Viliame Kikau’s Canterbury career started with that leaked photo, a year before he’d even arrived.
When the $3.2 million recruit was sidelined with injury and watching the Bulldogs flounder last season, coach Cameron Ciraldo “thought he was going to come to me and say ‘I don’t know if I can do this’.”
But out the other side of a miserable 2023 campaign for both club and marquee signing, Kikau has delivered on his lucrative price tag as winner of the George Peponis Medal for Canterbury’s best player – with Dally M back-rower of the year honours looming, too.
Not a bad bounce-back from an underwhelming first impression in the midst of Penrith’s 2021 grand final celebrations.
“It was supposed to be a private meeting at the leagues club,” Kikau laughs of the meeting with Phil Gould and Trent Barrettat which the Canterbury duo …