The Pumas achieved a good victory against the always tough Samoa in the Rugby World Cup, and in front of them they had a basketball player in the ranks of the Asian team. Theo McFarland even became a player for his national team with his ability with the orange.
The new English Saracens player began playing as a child on a church court, which he reached by crossing a river from his home in Moamoa: “The church was on the other side of the river and had its own basketball court. There he spent most of his time, shooting hoops. “We walked along the river to get there and I played with my brothers,” he told Daily Mail.
And the NBA was what inspired him: “My brother got this NBA highlights DVD from somewhere and I watched it over and over again. Michael Jordan, Allen Iverson, Derrick Rose. We saw how they trained him and copied him. We filled rice bags with sand, sewed them, and put them on our ankles. We would use it during all our tasks until we went to bed. We thought it would make us jump higher! I loved basketball. “I wanted to go to the United States and play in the NBA.”
At 1.99 meters tall and with good ability to run the court and use his physical game, McFarland represented Samoa in several tournaments between 2018 and 2020 and even reached the final of the Polynesian Cup in 2018. There he had told FIBA: “We want to put basketball in a prominent place because in Samoa it is always more about rugby and even other sports than basketball.”
His highest point was the Bronze at the Pacific Games in 2019. There he went viral for a great fast break dunk against Tonga. In that tournament he was a figure with 19.6 points, 11.8 rebounds and 2.6 assists, also reaching the ideal quintet.
But that’s how far his life would go with the orange, because he changed it for the oval in 2020. “In 2019 we had a basketball tournament in Shanghai. We were going to be there for five months. First we had the South Pacific Games and I scored this dunk. It was the best game I had ever played. We got on the bus leaving the stadium and Brian Lima was waiting at the door. He is a rugby legend. He got on the bus, pointed at me and told me to get off. He couldn’t believe what was happening. It was the first time I spoke with him. He told me: ‘I need you to get back into rugby’ and that’s when I decided to try it one more time.”
After a failed time in the United States, he will now play in England, a country that also inspired him as a child to practice rugby.
“I played rugby at school. I remember the year 2003, when England won the World Cup. Jonny Wilkinson. After seeing that, my two older brothers and I went out and made some rugby posts out of bamboo. We made a kicking tee out of a coconut shell and filled a Pepsi bottle with dead brown banana leaves for a ball. “We put this bottle on the coconut and pretended to be Jonny Wilkinson.”
Clearly his past with basketball helps him in rugby in several aspects as he himself said: “It helps with handling, coordination and jumping. Getting rebounds. You use one hand most of the time in basketball; rebounds, layoffs. “It is a great help for rugby.”
2023-09-24 00:20:48
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