Mark Nawaqanitawase was watching a Robert De Niro movie when his phone rang at around 8pm on Monday.
The Sydney Roosters winger did not recognise the number, but thought he would answer it anyway. As long as the person on the other end of the line was quick, Nawaqanitawase thought to himself, he could get back to De Niro’s latest New York crime drama.
“I was watching De Niro in The Alto Knights – which is a great film, I recommend it – then a number started calling me. I was like, ‘Who is calling me now? It’s pretty late, I’m about to go to bed’,” Nawaqanitawase said.
“I picked up, then I hear, ‘Hi, it’s Laurie Daley’. I was like, ‘What’s going on here?’ The NSW team had already been announced, but he told me the good news that I was going to come into the squad. I got in here this morning. If they need me, I’ll do the job.”
Nawaqanitawase was drafted in on Sunday night after Canterbury captain Stephen Crichton finally succumbed to an AC joint injury which has caused him grief since Good Friday.
An ankle injury denied Nawaqanitawase the chance to make his Origin debut in game one, but he returned for the Roosters last weekend and bagged a hat-trick against Canberra.
Nawaqanitawase, 25, will return to rugby at the end of the season, when he joins Japanese club Saitama Wild Knights with the long-term aim of representing the Wallabies at next year’s World Cup.
Having made his intentions clear more than a year in advance, Nawaqanitawase knows anything that comes his way in league this year is a bonus – and that included his childhood dream of wearing the NSW sky blue.
While one of the game’s best aerial threats on the wing, Nawaqanitawase pointed out that he can also slot into the centres, where he started last season for the Chooks.
Meanwhile, Manly coach Kieran Foran wouldn’t be drawn into the debate about whether NSW were right to cut rampaging back-rower Haumole Olakau’atu.
“All I’ll say is I wouldn’t swap Haumole for any back-rower in the competition,” Foran said.
Olakau’atu was relegated to 20th man at the expense of Newcastle’s Dylan Lucas, who will start in the back row.
Daley said it had been tough to break the news to Olakau’atu inside a private room at the Pullman Hotel in Sydney Olympic Park.
“We were unsure, and we only decided [on the final team] at 7am,” Daley said. “Around 7.40am, I called him into a meeting and went through the decision with him.
“He was exactly the way we wanted him to be, which was very disappointed but also accepting of the news.
“We were thinking about Haumole on the bench, but it would put the balance out of whack having another back-rower instead of a middle.”
Olakau’atu struggled to make an impact when used sparingly off the bench in the first two games of the 2024 series before being dropped. He did not disappoint during the 22-20 win over Queensland a couple of weeks ago, apart from dropping a poor James Tedesco pass close to the line late in the game when virtually immobilised by cramp.
Lucas has been in excellent form for the Knights and arguably has a bigger engine than his Manly rival, but is not a natural right-sided player like Olakau’atu.
The 25-year-old felt for Olakau’atu, and was quick to point out they were likely to come up against each other on the same side of the field during opposed sessions in camp.
Lucas, who was cut loose by the Illawarra Steelers as a junior because “they weren’t that keen”, said an Origin debut would rank right up there with his NRL debut for the Knights, in 2023 against the Dolphins, and the under-18s group 7 grand final win with his mates playing for Albion Park against Milton in 2018.
