MAHE Fonua knows whatever happens at Wembley cannot be as blood curdling as what he went through as a teenager – when his initials were etched in gold on his teeth!
And there was no bad reaction from a mad mum when he had them done as it was her idea!
The Hull centre is almost as well known for the decoration as he is leaving opponents trailing in his wake.
Fonua was just a youth when he found himself in the dentist’s chair back home in Melbourne having MF put on his teeth made from the gold of his father’s wedding ring.
Now he has revealed the process of how the custom from his parents’ native Tonga was done – and it is not pretty.
The Tonga international, 24, said: “People try and do it with gold that means something to them, my gold is my dad’s wedding ring.
“I was 15 or 16-years-old and if anything, it was the other way round from the usual family thing, my mum told the dentist to do my letters and I was like, ‘Oh no!’
“And the process hurts. Your gums are thick and they had a needle as long as a pen to numb then. The dentist drilled the whole thing in and I could feel liquid going into my face!
“I don’t know what a facelift feels like but I think I’ve a pretty good idea. My lips, my nose, everything was rock solid.
“Then they engrave my teeth like they engrave metal, get a mould then melt the gold into that. The whole thing took an entire working day!”
Fonua is something of a rugby league rarity. He is not from the hotbeds of Sydney or Brisbane but hails from deep inside Aussie Rules territory.
And growing up in Dandenong, about 20 miles south-east of Melbourne city centre, could have seen him take a much darker route as he admits many friends ended up in gangs.
But a chance encounter as a nine-year-old with a man passing in a car – as dodgy as it may sound – sparked his way to the top.
He added: “Me and my friend, Henry Johnson, were riding around our neighbourhood and this bloke pulled up to us and said, ‘Hey kids, if you fancy coming down to rugby, we’ve a team who trains at this time.’
“We didn’t think anything of it at the time. We’d spend days at the pool together but one day he went off to training.
“He told me where I was going and I said, ‘Give me a second, I’ll ring my dad and see if I can go off to training.’
“Melbourne is Aussie Rules, when I said, ‘rugby,’ it came across like it was a foreign language. I was nine-years-old and went to the Berwick Bulldogs – the rest is history.”
Fonua has a good record in the Challenge Cup. It is two seasons, two Wembley finals.
There will not be a third as he is heading back to Australia to join NRL side Wests Tigers.
However, Hull had made a huge impact on his life, not least because he and his wife will need an extra seat on the plane.
“I’m grateful to this club,” he said. “I learned all I know at Melbourne but I was given an opportunity to apply my trade here.
“My wife and I had only been married for two months when we came over but we’ve been able to mature as a couple and we’ve been blessed with a daughter who was born a week ago!
“She’s been very friendly and kind to me – by getting up in the middle of the night to change nappies and feed her!
“And this year does feel different to last year, this time round we know what’s happening and how the week goes.
“It came as a big surprise to me how big the Cup is. I wasn’t too familiar with it before I came over – last year with 70,000 people chanting for their team is the biggest game I’ve been a part of.”
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