NRL superstar Jason Taumalolo has been kicked off the Tongan rugby league team plane for being too heavy.
The hulking 113kg wrecking ball was forced off the team’s flight to from Sydney to Nuku’alofa, Tonga on Wednesday as there was too much weight on the plane, according to 1 News.
Taumalolo, 24, was forced to spend the night in a hotel and catch a flight the next day.
NRL superstar Jason Taumalolo has been kicked off the Tongan rugby league team plane for being too heavy
Taumalolo (left), teammate Siliva Havili (front centre) and team official John Hopoate (back right) on board a flight from Sydney to Tonga
Tonga coach Kristian Woolf said a ‘couple of guys’ had to leave the plane and wait a day until being reunited with their teammates.
‘We all got on the plane… then they decided that there was too much weight on the plane,’ he said.
‘They had to offload a couple of guys and unfortunately, one of those was Jason. It was a funny one.’
Taumalolo turned his back on the country of his birth, choosing to play for Tonga instead of the New Zealand Kiwis at this year’s rugby league world cup.
He was joined in the Tonga squad by Cronulla Sharks prop Andrew Fifita, who rejected an Australian Kangaroos call up an hour before the team was announced.
Controversial former NRL player and Tonga team official John Hopoate was with Taumalolo and fellow Tonga squad member Siliva Havili on the second flight.
The hulking 113kg wrecking ball was forced off the team’s flight from Sydney to Nuku’alofa, Tonga on Wednesday
Taumalolo was joined in the Tonga squad by Cronulla Sharks prop Andrew Fifita (pictured), who rejected an Australian Kangaroos call up
‘I was Jason’s bodyguard for the night,’ Hopoate told Sporting News.
‘He was completely cool with the situation. There was no drama.’
Taumalolo is one of the game’s best players, having won the 2016 Dally M medal.
Earlier this year he signed the richest deal in NRL history, agreeing to a 10-year, $10 million contract with the North Queensland Cowboys.