Why a Wallaroos star didn’t tell her parents she was debuting for Australia

Adiana Talakai’s dad Petani was always her biggest supporter, but there was a time when she didn’t want him at her games. Specifically, the day Talakai made her debut for the Australian women’s rugby side, the Wallaroos, in a Test match in 2022.

For reasons she now struggles to explain, the NSW hooker decided she wouldn’t tell her father - and her whole family - that she’d been picked to play for the Wallaroos against Fiji in Brisbane. It’s just a camp, she fibbed.

“I was scared that I was going to waste their time,” Talakai said. “I value what my parents have put into me. So I didn’t want to waste any more time and sacrifice that they have to. I didn’t want to disappoint them.

“And yes, it was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.”

Talakai started and played well in Australia’s comfortable win, but when the game ended, she quickly realised her mistake: she wouldn’t get to share the moment with family.

Luckily, teammate Iliseva Batibasaga had cottoned onto the fact Talakai had not told her parents, or her front-rower brothers Chris and Sam, who are also professional footballers. The Talakais had been secretly flown up to watch her debut and were able to give Adiana all the hugs.

“I am so, so grateful for Ili because she didn’t let me live that path,” Talakai said.

Family - and footy - has always been the central part of Talakai’s life in a sports-mad Tongan household in southern Sydney. Like her brothers before her, Adiana began playing league for the Mascot Jets at the age of four and spent her downtime playing knee footy with Sam and Chris, who grew up and played Super Rugby for Melbourne, NSW and Queensland.

“We would set up the old Nokia phone on the couch to film, and that was our TMO ,” she said.

Mum Katalina reluctantly agreed to let Adiana play footy, but only if she played netball as well.

“I’m the oldest daughter, and with two brothers, she wanted a little girl,” she said. “It didn’t really work out. I was just a bit too rough for the netball. The rules are no contact, but I kept getting bumped or whatever, so I would put in contact, and then I would get in trouble.”

After a temporary exit from mixed footy at the age of 12 - when all-girls footy teams were rare - Talakai tried cricket and touch before eventually finding her way back to rugby through sevens.

That led to Talakai joining Sydney University and falling in love with the camaraderie of club rugby. She was very content at that level, but with natural power and skill, soon, rep coaches came knocking.

She struggled to understand why - “I thought they’d made a mistake” - and Talakai almost missed her first selection for the Waratahs’ squad in 2020 because the NSW coach’s invitation went into her junk email folder. He rang a day before the deadline, asking why she was holding out.

“I was like, oh, sorry I didn’t even know that we got an email. Let me just check my junk, bro,” Talakai said.

Talakai’s funny anecdotes don’t quite mask a burning inner drive to succeed, though. As a teenager, after one of her brothers annoyed her -“told me to do the dishes probably” - she furiously wrote down in her diary: “I’m going to be the first person in his family to play for Australia.”

And she was. Her debut for the Wallaroos in 2022 came seven months before her brother Sam played his only Test debut for the Wallabies against Wales in November.

Talakai also went to the Rugby World Cup that year and had played 17 Tests by the end of 2023, but missed all of 2024 after a knee reconstruction. The 26-year-old returned to the field this season and won selection for the Wallaroos squad for the Rugby World Cup in England, which begins on Saturday night when the Wallaroos take on Samoa in Manchester.

Heartbreakingly, her dad won’t be there. After dropping his daughter off at a bus at NSW Rugby headquarters in April, for a trip to a Wallaroos’ camp in Canberra, Petani suffered a heart attack and died that night.

Talakai constantly feels his absence.

“When my mum and dad had their arguments when I was younger about whether I should go play footy or not - he was just a staunch supporter of me playing footy,” she said.

“Not just because he loves footy. He just knew I got so much joy playing.

“When I got older, he’d always give me feedback after games, and there was never any grey area. You did well, or you need to get better at this.

“I definitely miss those conversations. And it was just really funny also because - and this sounds bad - but I loved listening to his broken English as he is telling me that stuff.

“I’d be laughing and he’s like: “I don’t know why you’re laughing for”.

In the moments before Wallabies’ games at the World Cup, Talakai says she will be thinking about her dad, and the inspiration he still gives her.

“My dad was a stoic guy. He worked hard every day to support his family, and never complained,” Talakai said.

“How do I explain it? He would just do the hard shit and not complain about it. That’s what I think about with my dad, and I just want to embrace that when I play.

“Do the hard shit and just keep going.”

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