Toulon centre Duncan Paia’aua says he has no concerns about where his team-mate Brian Alainu’uese’s loyalties lie ahead of Friday night’s Challenge Cup final clash against Glasgow Warriors – but he is not so sure about the second-row’s fiancee.
Alainu’uese spent two years at Warriors from October 2016, during which time he met Victoria, and the couple are due to be married this summer.
“She’s a very good Glasgow girl and I keep giving her crap about who she is going to be shouting for and which jersey she’s going to wear,” Paia’aua chuckled. “She’s told me Toulon but I don’t know.”
Paia’aua – who was born in New Zealand, raised in Australia and is capped by Samoa – got the ball rolling for Toulon in their 23-0
Challenge Cup semi-final win over Benetton by scoring a fifth-minute try.
He is friends with Sione Tuip-ulotu, who is expected to be his opposite number in the Warriors line-up, but that relationship has already been put on ice ahead of Friday night’s clash.
“I played Australia Under 20s with him, I played 12 and he played 13, so we had a couple of games together then,” the 28-year-old midfielder said. “Then we crossed paths a bit in Super Rugby, so he’s come a long way from Australia and he’s done very well for himself.”
Asked if there has been any messages exchanged during the last few days, Paia’aua replied: “No, I think he’s trying to ghost me. I think he’s playing mind games.
“I’ve been here four years and this will be my third Challenge Cup grand final so hopefully it is third time lucky, and we can learn from our last experiences.
“I think this is the one compet-ition the club hasn’t won yet, so it would be good to get that banner up in the club, but we know it is going to be a tough mission against
Glasgow who are a very good team, with most of them playing for Scotland.
“We know they are going to be very fit and very fast, so that’s what we’ve been preparing for this week.”
Why are you making commenting on HeraldScotland only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here