For Manly Sea Eagles prop Taniela Paseka, Jason Taumalolo has been a hero since his schoolyard days. But this Thursday night, the 6-foot-something forward will set his long-standing admiration aside to lock horns with his Tongan national teammate in one of the most anticipated heavyweight matchups of the rugby league round.
Taumalolo’s legacy stretches far beyond individual club matches. Nearly 10 years ago, the hard-running forward reshaped international rugby league alongside fellow star Andrew Fifita, when the pair made the groundbreaking decision to represent their ancestral home of Tonga, rather than higher-profile tier-one nations at the 2017 Rugby League World Cup. That call sparked what became known as the Tongan revolution, drawing a wave of top Polynesian-born talent to commit to the tiny Pacific nation, and injecting new life and energy into the international rugby league ecosystem.
Decades later, that revolution has carried Paseka onto the national squad, where he earned three Test caps alongside his childhood idol at the 2024 Pacific Championships. This week’s club clash is far from the only Tongan connection on the card: Paseka is one of four standout Tongan-born players in the current Manly line-up, joining Haumole Olakau’atu, Tolu Koula and Lehi Hopoate, all set to take the field against one of the most influential figures in modern Tongan rugby.
Taumalolo has shown no signs of slowing down as he enters the latter stages of his career. To open the 2026 club season, the veteran forward has turned in some of the best performances of his entire career, posting his highest average yardage totals since the 2020 campaign. Most recently, he racked up a mammoth 219 running metres against Brisbane in a match that underlined his enduring dominance in the middle of the field.
For Paseka, the 2026 season marks a welcome return to form after a career-derailing injury. A devastating Achilles rupture forced him to miss nearly all of the 2025 campaign, leaving the big prop working for months to regain his match fitness and power. Now healthy, he is gearing up to go head-to-head with the man he once dreamed of sharing a field with.
In an interview with NewsWire, Paseka opened up about the full-circle moment of facing his idol. “Playing against Jason, I’ve literally looked up to him since I was in school,” he said. “I remember the first time playing against him, I went home and told my family, ‘I’m playing against Jason Taumalolo!’
So it’s always good to play against your fellow Tongans, but also it’s a good challenge for us to try and put it on top of them and try and win the game. I’m not thinking too much about individuals; I’m just thinking about me doing my job for my team and that’s it. It used to be weird playing against him. But now I’ve been in the game for a fair bit, it’s just another game to me. I don’t look at individuals too much, but he is a pretty cool player to play against and with.”
While the pair will go to battle for their clubs this week, they are widely expected to reunite as Tongan teammates for the 2026 Rugby League World Cup later this year. Tonga is gearing up to bounce back after a disappointing 2025 Pacific Championships campaign, and still carries lingering disappointment from its 2022 World Cup run, where a breakout performance from Samoa prevented the side from advancing as far as many predicted it would.
Paseka, however, says discussions about national team selection have not yet entered the conversation. “No, we’ve had no chat. Nothing’s been mentioned yet (about the World Cup),” he said. “It’s all club footy at the moment. Maybe when it gets closer to the end of the year, there might be a bit of chat, but I think this is very early. First of all, you’ve got to make the team. I don’t want to say I’ve made the team, but first play good footy and then hopefully make the team.”