WINNING the Challenge Cup at Wembley would be the icing on the proverbial wedding cake for Sitaeki Akauola.

The powerhouse forward is due to tie the knot to his partner Reanne in October in a ceremony in front of friends and family in Sydney.

But the Tonga international has his eyes set on a rather different prize before then as The Wire look ahead to this week’s Challenge Cup final.

“Reanne has done most of the planning for the wedding as she doesn’t really want to bother me when I’m concentrating on rugby stuff, but I do help whenever I can,” said Akauola.

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“We’re both really excited to be getting married over in Sydney, especially with me coming from a big family, so we can all be under the same roof at the same time.

“The original plan was to have the wedding over here, but it would mean having to hire a plane and fly everyone over which would probably have been more expensive than the entire wedding.”

Warrington Guardian: Sita

The couple met in a gym shortly after Akauola made the move to Warrington last year, and they spent their first date in church.

It wasn’t until four months later that he realised that they were now dating.

“I’d just came over from the NRL having had a shoulder reconstruction and I’d gained around 11 kilos, so I was a big boy back then,” he joked.

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“She grew up in Warrington but had just come back from New Zealand, was studying to be a counsellor in the Lake District and was struggling to find a church around here.

“The first thing my mum told me to do when I came over was to find myself a church, who I now call my English family, and I invited her along to check it out.

“That was pretty much our first date, and everything has kicked on from there to the point where I didn’t even realise that we were dating until about four months later.”

Before the wedding however, Akauola says he is fully focused on helping the Wolves triumph down at Wembley and giving his family another reason to celebrate in 2019.

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“Last year I had my mum and brother over for the final, and this year I wanted my dad to visit before the wedding in October,” he added.

“My two little brothers are also making the trip over and I really want to spend some quality time with them all before getting married.

“Family is a big thing for me, and so I wanted as many of them over here as possible so they can get the full Wembley experience.”