The founder
Built from experience. Not theory.
Sama is a current professional rugby player. Talon isn't built on what he remembers about the game. It's built on what he's dealing with in it right now.
Sama Malolo
Founder. Current professional rugby player
The story
Born in New Zealand, he didn't grow up with a plan to become a professional rugby player. After moving to Australia, people assumed he came from a rugby or league background. He didn't. There was no grand ambition early on.
That changed when he made representative football and started getting traction. From there, his career took him through professional rugby environments in Australia, Japan, the United States, New Zealand and France. Different competitions, different cultures, different expectations of what a professional is supposed to be.
The biggest lessons didn't come from playing. They came from watching what happens when athletes get distracted by the lifestyle around the sport. From learning what real hard work looks like, rather than what he assumed it looked like. From finding out that talent doesn't replace discipline, and that careers rarely move in a straight line.
Talon exists so younger players can access those lessons deliberately, instead of paying for them the way he did.
Less talk. More action.
Career environments
Five countries. Different expectations.
The playing and professional environments that shaped the system.
Australia
A local junior at Southern Districts Rugby Club, Sama moved away from home at 18. He spent his first professional academy with the Western Force in 2017, before signing with the Melbourne Rebels senior squad and making his Super Rugby debut. He would also play in two junior world cups for Australia.
Japan
At 21, Sama took his talents to Suntory Sungoliath in Japan where he played one season in 2019.
USA
He then moved to USA playing two stints in the MLR for the Utah Warriors in 2021 and the San Diego Legion in 2023.
NZ
In 2023 he was selected to play for Manu Samoa in the rugby world cups and eventually signed with Moana Pasifika in NZ. Back in Super Rugby for two more seasons.
France
He now resides in the south of France, playing for USAP Perpignan in the top14, one of the biggest professional rugby leagues in the world right now.
Philosophy
What Talon is built on.
01
Hard work
Hard work beats talent. But most athletes have never been shown what genuine hard work actually looks like.
02
Discipline
Progress came from habits and standards, not from motivation showing up on the right day.
03
Faith
Faith has been part of how Sama keeps perspective through the parts of a career nobody sees.
04
The long game
A career is a marathon. So is the life after it. Decisions get made accordingly.
05
Actions over words
If you want respect in a squad, talk less and do more. That's the whole rule.
06
Direction
Most talented players aren't short on ambition. They're short on a route from A to B.
Talon is bigger than one player.
Sama's experience powers the system. The system is what you actually work through.