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DIEHARD
23-02-07, 02:25 PM
Demographic equaliser: the next generation

There are more players of Polynesian and Aboriginal heritage playing both rugby codes than ever before, writes Roy Masters.

Watching both rugby codes this past week brings back memories of an American football game I saw in New York in 1993.

It was the 35th anniversary of the "greatest game ever played", a match between the New York Giants and the Baltimore Colts, played at Yankee Stadium on December 28, 1958, where the Colts won 23-17 in overtime, the first sudden-death-overtime result in NFL history.

The players from that ancient game were paraded before the crowd at Giants Stadium at half-time. Although dressed in long fur coats, it was clear the colour differential in the 1958 teams was 2:1, white to black. The ratio of the 1993 teams was 1:2 white to black. In just one generation, the racial composition of the two teams had reversed.

It is clear that rugby league and rugby union in Australia are headed the same way. Players of Aboriginal, Pacific Island and Maori heritage now make up a third of the top squad at most NRL and Australian Super 14 clubs.

Parramatta fielded 10 players of Polynesian background in last week's trial against the Sharks, who fielded eight. Melbourne Storm's reserve-grade team, which thrashed a Coffs Harbour select side last week, featured players such as Israel Falou, Luke Samoa, Sinbad Kali, Sammy Joe and Pale Ale.

Pale Ale is not a yuppy beer and is pronounced "Pally Alley". "Pale" is an abbreviation for Paletesale, a name Storm players consider to be so long it has to be carried in a wheelbarrow. All but Sinbad have been chosen for tomorrow night's trial against Manly's top team on the Sunshine Coast.

Some Polynesian kids grow bigger and more quickly than their peers. These kids often develop a powerful musculature that gives them the ideal body shape for a sport in which collisions are endemic, where big hits are akin to casual conversation.

Storm recruitment officer Peter O'Sullivan attended a Harold Matthews match (under-16s) at the weekend and noted only two of the Balmain players were white.

ARL chief executive Geoff Carr has been tracking the rise of Polynesian players in Australia since 2005, mainly to avoid embarrassing eligibility issues, such as the Nathan Fien "grannygate" case in the recent Tri-Nations series.

"We took records of the parents and grandparents of the 650 junior representative players in Australia in 2005 and discovered 124 were eligible to play for New Zealand, 60 for Samoa and 40 for Tonga," he said.

Sydney NRL clubs have introduced strategies to accommodate the expected exponential growth of Polynesian players on their rosters.

"We've been running annual clinics in Fiji for years, offering development support in their schools and bringing young players to trial in our lower grades," St George Illawarra chief executive Peter Doust said.

"Most NRL recruiters have been looking at the Pacific rim for some time because their kids are bigger and have more inherent strength. A third of the players in our lower tier are from the Pacific basin."

Parramatta Leagues Club, whose rugby union team, the Parramatta Two Blues, is dominated by Polynesians, has a Maori, John Hutchinson, as a development officer. Hutchinson points out there are subtle, yet significant differences in the cultural attitudes of Fijians, Tongans, Samoans, Cook Islanders and Maori.

He said the collective, racist term "coconut" was a stereotype that failed to take into account these differences.

"It's a term used jokingly amongst ourselves but they take offence if someone outside the group uses it," he said. "Although we are all in the same boat in the sense we want to progress our lives through sport and tend to gravitate to each other, the people from the different Polynesian islands are not the same."

Hutchinson said the NSWRL was currently interviewing for a development officer of Polynesian heritage to be based in western Sydney.

"The price of accommodation has pushed a lot of Polynesians west, meaning there is a high level of participation in the junior leagues but not the same representation in administration and coaching by their parents," he said.

"Maybe it is a language thing, or a confidence thing, but the NSWRL will appoint someone to its western academy with a profile in rugby league to get the parents involved. Many don't understand the laws of the game, get frustrated and take the law into their own hands."

Australia's Super 14 teams have shown great interest in Polynesian players, with Hutchinson saying of a visit by Waratahs coach Ewen McKenzie to Parramatta: "He saw a couple of our guys training and said, 'That's the sort of player we need'."

Wallabies and Waratahs hooker Tatafu Polota-Nau, 21, is a Parramatta Two Blue and has a brother, 26-year-old Tevita, who plays safety in the NFL. Polota-Nau and his Wallabies and Waratahs teammate Wycliff Palu, a back-rower who went to union via St George Illawarra, are both Tongan, as is the Storm's Falou. All three are examples of why players of Polynesian background will almost certainly dominate rugby league and rugby union teams in 30 years' time.

Falou is just over two metres tall and only 17. Powerfully built in the hips and upper legs, a few years in the weight room and he will have a torso to match. Already he can soar above teammates to catch a high ball.

"He was one of our best in the trial against the Titans in Coffs Harbour," Storm coach Craig Bellamy said.

Falou resembles Storm five-eighth Greg Inglis in his graceful economy of movement, although they beat opponents in different ways.

A product of the Western Suburbs junior league, Falou was recruited from Campbelltown and signed by the Storm, resettling in Brisbane to play for their feeder team.

He is a devout Mormon who does not drink, smoke or swear, good news for a code desperate to shake off its bad-boy image. He is also incredibly shy.

Observing him at the Storm's hotel in Coffs Harbour, I marvelled at the differences between him and St George's first Tongan player, second-rower John Fifita, the last player to be graded in the Dragons' 55-man squad in 1985.

"The King of Tonga", as we called him, also made first grade very quickly but wasn't as God-fearing as Israel, nor was his mastery of English as advanced.

Fifita called teammates by their most identifiable characteristic, so schooner-loving Chris Johns was named "Foster". He also caused a stir when he left for an off-season with Castleford, being farewelled at the airport by two women, whom he identified as "black wife" and "white wife".

But he demonstrated great loyalty to Batlow, where he was captain-coach and continues to live, despite the winter temperature being considerably lower than Nuku'alofa.

SMH