ALL BLACKS DEBUTANT
Karl Tu’inukuafe rises from obscurity to national hero
Auckland — Karl Tu’inukuafe played only about 30 minutes of the All Blacks’ 52-11 first Test victory against France on Saturday, but the 25-year-old’s immediate impact ensured he was the talk of the rugby-mad country a day later. The debutant, who did not even have a Super Rugby contract in 2018, came on in the 46th minute and shunted the experienced Rabah Slimani backwards so fast the All Blacks earned a scrum penalty that levelled the score at 11-11. The effort created an immediate buzz among the crowd and his teammates, with even some of the backs racing in to congratulate the moustachioed loosehead prop. "I was just thinking, ‘we’ll see how we go’, but as soon as I felt the pressure from behind I knew where to put it, so big ups to those guys behind us," Tu’inukuafe said. "It was a pretty unreal feeling," he said. Tu’inukuafe’s rise to international attention had an unreal feeling about it. While a secondary school standout, he had virtually given the game away four years ago an...
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