- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Opinion
These days, around half the players in the NRL are of Pacific Islander heritage.
Changes in immigration policy over the last 30-odd years has seen many thousands of Pacific Islanders move to either Australia or New Zealand seeking better opportunities, and both rugby codes have been beneficiaries.
However, Pacific Islanders were once few and far between in the Australian rugby league scene and the first I recall making a big splash was Apisai Toga.
One of my favourite players during the time he spent with St George from 1968 until his untimely death in 1973, in many respects Toga’s success in the game led the way for the many who have followed.
The Dragons’ 11-year premiership reign came to an end in 1967, when former Dragon Kevin Ryan led his Canterbury-Bankstown team to a one-point victory over Saints in that year’s preliminary final.
This coincided with the retirement of greats Ian Walsh, Bruce Pollard and Brian Clay, while star forwards Dick Huddart and Elton Rasmussen were heading for their final season, and the legendary Reg Gasnier was lost to the game when he broke his leg in France on the 1967 Kangaroo tour.
It was time to inject some new blood, so in the absence of today’s salary cap constraints, the club got the chequebook out and signed Wallabies five-eighth Phil Hawthorne, Kangaroos five-eighth Tony Branson, Test front-rower John Wittenberg, and former Fijian rugby union test lock Apisai Toga, who had been playing league in England for Rochdale Hornets.
I think the first time I saw Toga play was in a pre-season game against Parramatta at Cumberland Oval in 1968. He made an instant impression, not only on myself and the other St George fans who braved the Eels home crowd, but also the Parramatta forwards.
At 193 cm and around 110 kgs, Toga was a big man by even today’s standards but was also mobile and athletic. He loved to run the ball wide of the ruck, played either prop or in the second row, could carry the old-style leather ball in one hand like it was an orange, and was known to pass it gridiron style when the opportunity arose.
Toga could step off either foot, but when all else failed he resorted to the ‘Fijian side-step’, and just ran straight over the top of the opposition.
He was a strong defender and, like everyone else in those days, was an 80-minute player.
It couldn’t have been easy for Toga playing in a foreign land without either family or cultural support. He certainly stood out on the field, and no doubt came in for some racial sledging, but I can’t ever recall seeing him losing his temper or retaliating.
By all reports he was a gentle giant who loved to laugh, sing and socialise.
But he was by no means a pushover. I recall a game Saints played against the ascendant South Sydney team at the SCG in (I think) 1969, when noted Rabbitohs enforcer John O’Neill took it upon himself to hit Toga with a short right, after Toga had played the ball.
Rather than retaliate, Toga smiled and patted O’Neill on the head, and then set about on a one-man demolition-derby against the Souths forward pack.
I think Souths won the game, but there were some very sore Rabbitohs heading to the showers at full time.
Toga played a total of 103 grade games for the Dragons, including 60 in first grade.
Sadly, Apisai Toga died at the age of just 27 after collapsing at St George preseason training in early 1973. The cause of death was tetanus poisoning, resulting from a cut to his foot he received while back home in Fiji during the 1972-73 off-season.
A true rugby league pioneer.
Reckon you can pick the winning team? Build your own dream team with Draftstars daily fantasy and compete on any match. For great odds on the NRL head on over to PlayUp. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.