Cardiff Blues centre Halaholo finally appeared on the international stage for his adopted country as a replacement against Scotland and then played his part in the win over England as Wayne Pivac’s men clinched the Triple Crown.
While the celebrations were in full flow in Cardiff after the record 40-24 victory over the auld enemy, there was also a bit of a party in Halaholo’s native Auckland.
“For the last four or five years I’ve been in Cardiff I’ve had the goal of playing at international level. There were times when I never thought I’d be here,” said Halaholo.
“It’s really special, especially for my parents back home who worked so hard for us to succeed. They moved from Tonga without a word of English and learned a new language just trying to provide for us.
“To see me reach this level has made my family really proud and they have been watching from Auckland. Every Saturday night they move their mattress into the lounge and get ready to wake up at five or six in the morning with my family.
“My brother and his kids come over on a Saturday night and they all camp in the lounge ready to watch the Wales game. I have had a lot of messages from boys who saw me at my worst coming out of high school and even they can’t believe where I am now.”
While the folks back home are rightly proud of what he has achieved, Halaholo is pleased to have left part of his old life behind and to have beaten the knockers who didn’t want him to succeed in Wales.
Caught up in Auckland’s gang and drinking culture and living in a garage with his young family, Halaholo could hardly have been further away from international rugby a decade ago.
Now he is the proud holder of two Test caps and is gunning for more as Wales prepare to face the Azzurri.
His journey from tearaway youth to rugby star has been quite remarkable.
Born in New Zealand to parents of Tongan descent, the 30-year-old’s talent was obvious from an early age.
“It was about eight or nine years ago I dropped all the bad habits, knuckled down, and finally put a bit of hard work in. I decided to give rugby a proper go,” said Halaholo.
“I was involved in a lot of heavy drinking. In my last year of high school, I ended up having a daughter. I was quite young and it messed with my head. I ended up going down a different path with drinking and a gang culture.
“I’m just happy I turned things around and it was my daughter who did it. I felt like a stranger to her until she was about two or three and started to talk. It was then I started to change things – I got there just in time.”
These days Halaholo lives alongside Roath Park Lake with his wife Sandra and his four daughters, two of which were born in Wales.
Snippets of the Welsh language are now being heard in the Halaholo household. Even the man himself admits he sometimes has to pinch himself at how his life has panned out.
Alun Wyn Jones presents Willis with his cap
As a teenager, Halaholo impressed at Auckland’s Mount Albert Grammar School. He toured Australia with a New Zealand Secondary Schools team in 2007 and played for Tonga in the 2009 World Rugby Under-20 Championship.
“Auckland is a big city. Some people can handle the culture there and others can’t. Coming out of High School, I just didn’t have the discipline,” said Halaholo.
“Although he probably wouldn’t listen, I’d tell that person now not to waste his talent. Not a lot of people get blessed with the talent I have. I have a lot of family who have wasted their rugby talent.
“They have gone down a different path and never made it back.”
Given a kick up the backside by his daughter Atu’s arrival, Halaholo needed a lifeline. He was handed a chance to impress with Southland in 2013. Overweight but now back on the straight and narrow, Halaholo began to turn things around and was named in the Hurricanes squad for Super Rugby.
Learning from All Black greats Beauden Barrett, Conrad Smith and Ma’a Nonu, Halaholo helped the Hurricanes to their first Super Rugby title before signing for Cardiff Blues in 2016. A new adventure awaited nearly 12,000 miles from home.
Quick, powerful and with impressive footwork, Halaholo immediately stated his interest in qualifying to play for Wales on his arrival in Cardiff. He has been an important figure for the capital side and helped them to win the European Challenge Cup in 2018.
In his time in New Zealand, Halaholo was rejected by current Wales head coach Wayne Pivac when he was in charge of Auckland because of his off-field problems. It was ironic then that after completing his three-year residency qualification in Wales, it was Pivac who handed Halaholo his first international call-up in November 2019.
Halaholo was a late call-up to the Wales squad for the 2021 Six Nations, but he has appeared off the bench in the wins over Scotland and England and is proving the doubters wrong.
His family will once again be watching on from New Zealand in the early hours when Wales face Italy on Saturday. Halaholo is in a hurry to impress in Test rugby and is pushing hard for a start in Rome.
“For my whole career and my whole life, I’ve always been looked down on and I’ve always had to prove myself,” he added.
“The criticism didn’t put me off. If anything, it drove me on more just to prove them wrong. I want to say thanks to those guys for helping me push through my rehab and get here.”
