Joseph Tapine joined Canberra in 2016, needing to manage expectations and improve his physical training.
When Joseph Tapine arrived at Canberra from Newcastle in 2016 as a tall and skinny second rower with plenty of ability and even more to prove, there were two things he needed to learn to carry.
One was the prodigious expectations that came with his clear physical gifts. The then-21-year-old Kiwi was rangy, skilful and aggressive. He brought some hype with him from the Knights and it can take time to get a saddle on all that talent.
The second is a lot more literal - for much of his first seven seasons in the NRL, the last five of which came with the Raiders, Tapine didn't really lift weights.