he made his provincial debut against Auckland in July and made his first Super 14 appearance in 2006. He is a strong and powerful hooker who has worked extremely hard in recent times to improve his set piece in partnership with hooking partner and fellow Wallaby Adam Freier. Polota-Nau was named in the

Greater Sydney Rams The Greater Sydney Rams, originally known as the Western Sydney Rams, is a former rugby union team from Australia that was disbanded in 2018. The Rams won the minor premiership in the 2007 Australian Rugby Championship (ARC), and then competed ...

squad for the 2014 and 2015

National Rugby Championship The National Rugby Championship, known as NRC, was an Australian rugby union competition. It was contested by eight teams, seven from Australia and one from Fiji. The tournament ran from 2014 until 2019 before being disbanded in 2020 following t ...

seasons but did not play for the team due to being required for the Australian national side. On 9 November 2017 Polota-Nau signed for Leicester Tigers in England's

Premiership Rugby Premiership Rugby, officially known as Gallagher Premiership Rugby, or the Gallagher Premiership for sponsorship reasons, is an English professional rugby union competition. The Premiership has consisted of thirteen clubs since 2021, and is the ...

on a 2-and-a-half-year contract having previously played 146 matches of Super Rugby for a decade with the Waratahs and more recently for one season with the Western Force. Polota-Nau's move abroad came on the back of the downsizing of Super Rugby and the removal of the Force from the competition. Under Giteau's Law Polota-Nau will still be available for international selection.

References

External links

Waratahs profile

Wallabies profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Polota-Nau, Tatafu 1985 births Australian rugby union players Australian people of Tongan descent Australian expatriate sportspeople in England Australia international rugby union players Greater Sydney Rams players New South Wales Waratahs players Rugby union hookers World Rugby Awards winners Rugby union players from Sydney Living people Leicester Tigers players