That’s a lot of man
Modern rugby is full of enormous men, from the very tall, like our own Devin Toner, to the very heavy, like Mathieu Bastareaud.
But no player has ever combined both traits quite so well as France’s newest international Uini Atonio. The New Zealander of Samoan origin has been playing for Rochelle in France for four years and last weekend he made his debut for his adopted country, against Fiji.
The remarkable thing about Atonio is that at 6’6″ and 146kg (23 stone) he is simply enormous even for a prop. As a reference point, Mike Ross is listed at 127kg, almost 20kg lighter. In fact, he is so big that the French back room team had to get a special shirt made just to fit him.
Il mange quoi à la cantoche Uini Atonio? #rugby (premier joueur à porter un maillot de taille 13 en équipe de France) pic.twitter.com/R9Jc5ER323
— Ivan Valerio (@ivalerio) November 20, 2014
L’Equipe ran a profile on the big fella and in it they reveal that Herve Didelot, the French team’s kit man, had to break out a size 13 for Atonio, the biggest ever for a French player.
To put that in context, our extensive research into French t-shirt sizes (a quick Google) reveals that a size 7 equals XXXL, so 13 equals XXXXXXXXXL by our count.
