{"id":355015,"date":"2025-08-18T20:30:23","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T20:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/355015\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T20:30:23","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T20:30:23","slug":"tuipulotu-keen-to-surpass-father-siones-record-of-two-rugby-world-cups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/355015\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuipulotu keen to surpass father Sione\u2019s record of two Rugby World Cups"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Wales prop Sisilia Tuipulotu<\/a> is on a mission to beat her father Sione\u2019s achievement of playing at two different World Cups.<\/p>\n

Tuipulotu senior represented Tonga<\/a> at the 1999 and 2007 men\u2019s World Cups, but spent five years of his career in Wales<\/a> in the early 2000s at Caerphilly and the Newport-Gwent Dragons.<\/p>\n

Rugby is in the family blood as Sisilia\u2019s brother Kepu played for England<\/a> at this summer\u2019s World Under-20 Championship and her cousin Carwyn plays for French Top-14 side Pau.<\/p>\n

Other cousins include Wales and British Lions<\/a> number eight great Taulupe Faletau<\/a> and England\u2019s Vunipola brothers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really cool to have people doing this before me,\u201d said Tuipulotu, 22, who has recovered from hamstring surgery to make Wales\u2019 World Cup opener against Scotland<\/a> in Salford on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Fixture<\/p>\n

Women’s Rugby World Cup<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Scotland Women <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Wales Women <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cTo have that support there from my family really means a lot. I\u2019m grateful to have them.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad set the bar on World Cups, but I want to try and beat what he\u2019s done. So we\u2019ll see how that goes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe doesn\u2019t really speak much about his experiences unless we go and ask him. He isn\u2019t much of a talker. You\u2019ve got to try and poke him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newport-born Tuipulotu was still a teenager at the previous World Cup three years ago and admits to having had \u201ca lot of nerves\u201d in New Zealand.<\/p>\n

She has become a key player in the Wales pack since, but her place at the 2025 edition in England was put at risk by going under the knife at the start of February.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m back in one piece and my hamstring is now the strongest it has ever been,\u201d said Tuipulotu, who returned for the World Cup warm-up summer series in Australia, which Wales drew 1-1.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a big believer that everything that happens for a reason, but coming back after the operation was tough both physically and mentally.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been telling the physios to get me back out there even though I couldn\u2019t run in straight lines.<\/p>\n

\u201cI missed my graduation ceremony (after studying psychology at the University of Gloucestershire) but I was able to watch it on Teams in Australia, and I\u2019m very excited to be back out there with the ball in my hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

After their opener against Scotland, Wales remain at the Salford Community Stadium to take on Pool B favourites Canada<\/a> on August 30 before playing Fiji<\/a> in Exeter on September 6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wales prop Sisilia Tuipulotu is on a mission to beat her father Sione\u2019s achievement of playing at two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-355015","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115051667696550945","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}