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Rats recruit intent on going to the top
14 May 10 @ 04:58pm by Joe Barton
Joel Rapana has just signed with Warringah Rats. Picture: BRADEN FASTIER
Joel Rapana has just signed with Warringah Rats. Picture: BRADEN FASTIER
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A SCHOOLBOY prodigy who once lined up alongside Greg Inglis and Jarrod Mullen and now calls the northern beaches home has warned of the dangers of footballers growing up too quickly in the public eye.
At a time when a 22-year-old Jarryd Hayne isn’t satisfied with a reported $500,000 salary, new Warringah Rats signing Joelin Rapana’s refreshing attitude is something to behold.
Rapana, who will start in his first game with the Rats against Randwick at Pittwater Park on Saturday afternoon, has just finished his first Super 14 season with the Western Force.
It’s not where pundits were predicting he would end up by the age of 24 when he burst onto the scene with the Australian Schoolboys in 2004, but Rapana’s football career took a back seat when the devout Mormon took time out to complete his voluntary two-year missionary work.
And far from regretting the decision, Rapana credits it for his football developement and cites it as the reason he still has the ambition to be a Wallaby before his career ends.
“It’s always good to look at things in hindsight, and I think the best thing I needed at that time was a refresher,” he explained.
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“I’d been heavily involved with representative football teams. I’d been bombarded with contracts and offers at that time and I just needed a break.
“I think that’s why a lot of young fellas now can fall short of their goals because they can’t handle the pressure at such a young age.
“But with guys like (Wests Tigers star) Benji (Marshall) and (AFL-bound) Karmichael Hunt making it at young ages, you need to know that not everyone are those players.
“I knew for my development and my mental development and growth it was good that I took those two years off.”
Those two years spent in outback Western Australia, knocking on doors and spreading the Mormon word halted Rapana’s rugby league career to the point where he virtually had to start again with a new three-year plan.
That plan encouraged him to join the Force and return to his junior passion from his days in Porirua, a small town outside of Wellington.
His time out West has been an incredible learning curve - starting with a baptism of fire against world-class winger Bryan Habana, and finishing with a Super 14 cap.
“My expectation of high level rugby was only what I’d seen on TV,” he said.
“In the aspect of knowledge of the game and learning where to be and how to do things, I’m definitely still learning, but I know for myself physically I can match it with them.
“My intention is to ... be the best rugby player I can be and if that is playing for the Force or playing for the Wallabies, then so be it, but my first intention is to play the best rugby I can at Warringah now.”
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