The images went around the planet Ovalie. After the victory of the XV of France over New Zealand during the autumn tour, on November 20, 2021, Peato Mauvaka, the hooker from New Caledonia, author of two tries during the meeting, makes a turn of honor of the Stade de France, the tricolor flag at arm’s length. Elected man of the match, Peato Mauvaka could not hold back his tears and his emotion, at the microphone of France 2, thinking of his father, who died in 2018, a fervent supporter of the All Blacks.
The young hooker from Stade Toulouse, who will again be part of the Blues facing Scotland on Saturday February 26 during the third day of the Six Nations Tournament, is today the figurehead of a contingent of islanders who play in clubs and national rugby teams: the Futunian Yoram Moefana, for example, appears alongside him in the XV of France, while the Kanak Yolaine Yengo plays in the French women’s sevens rugby team.
They are dozens, even hundreds, from the Pacific Islands, to have migrated to the metropolis in the hope of a career in sport. This movement began in the early 1990s. The pioneers were called Willy Taofifenua and Abraham Tolofua, cousin of the first.
Both are part of this Wallisian and Futunian community which has more than 20,000 nationals in New Caledonia – more than the number of inhabitants living in their territory of origin – and which constitutes the most present ethnic group in New Caledonian rugby. . Wallis and Futuna has always maintained cultural and linguistic ties with the neighboring islands of Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, which are also rugby grounds.
“Enormous potential”
Willy Taofifenua, the “Mammoth of Wallis”, is a legend in the Pacific Islands. This former third-line, force of nature and tough on evil, who will later be joined by his brothers, Jean-Jacques and Jean-Claude, made the great hours of FC Grenoble in the 1990s.
The Taofifenua line continues in the Top 14 and in the national team, with Sébastien and Romain at LOU, the youngest Killian at Perpignan, Filimo at Aviron Bayonnais and Donovan at Racing 92, who has just been called up by the coach. of the XV of France, Fabien Galthié, for the Six Nations Tournament.
Abraham Tolofua, he arrived in 1991 in Saint-Laurent-du-Var, from Mont-Dore, in the suburbs of Nouméa. “We often traveled to New Zealand, Tonga, Fiji or Samoa, but I wanted to experience another rugbyhe says. I had to convince my parents. »
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