page_title: Martin Taupau
section_title: 2015
hierarchical_section_title: Martin Taupau / Playing career / 2015
caption_attribution_description: English: Martin Taupau
context_page_description: Martin Taupau is a professional rugby league footballer of Samoan Heritage, who plays as prop and lock for the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles in the NRL, and Samoa and New Zealand at international level.
  He previously played for the Canterbury Bulldogs and Wests Tigers in the National Rugby League. Taupau has also played for the World All Stars.
context_section_description: Under new coach Jason Taylor, Taupau began the season playing as the team's starting lock. On 3 May, Taupau was selected for New Zealand in the 2015 Anzac Test, playing off interchange bench and gained the most metres amongst the New Zealand pack and had the most offloads of any forward for either side in the Kiwis 26-12 win. After receiving a crusher tackle during the game, Taupau made a throat-slitting gesture towards Australian opponent Sam Thaiday. Australian player Corey Parker said, "that's not a good look for the game, gee whiz. If you were a young kid looking in the stands watching that, I don't know what you're going to think." Parker did admit, "I think it would be fair to say 12 months ago you might not have known too much about Marty Taupau, but certainly you do now."
  In Round 14 against the South Sydney Rabbitohs in the Tigers shock upset 34-6 win at ANZ Stadium, Taupau scored his first career double. He was said to be, "huge for the Tigers, scoring two brutally powerful tries while providing much-needed aggression and power through the middle of the field." Finishing the season with 21 appearances and scoring 4 tries, Taupau would have completed his 2nd consecutive season without missing a game were it not for a 3-match suspension for a high shot on James Maloney, for which he was "widely panned".
  On 30 October, Taupau signed a 4-year contract with the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles starting in 2016, after being granted a release from the final year of his Tigers contract. The manner in which Taupau's signing was announced was a bungled affair. As Taupau was in England with the Kiwis on their tour of Great Britain, an e-mail that outlined the contract was supposed to be sent from a UK based solicitor to Manly CEO Joe Kelly. However, in an embarrassing foul up the e-mail was accidentally sent to the G-mail account of Canadian theatre critic J. Kelly Nestruck who then announced Taupau's 4-year deal with the Sea Eagles on his Twitter page. Taupau would go on to play in all 3 matches against England in the Kiwis 2-1 Baskerville Shield series loss.
caption: Tapau playing for the Kiwis
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 100D", "Image Orientation": "0", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "0", "Image DateTime": "2018:12:02 15:07:48", "Image Artist": "", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "216", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 3, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "8866", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "0", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "8978", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8791", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/160", "EXIF FNumber": "11", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1600", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2016:11:20 16:35:40", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2016:11:20 16:35:40", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "59/8", "EXIF ApertureValue": "7", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "300", "EXIF SubSecTime": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "5184", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3456", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "8836", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "864000/149", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1152000/199", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}