Rambo reckons Fifita just the shot for Titans
RON “Rambo’’ Gibbs was David Fifita before David Fifita was born.
Both became the headlinemaking, earth-quaking recruits snared to bring credibility and crunch to a Gold Coast rugby league team, Gibbs to the start-up version in 1988 and Fifita to the most recent model, the Titans, which followed the wobbly trail left by the Giants, Seagulls, Gladiators and Chargers.
Gibbs and Fifita were men on the same mission 33 years apart, albeit with slightly contrasting pay packets.
Fifita signed for $1.1 million a year while Gibbs came north from Manly for $90,000 a year for three years after they won the 1987 premiership, a pittance now but a dam-busting deal back then.
Gibbs has watched with interest the signing tug of war in which the Titans pipped the Broncos for Fifita’s signature.
“He had to take the money,” Gibbs said of Fifita (inset).
“The way the game is played today I think their careers are going to be shorter. It‘s not that they are unfit. I believe they are too fit. The injuries are so bad. The game is so brutal. You won’t ever see players like Cam Smith and Thurston again. Not the way they train now. You have to get the money while you can.’’
Gibbs can speak with authority about the physical toll of rugby league, having estimated he was concussed in half the games he played and deciding to donate his brain to medical research when he dies.
“If the current concussion rules were in back when I played I would barely have been on the field,’’ he said.
“I want to donate my brain to the brain foundation in Newcastle in the hope it might save some up-and-coming sportsman.
“I would not say I am scared but I know at some stage life could get tough. I loved getting bashed and bashing people.
“The physicality was what I loved. Kill or be killed. That was my philosophy. A lot of times I looked up and I was in an ambulance going to hospital.
“I loved the game so much I packed my bag on Sunday night for the following week.”
Gibbs senses the Titans will be more stable than the Giants outfit in which he played for with modest results.
“I went up the Coast and they wined and dined me at the casino and looked after me and my wife,” he said. “Initially I had no intention of signing. But the money was good and I thought it was a great opportunity for rugby league to try and take off on the Coast.
“I really thought it would go how the Broncos and Newcastle have gone – they started the same year as us. Unfortunately it didn’t but I like the way Mal Meninga is trying to nail the same dream. “During the three years I was there I think we had four general managers. If you wanted something answered you had to run around the mulberry tree.
“But they were good old days. I would not take it back for quids.
“I still stay friends with most of them now. Guys like Chris Close and Scott Mieni in particular. Geoff Bagnall organises a reunion every year. I go up to most of them.”
Some things in rugby league have not changed in the last three decades such as rugby league’s inability to keep secrets. The signings of both Fifita and Gibbs both leaked out against their wishes.
“I did not tell Manly. Noone
was supposed to know anything until after the grand final a couple of months later. The news was out by the time I got off the plane in Sydney. Someone from the Gold Coast rang (Manly coach) Bob Fulton and said ‘we have just signed your No.1 player’. I had to front Bozo and the board.’’
Gibbs, who has spent his post football life roaming NSW, played 56 games in three years for the Gold Coast before going to England, has one word of advice for the Titans.
“Fifita cannot do it by himself. They have recruited well around him which is just what he needs. We need Gold Coast to kick on,’’ he said.