BULLYING AT ITS WORST
HERE is the recommendation for the sporting book of the year – a horror story of bullying at its worst.
It is the biography of former New Zealand rugby league international Olsen Filipaina, The Big O.
Had the revelations in this book been aired in the 1980s when they were happening, it might have tarnished diplomatic relations between NZ and Australia.
Filipaina was a running thunderbolt who had such enormous thighs Sydney clubs put their best snub-nosed tacklers on him and he turned them into roadkill.
Did they respect him for it? No. When he left Mangere East for Sydney and the Balmain Tigers as a pioneering Polynesian of SamoanMaori bloodlines, he ran smack bang into entrenched Aussie racism at its worst at the time.
Very few indigenous Australians or Pacific Islanders played for the rough, tough Sydney clubs in the late 1970s and 1980s, and the white players resented Filipaina taking one of their spots, stooping to call him a black .... , and worse
This was not long after the White Australia policy expired. From 1904 the policy had barred Pacific Islanders from Australia. Maori players, as New Zealanders, were reluctantly permitted entry, rather akin to the four All Blacks who were permitted to tour South Africa as ‘’honorary whites’’ in 1970.
In 1928 though, the great George Nepia was left home on racial grounds from a tour to South Africa.
Those who complain about disharmony in NZ should read The Big O. The author, Patrick Skene, a Sydney journalist, to his credit does not spare his compatriots and puts the questions to Filipaina’s tormentors. Balmain must have been a living hell for the humble Filipaina, but he did the early hard yards for future Kiwis such as current Leichhardt hero Benji Marshall.
With the book in hand recently, Matty Johns on his television show lazily referred to Filipaina as ‘’Filiparna’’ and Johns and his cohorts chatted about Filipaina’s difficult transition from the Polynesian lifestyle in Auckland to the ‘’Australian culture’’, as they termed it. Yeah right, some culture.
They made no mention of the foulest racial filth Filipaina was subjected to from spectators, including his own Balmain fans, from opponents and even his teammates.
Not to mention the abusive treatment meted out to him by brutal coach Frank Stanton, who made no allowance for his Polynesian heritage and once sent him to a psychiatrist.
The coaches continually fed the ingratiating Sydney league media the fact Filipaina was an ‘’enigma’’ simply because they neglected to appreciate what made him tick.
His saviour was Graham Lowe who, also being out of Otahuhu, understood the Polynesian character.
When Filipaina, although singlehandedly winning games, didn’t respond to Stanton’s brutal coaching regime, Stanton would dump the big lad to reserve grade for weeks on end.
He would come out of reserve grade and flatten Wally Lewis in Test matches.
This was all while Filipaina was working long hours heaving bins on Sydney garbage trucks and today at 63 he is Sydney’s longestrunning garbo, even if he’s now driving the truck.
Of course he was homesick, cue the Warriors. But life was tough at home in Mangere too where his Samoan father meted out physical punishment and one day, after Filipaina had escaped, his father set out to kill him. Fortunately his brother intervened.
When Filipaina moved to Sydney he was expected to send his pay back to Auckland, where his father blew it all on gambling. Eventually, friends such as Sir Peter Leitch intervened so Filipaina could keep $150 a week.
Outside rugby league, we knew nothing of this. Now we are told every Kiwi player was abused, notably the Maori players who arrived in Filipaina’s wake.
He had promised his mother he would never fight so he would line up abusive opponents and powertackle them into the dirt.
He took only two steps when kicking goals because it gave the racists less time to curse him.
Today, 45 per cent of NRL players have Pasifika heritage and although you would expect the racial bombardment to have subsided as a result, anyone who has spent time across the Tasman knows what indigenous Australians endure.
Kiwis might not be perfect, but there has always been racial assimilation in our sport. Filipaina, although terrified of flying, was always relieved to get home to play for New Zealand because the fans didn’t attack him.
Skene doesn’t spare Filipaina’s Sydney bullies, notably coach Stanton, who still can’t understand the fuss. At one stage, a partAboriginal teammate had enough of being taunted by their coach so he set out to clock him. But Filipaina, who had hundreds of reasons to rearrange the coach’s jawline, held him back.
Also, check out the infamous fight between Kevin Tamati and Greg Dowling at Brisbane. Skene reveals it was ignited by racial abuse from Dowling.