And one, and two, and three Tao! First there is Romain, the Lyon second line who was the only one of the three to start and to have also greatly contributed to Lyon’s success at Aimé-Giral. Left prop Sebastien entered the pitch in the second half. All that was missing was the little brother: Killian. The young Usapist hooker in turn came into play: “it will remain a memory for life to have played against them” he said at the end of the match when questioned by France 4.
Three Tao brothers on the lawn! A first that enchanted Romain : “It was an important moment for us, for the family. We thought about it all week. We were hoping for Killian to be in the 23s and it was a great time. We already call each other almost every day but we called each other even more this week. It may remain anecdotal but it was important for the family. When I saw him come home, it was weird. Time flies, I saw myself 10 – 12 years ago here coming onto the lawn and so it’s weird to see him do it in turn.”
Two days after this memorable match for the family, Killian, live on France Bleu Roussillon, returned to the pre-match and the match: “it stimulated me, I was like crazy when I found out that we were all going to play, I was excited all week. We talked a lot with my brothers, Romain put me in the room, he told me to avoid going towards him if I didn’t want to talk with my two knees. It was his welcome gift.
Playing against my two brothers is crazy! When I got back on the field we managed to say a few words to each other, there was a little exchange, they said good game to me. In the first scrum, obviously I wasn’t far from Sébastien, we looked into each other’s eyes and there was no need to talk.”
Romain told me not to go to him if I didn’t want to talk to my two knees
The little brother is still moved by returning to this very strong moment. It is a new Tao which is now on the circuit and which must follow in the footsteps of its two models: “There is always pressure when your name is Taofifénua. We wonder if we will live up to what people expect. Already, just playing against my brothers put pressure on me. I wanted to stand out. Romain is very tall, Sébastien is very strong, I had to stand out in another way. We were good in the scrum, so I stood out by stealing the show from Sébastien. But, I know that with age and time, there will be even more pressure.“
Killian follows in the footsteps of his big brothers. Romain, 31, started in pro also under the colors of USAP. He wore the Catalan jersey 82 times from 2010 to 2014. Sébastien, soon to be 30, had also left at the time of the descent after having played 55 times with USAP from 2011 to 2014. Killian, 20, was very young at that time and followed the performances of the two brothers in the stands of Aimé-Giral.
The young hooker followed the USAP training course, he shines with the U23 team and like other young players, he takes advantage of this European competition to discover the high level: ‘He made a good start like all the USAP youngsters who were lined up. They had a very good match, that’s good, good for them“, comments Roman.
Thousands of miles away, dad Willy Taofifenua surely savored this great family moment in front of his television. “Now, the dream would be to play all three in the same jersey, that of USAP of course“, concludes with a big smile, Killian.