Taniela Tupuo off at halftime, replaced by Feao Fotuaika.
I listened to a podcast through the week from Taniela, and i think that may go some way to explaining why they’re limiting his game time. Tupou actually went to Thorn and his manager last year and said he wanted to walk away from rugby, he was having some personal issues and the COVID lockdown/inability to travel home to Tonga was taking its toll on him mentally. Thorn spoke to him about it about how they could manage it. Didn’t elaborate on what they were going to do, but perhaps this is part of that.