Tupou brings French scrum secrets back to Brisbane to face his Racing 92 teammates

Taniela Tupou has returned to Brisbane a reinvented prop, crediting his season with Top 14 club Racing 92 for rescuing both his career and his love of rugby — and he arrives at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday armed with a few French scrum secrets to use against the very teammates who taught him.

The Wallabies loosehead came off the bench in Australia’s defeat to Ireland in Sydney last weekend, but his focus has quickly shifted to the French, a side he knows intimately after a year in Paris. Lock Emmanual Meafou, who lines up for France this weekend, played alongside Tupou at Brothers in Brisbane, as did Wallabies captain Harry Wilson and flanker Fraser McReight.

“I’m a big fan of his work,” Tupou said of Meafou. “Happy for him but this week we’ll go after him. I’ve learnt enough to challenge them. I’ve got a couple up my sleeve to use this weekend.”

Tupou’s move to Racing 92 in 2023 came after a difficult stretch in Australian rugby. He left the Queensland Reds for the Melbourne Rebels, who subsequently folded, and a stint with the NSW Waratahs brought no relief. By his own admission, his head was not in the right place.

“No idea what would have happened if I stayed, but I’m glad I left,” he said. “My head was not where it should have been.”

Paris changed that. After an initial surrender to the city’s bakeries, Tupou overhauled his diet and threw himself into a new scrum education — one that humbled him early on.

“I struggled a bit when I arrived … the French know how to cheat in the scrum,” he grinned. “I thought it was going to be easier and I was wrong; it was hard and took a few months to get used to it.”

He describes the French approach as “a bit more freestyle” than anything he had encountered in Australia. “You have a licence,” he said. “Here, there’s a gap in the scrum but in France you find your own gap. Plus over here I’m one of the big guys. Over there I’m one of the small guys.”

Off the field, the transformation has been equally striking. Tupou has taken up golf and is still adjusting to speaking English again after months of navigating French daily life — joking that his golf swing is currently sharper than his mother tongue.

Contracted with Racing 92 until 2028, Tupou is keen to play as many Tests as possible this year, though nothing beyond next week’s Perth clash against Italy has been confirmed with club or country. That match will also be Joe Schmidt’s last in charge before Les Kiss takes over as Wallabies head coach.