No passing up the opportunity for rising forward Manuleleua

One of Newcastle’s rising crop of stars in the making, second-rower Francis Manuleleua sees it as his responsibility to make the most of the opportunity he has in front of him now.

With representative back-rower Dylan Lucas suffering a season-ending ankle injury, Justin Holbrook has trusted Manuleleua – who is New Zealand born and eligible for Samoa – to start alongside fellow firebrand Jermaine McEwen.

For Manuleleua, who was previously part of Penrith’s development pathways and moved across to Newcastle as the start of last season before debut in Round 3 this year, Holbrook’s faith in him was bringing out his best.

“I think it's just full credit to Justin and the coaching staff, just trusting my ability,” Manuleleua told NRL.com.

“I've been playing a lot of Cup the last few weeks and I'm just trying to keep building on my game so that when I get the call up, like the last two weeks, that I'm ready and that I can do a job for the team.

“I think every kid coming up through the ranks wants to play NRL, so I'm not going to take this opportunity lightly.

“It's a sad way to obviously get this opportunity with Dyl Lucas being out, but I just want the boys to know that me being selected every week, I'm going to put my best foot forward for them and do what's best for the team.”

The Papatoetoe Panthers junior impressed across the park in Newcastle’s win over the Broncos, with some momentum turning tackles, but it was his 20-metre spiral pass out to Greg Marzhew to score that was his headline moment.

While more accustomed to running hard lines now in rugby league, as a youngster playing rugby union at school in Aotearoa, he played as a midfield, where good passing was mandatory.

“I played a lot of union back home in NZ, I played a lot of First 15, so I wasn't really playing league in school," Manuleleua said. 

“I was a ‘midfield’, so being a midfield in union, you've got to be able to ball play, carry hard, so that's where I think I sort of get my ballplaying skills from.

“I've just always naturally had it, just haven't had the opportunity to showcase it, but I don't really need to when I have halves like Sando (Sandon Smith) and Sharpie (Fletcher Sharpe). 

“That was just the one chance that I got (today) to show it, so I won't do it again, just in case it might end up bad... so I just got lucky.

“I was telling our attack coach, it's there, but it'll just be in the back pocket for now.”

With a finals berth within their reach and a top-four finish also a dream, Manuleleua said a lot had changed since Newcastle’s wooden spoon season last year, but the support from the passionate Newcastle fans kept driving them as well.

“The belief is a lot better than last year, like last year if we had a close game, we'd probably like lose in the last 20 minutes,” Manuleleua said.

“But this year, no matter how many points we're down, we still know that we've got a fighting chance and that we can put as many points as we can if we're on and we're executing well.

“I think just this year we've just really connected with our fan base, in the pre-season we did a lot of open training sessions, we went to the mines, just to really understand like what the Newy people go through each day and the privilege that we have of playing footy, so it was good to connect back with them.

“They pay with their hard-earned money to get tickets to watch us play and it's a privilege for us to perform or to play in front of them so, we've got an expectation that we’ve got to give back to them.

"I feel like that's what's helped us this year, we just really want to put out a performance that our fans will like and just be able to support.”

With a big role to play in how Newcastle finished the regular season, Manuleleua said he had been getting good advice from Lucas, who before suffering his injury had been enjoying a breakout season.

“He's been a big help this year, he's helped me a lot with my line running, in the pre-season," Manuleleua said. 

“He's one of the best line runners in the comp, so it's real good to learn off him.

“It’s real unfortunate that he's injured, but he'll still be around the club, he'll still be giving advice whoever he can.

“I'm just going to be a sponge and just learn as much as I can from him.”

This week for the opening week of Indigenous Round, the Knights will head to Canberra to take on the Raiders.