Rest easy my dear friend
I want to thank Stuff for letting an old butcher come out of retirement and resurrect his column as a one-off.
Without that generosity I’d be unable to pay tribute to rugby league legend Olsen Filipaina, who died from kidney disease last week in Australia aged 64.
A whole load of people who are better writers thanme, who are far more knowledgeable about league, and who understand Olsen’s trail-blazing role in the game, havewritten eulogies for him and it’s been wonderful to see the outpouring of affection and respect for him.
He’s been called a pioneer, a gentleman, a great, a legend, an immortal and everything up to a colossus.
To me he was all those things, and more importantly, he was my friend.
I can still recall my first encounter with Olsen.
He was years away from becoming a league star, just a young boy who used to come into my Mangere butchery hanging on to hismumSissie, looking quiet, shy and always on hand to carry dinner home.
I always used to joke with Sissie but Olsen didn’t like it much and Sissie once told me he had said that when he got older he was going to come back and knock me out.
Considering how much bigger he did get, I dodged a bullet because instead we became firm friends, most certainly through our involvement with the Mighty Mangere East Hawks Rugby League Club, just down the road from my shop.
The rest as they say is history. Olsen would cross the ditch and face terrible homesickness and blatant racism yet forge a career that opened the door for the large number of Polynesian and Māori players who fill the NRL today.
And he would wear the black and white of my beloved Kiwis too, leading us to wins we had no right to have, including of course the famous day at Carlaw Park when he made the Kangaroo’s Wally Lewis look second-best.
‘The King’ would happily trot out the story for Kiwi audiences every time he could, calling Olsen ‘10-feet tall and bulletproof’. Olsen, not so much, hewas a quiet and humble guy who would pretty-much only acknowledge he had a good game.
Those who played with ‘The Big O’ would talk of him being a fine club player but a great when he pulled on the Kiwi jumper, someone who would do anything for the cause, something that made him extremely popular with his teammates.
And all the time, whenever he was home spending time where he most wanted to be, surrounded by family, he would still find time for his old butcher friend.
I will remember him as a big man – he would have to have been just to hold his big heart, a man with a gentle touch, with a sporting ability many yearn for and few ever achieve, and a sense of humour that ensured a smile was never far from his lips.
I saw him interviewed on Aussie TV and he talked about how aman who was always known in Australia as ‘the Galloping Garbo’ for his daytime work as a bin-man, was still on the trucks, though these days driving. ‘‘It’s my wheelchair,’’ he said with his characteristic grin, adding that he was still recognised, although only by those ‘‘getting a lot older’’.
Olsen played 50 times for the Kiwis, with 29 tests in that, and racked up 100 first grade games for the Tigers, Roosters and Bears.
Born in Awarua, near Kaikohe, Sissie was his guiding light and despite the well-documented racism he faced in Australia, Olsen promised her he would never fight because it would give Pasifika/Māori a bad name.
It’s a promise he kept, and that tells you all you need to know about who hewas at his core.
There is a fabulous book by Partrick Skene, still available through Paper Plus and Whitcoulls called The Big O: The Life and Times of Olsen Filipaina – Pacific Revolution Pioneer, if you want to read Olsen’s story.
Rest easy old friend.
❚ Olsen’s brother, Auckland Councillor Alf Filipaina, will put funeral details on his Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/alf. filipaina) when he is able.