The Eagles of Philadelphia still celebrated while Jordan Mailata was heading towards a media room at the most deep inside the superdome.
While the offensive line player who was heading for a chair, one of his compatriots draped an Australian flag around his shoulders.
The Kansas City chiefs hoped to become the first team to win three Super Bowls following New Orleans.
Instead, it was Malata who made the history of the NFL. He grew up playing the rugby league and had not played a single snap when the Eagles repeated him in 2018.
Now he played in two Super Bowls and this time he became the first Australian to raise the Vince Lombardi trophy.
It was the last chapter of what his mentor this week called “the biggest history of football”.
The Horrible ‘Earth “ `offers a perfect platform
Mailata grew up playing the rugby league and when he came through the South Sydney Rabbitohs Academy, he had to take a few second jobs to pay the bills.
At different times, he worked in the construction of stations, demolition, scaffolding and Woolworths, as well as to train with rabbitohs.
When asked what he had learned, Malata said, “That it sucked.
“Probably the most difficult part was to just try to get into this routine and I think it helped a lot with my transition (to the NFL).”
Malata played rabbitohs for those under 20, but there were concerns about her conditioning. Then he surely received the best advice he ever had: “Why don’t you do a sport that appreciates your size?”
At 6 feet 8 inch and 365 lb (166 kg), this sport was American football and it joined the international program of international players of the NFL in 2018.
Former English rugby player Christian Scotland-Williamson was also on the contribution of this year for the intensive 10-week training program.
“His agility and his speed for a person of his size, who had not yet grown in his full setting, it was so impressive,” he said.
The canceled golf trip was “the biggest decision I have ever made”
The PPI is designed to prepare NFL hopes to have been selected in the draft of the NFL, which gives them an intensive course in American football and a platform to present their skills to the NFL scouts.
Word Spread at the Eagles executive, Howie Roseman, who convinced Jeff Stoutland, the trainer of the Philly offensive line and the racing game coordinator, to cancel a golf trip to go see him.
“I didn’t know I want to expect,” Stoutland told BBC Sport. “I was told that he was a rugby player, so I said to myself” what am I doing “.
“It was the biggest decision that I never made – apart from marrying my wife.
“I put these exercises and all of a sudden, this giant guy flew through the cones.
“I was like” God “, but I did not show this expression at the time because there was another team there and I did not want them to see my passion for him, I wanted minimize it.
“And my boy, my boy, I got out of this training and called Howie and said” let me get my hands on this guy “.”
A few weeks later, Scotland-Williamson attended the 2018 draft with Mailata. He was so convinced that the name of Mailata would be called that he had bought a new outfit, so he would have looked good on television.
The Eagles selected Mailata, 20 years old, with the 23rd choice.
Mailata ends the “crazy” trip
Mailata spent two seasons in the Philadelphia training team, continuing its development.
“It was a version for a few years,” said Stoutland. “Then suddenly a day, I think, the light on and he had confidence in his knowledge. Each year, he just went to a new level.”
Mailata played its first match in 2020 and became one of the best offensive plated in the NFL, helping the Eagles reaching the Super Bowl in 2023, where they were beaten by the chiefs.
Last year, he signed an extension of a three -year contract worth $ 66 million (53.3 million pounds sterling) and is a key element of the greatest offensive line in the history of the Super Bowl.
As an offensive tackle, he blocks the defensive line of the opposition to protect the quarter-Arrière Jalen Hurts, who was the most precious player on Sunday, and the gaps open for Saquon Barkley to end.
The Eagles that run back had enough yards on Sunday to establish the record of all time for yards on the ground in one season, including the playoffs, at 2,504.
“Saquon always says that he cannot be great without the greatness of the others,” said Mailata after Sunday’s match.
“When I hear that I am like” you know what, maybe it’s me and not all saquon, maybe there is just a little chance “.
Live games on old -fashioned hours have presentations of players and indicate to which college they played. Since Mailata did not follow the traditional NFL path, he says “Stoutland University”.
And Stoutland thinks that Mailata, 27, can improve again, adding “I don’t think there is a top to that.
“Most of the players you train, they played in high school and college, so when they arrive at this level, they are finished, they are exploited. But not him.”
When asked if he could believe how far he came, Stoutland replied: “It’s the biggest story in football, I mean that.”
Mailata ends the “crazy” trip
Current Defensive Coordinator of Seattle Seahawks Aden Durde and BBC Sport columnist Phoebe Schecter were on IPP coaches staff in 2018.
Durde said that a large part of Malata’s success was due to “the way he was held in all these different environments” and that “it is a noisy and fun character who has just had a heart of gold”.
Schecter and Scotland-Williamson, who was a man of honor at the wedding of Mailata in 2023, remember that he was still singing. He has since appeared on the masked singer and he remains this fun guy.
Now he can also qualify as a super bowl champion. “It seems crazy,” he told BBC Sport. “I can’t believe I’m here.
“The only thing I thought was the duration of the trip and how it took everyone to get here.
“It’s funny how life works, my trainer is hard and hard for me. I can only tell my success in the way he leads.”
As the only rugby player who has so far made a successful passage to the NFL, he will now be a poster for other international players hoping to make the transition.
“Try it,” he told them. “You can do whatever you want if you believe in yourself and someone who believes in you.”