http://www.leaguehq.com.au/news/news/new-rookie-is-the-new-willie/2008/01/26/1201157738005.html
The new Willie
When Mose Masoe started playing football at the age of 13, he had to play at fullback because he was too big to fit into a scrum.
Five years later, the man recruitment whiz Peter O'Sullivan dubbed "a young Willie Mason" is preparing to become the biggest thing in rugby league.
Masoe is as physically intimidating as his more illustrious Roosters recruit - the 18-year-old Kiwi casts an imposing shadow courtesy of a 119 kilogram/192 centimetre frame. If you think he's big now, you should have seen him a few months ago, when he was tipping the scales at about 140kg.
The figures are impressive, but Masoe is more interested in a different set of digits. When he isn't crunching defenders, Masoe is crunching numbers, studying accounting with a view to making it a career.
But for the time being, the big Samoan's future lies with rugby league. And according to two of the best judges of talent in the game, it looks like it will be a bright one.
League immortal and former Roosters scout Arthur Beetson - the man who brought Anthony Minichiello, Michael Crocker, Chris Flannery and countless other promising youngsters to Bondi Junction - recalled the first time he saw Masoe play.
"I loved him when I saw him a few years ago in an under-16s New Zealand side," Beetson said. "He's a big kid, there aren't many front-rowers like him.
"Apart from the fact he's got incredible size, he's a great athlete. He's got a tremendous work ethos and from what I understand they're all rapt with him [at the Roosters]."
The man who replaced Beetson as chief talent spotter at the club, former Storm recruitment officer O'Sullivan, was similarly impressed.
"When he was at the Australian Schoolboys, whenever he got the ball 10 metres out, he scored; he was just too big to stop," O'Sullivan said.
"With his footwork and size, he's potentially a young Willie Mason. He's got that sort of frame. Like Willie he's got the size, physique and speed to do that sort of damage.
"I saw him play in the schoolboys and he was carrying a lot of weight, a massive amount of weight. I was very keen for him to get over as soon as he could.
"I was pleasantly surprised, he'd lost about 15 kilos and after Christmas he's lost another four or five. He's going gangbusters."
Masoe has played his fair share of union but opted to concentrate on the 13-man game, despite the fact his cousin, Hurricanes loose forward Chris Masoe, is an All Black.
"I liked league more, the contact, the physicalness of the game," said Masoe, who is recovering from chicken pox.
The teenager will start off his Roosters career in the new National Youth Competition, but it may be double trouble if the Mason clone makes first grade.
Too big to stop … 18-year-old Roosters recruit Mose Masoe weighs in at 119 kilograms and stands 192 centimetres tall.
