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Taumalolo to answer Tonga SOS for Kiwis showdown
Joel Gould, AAP • October 27th, 2025 3:42 pm
Jason Taumalolo | Photo: AAP
Jason Taumalolo has put up in his hand to return from injury to play New Zealand in Tonga's hour of need in the Pacific Cup.
The 32-year-old wrecking ball was a late withdrawal with a knee injury from the disappointing 34-6 loss to Samoa at Suncorp Stadium on Sunday.
That loss has left Tonga needing to beat the Kiwis at Eden Park in Auckland by 17 points to progress to the Pacific Cup final in Sydney on November 9.
They will already miss prop Stefano Utoikamanu (concussion) and need Taumalolo's physical presence to give themselves a chance.
The North Queensland powerhouse had post-season knee surgery, but trained with Tonga ahead of the Samoa clash.
Coach Kristian Woolf made the tough call to leave him out on match eve.
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"Jason had end-of-season surgery and it was always a little bit of a rush to get him back for that (Samoa) game," Woolf said.
"That's what we aimed to do, including him. When I watched a few things and some training vision of him running, I felt it wasn't the right thing to do by him to play him. It was just a bit too soon.
"My job as a coach is to put us in a position to win games, but also to look after our players. I thought he needed to be looked after and that we would put him at risk if we threw him out there.
"He will be right to go (against the Kiwis). He will have another week of running under his belt. He was certainly chomping at the bit to play this week, so I don't think I will be able to hold him back next week."
Tonga never found their mojo against Samoa and were flat in the middle and disjointed in attack, despite creating chances they failed to finish.
Just winning the game won't be enough, but Woolf said the 17-point winning margin ultimatum would not be the initial focus.
"We just have to worry about winning the game to start with and playing a hell of a lot better than what we did," he said.
"We'd love to get those sort of points and win by that margin, but I don't think chasing points is going to give us the result we want either.
"I think we have got to take on the physical challenge more first. Samoa came out of the blocks harder.
"For whatever reason, we got beaten to the jump."
