Abraham Papali

[Guest]

He has moved to France to play for FC Lezignan in the Elite One Championship competition. Too bad, only 23 years old and seemed to have potentital. I guess he wasn't quite there yet for our coaching staff.

[Mickie Lane]

IMO when you dont even get picked up by a SL club & end up at a semi professional French club you obviously are one of those big Islanders that killed in the juniors because you are bigger, stronger & faster than all the rest until the rest grow into men & then you become a very average player.

[Moose]

IMO when you dont even get picked up by a SL club & end up at a semi professional French club you obviously are one of those big Islanders that killed in the juniors because you are bigger, stronger & faster than all the rest until the rest grow into men & then you become a very average player.

He was physically good enough to be an NRL player, just a very poor trainer and drifted in and out of games even at nsw cup level

[ism22]

IMO when you dont even get picked up by a SL club & end up at a semi professional French club you obviously are one of those big Islanders that killed in the juniors because you are bigger, stronger & faster than all the rest until the rest grow into men & then you become a very average player.

There's a lot of truth in that I reckon. As a kid it was always difficult to compete with 130kg+ players because I was a whippet-like ~75kg dude. I was extremely fast and powerful so could brush these guys with ease (like... ridiculously easy, 5 tries a game regularly once I got my momentum and fatigue set in for them) but tackling them without the elite tackling technique and stuff with a 'boys' body rather than a 'mans' body was really tough because they were just so much taller and heavier.

As soon as you put them in a fair playing field they stopped running over people and their lack of speed, fitness and ball skills became significantly more apparent. If anything they looked pretty dopey/clueless because they were like 'WTF?!? What do I do when people can tackle me? I dunno how to pass and stufff...'

Big islanders who can make state rep teams and stuff on size alone are a dime a dozen (and TBH many of them are actually 25+ playing in U18's comps because they have no registered birth date... works for them when playing against 75kg 16 y/o kids but not so well as they get older). Big islanders who can make it in the NRL are a different matter and boy are they beautiful to watch play!!!

[4 the all in brawl]

Obviously fighting a losing battle to keep the weight down.

He and Paki Afu have tonnes of natural ability. Sadly for Abraham he can only manage 2 or 3 hitups before running out of gas which is a reflection on his training.

[4 the all in brawl]

IMO when you dont even get picked up by a SL club & end up at a semi professional French club you obviously are one of those big Islanders that killed in the juniors because you are bigger, stronger & faster than all the rest until the rest grow into men & then you become a very average player.

IMO you were a better poster than the others in the juniors but now that you have cracked the big league and made the Chookpen you have become a very average poster.