Tame Tupou to his Bulls career by scoring 10 tries in 11 games that season. At the end of that year Tupou was selected for New Zealand's 2007 All Golds tour of Great Britain. Tupou made a poor start in 2008 due to knee injuries, starting in three games and coming on as a substitute in others. In August that year he was named in the Tonga training squad for the 2008 Rugby League World Cup but was not selected in the final squad after he had to undergo another knee reconstruction. In April 2009 Bradford released Tupou after a Rugby Football
Tupou VI included peacekeeping operations in Bougainville. He graduated with a masters in Defence Studies from the University of New South Wales in 1997 and with an MA in International Relations from Bond University in 1999. In 1998 he ended his military career to become part of the government, first as the defence minister and the foreign minister at the same time, from October 1998 until August 2004. He took over these posts from his elder brother Tupoutoʻa, at that time still the crown prince, later to become King Siaosi Tupou V (see below). Soon he was appointed as Prime Minister on