LAS VEGAS — Picture a developmental practice squad player making his NFL debut as a starter in a Super Bowl.
This is the wild, dream-to-reality journey Setu Tu is living here this week, where he’ll make his National Rugby League debut in Saturday’s ballyhooed season-opening doubleheader at Allegiant Stadium.
This is the third consecutive year that the NRL has opened its season with a spotlight doubleheader here, somewhat following the NFL’s foray onto foreign soil.
Tu will start as a winger for the St. George Illawarra Dragons, who play the Canterbury Bulldogs in the NRL doubleheader finale at 11:30 p.m. EST Saturday.
It’ll be quite a moment for the 26-year-old NRL rookie, whose journey to reach this day has been anything but textbook.
• At age 8, he blacked out with a seizure related to an anxiety disorder during a youth rugby match and was told he could never play contact sports again.
• At age 12 and the third-youngest of four children, his mother, Tuna, died from cancer.
• With his father out of the family picture, his mother’s death forced Tu to bounce between four different relatives’ homes during his formative years.
• At age 15, he moved to New Zealand with his older brother, Robertson, and restarted his life there. “I feel like my story is my brother’s story as well, because he was only 21 when he moved me in, and he’d just started his own family,’’ Tu said.
• Tu, who was raised by his mom in a small Samoan village called Saleimoa, didn’t even begin playing Rugby League until he was 18, and he’s been doggedly chasing his dream to make it with one of the big clubs ever since.
• When he was on the verge of making his NRL debut in 2024, having been selected to the big club, he was forced to miss it because of a torn ACL the week before.
Since last year, he’s been on the “train and trial” program, trying to earn a Dragons roster spot. Tu is married and has two daughters, so that was hardly enough to live on.
“I’ve never looked at this game as wanting money,’’ Tu told The Post on Wednesday after he and his team did a training session at the UFC headquarters. “I’m not chasing money. I just wanted to get here. I wanted to fulfill that dream, whatever comes with it.’’
After the recent completion of Dragons preseason, the team’s coach, Shane Flanagan, called Tu into his office, where he thought he was going to get an earful for a major gaffe he’d committed in a preseason game.
“I had one moment that was not my best — I made a huge mistake, which cost us a game,’’ Tu said.
Instead of being scolded, Tu listened to Flanagan praise him for earning a spot in Saturday’s game, leaving him in tears.
“I was lost for words,’’ Tu said. “I told myself I wasn’t going to cry, but then all the tears came out when I thought about all the sacrifices. It still hasn’t hit me. Then I was reminded by my family and friends. They were like, ‘Mate, you’re going to Vegas.’ ’’
So, here we are now, in Vegas.
Dragons captain Clint Gutherson on Wednesday called Tu’s journey “a great story.’’
“He’s played a lot of footy in the system — he’s been through a few systems,’’ Gutherson said. “But from the moment he stepped in, it felt like he’d been here for a long time. It’s really exciting. He’s done everything right.
“He’s turned up ready to train and he’s trained hard. In the trials, he did everything right, so for him to get an opportunity — especially over here — it’s one of the things he’ll look back on at the end of his career and say how special it was.’’
When I asked Tu what will flood his mind Saturday, before his debut, he said: “That’s something I’m looking forward to. I will embrace it. I’m gonna be overwhelmed with love and joy.’’
The love he’ll feel most is for his late mother.
“I was a young kid when she died,’’ he said. “I couldn’t sleep without her. I was a mommy’s boy, always on my mom’s hip. It was tough for myself, because when she was gone she was pretty much the only person that I had in my life. I was very depressed.’’
There were many days, Tu recalled, when he would spend the entire day sitting at his mother’s grave.
“I feel like sports helped get my mind out of that,’’ he said. “Rugby was my way out of depression after my mom passed away.’’
Tu will also be thinking of his two daughters, Olive and Atahail. Because Olive was born during the COVID-19 pandemic and Tu was playing overseas, he wasn’t permitted to go back to New Zealand for her birth because of quarantine regulations.
So he witnessed her birth via FaceTime. His second daughter is only 6 months old, so he said he’s seen her for only two months, during Christmas time, because he’s been away training and chasing this moment.
Like in all sports, these are the difficult sacrifices athletes make that fans don’t see or consider.
“I love what I do, so I’m not complaining,’’ Tu said. “I love what’s happening with my life.’’
Saturday night, in the stadium where the Super Bowl was played two years ago, Tu will be playing in one of his own.
Biggest moment in a difficult life that deserves one this rewarding.
