‘No coach will ever have as much power as a mother’
In an extract from a biography on Kiwis legend Olsen Filipaina, ‘The Big O’ recalls his 1985 selection to square up against the great Aussie five-eighth Wally Lewis.
When Olsen received a call from [coach] Graham Lowe to confirm his selection for the first test in Brisbane for the 1985 test series against Australia, he remembers a wave of excitement: ‘‘Lowey phoned me to say he was backing me at five-eighth, and soon after my phone started going crazy with friends and reporters. I had to take it off the hook!’’
For Olsen, now preparing to line up directly against Wally Lewis during the three-game test series, the hatred towards Lewis by Sydney fans left him confused. On his garbage run, people would pat him on the back and implore him to ‘give Wally the Wanker one for me’. Never before had Olsen been more popular in Sydney.
‘‘I never made so many friends in my life,’’ he once recalled. ‘‘How much do they hate this guy because he’s a Queenslander? They hated him even though he played for Australia. I thought it was the strangest thing, how much people had tried to fire me up to play well against him.’’
Graham Lowe, meanwhile, could sense that the intensity of the interstate rivalry was a potentially fatal weakness in the Kangaroos camp. During his time coaching in Brisbane he became well versed in Queensland’s notorious chip-on-the-shoulder attitude towards New South Welshmen. And he could see that the Sydney establishment that ruled the ARL was more concerned with their own prestige than the national interest.
‘‘I knew about the north–south divide in Aussie rugby league even before I even started coaching in Australia. I just needed a good team to expose the faultline,’’ says Lowe. ‘‘I was always respectful to the media so when the time came I was able to use them to my advantage to play ‘divide and conquer’.’’
Lowe, meanwhile, was asked by Australian reporters how he expected an ‘overweight, reservegrade garbo’ could possibly compete against Wally Lewis — the best five-eighth in the world. Surely it was a suicide mission for Olsen?
Lowe tried to educate them on the finer points of the unique Polynesian body shape, which has a lower centre of gravity and therefore can carry more weight, but felt his responses weren’t getting through.
Tony Kemp was the next bigbodied Polynesian playmaker to make it in the Winfield Cup for the Newcastle Knights and echoes Lowe’s sentiments. ‘‘Aussie commentators and media had no idea how to categorise the heavier Polynesian build,’’ says Kemp.
‘‘Olsen and I were both referred to as rotund and fat and they were not used to our shape. I showed up in Newcastle and they joked that I was the little fat kid. I was 20 kilograms heavier than the others, but it was always a joy to see the look of confusion on my teammates’ faces when I won sprints.’’
Out on the media circuit, Graham Lowe recalls one reporter labelling Olsen a ‘journeyman’. ‘‘One of New Zealand’s best players of a generation . . . a journeyman?’ he says. ‘‘I stored that one away to motivate Olsen. We laughed about it — for us it was no mission impossible. They thought it would be an easy night’s work for Wally, but we knew different.’’
Lowe protected and supported his star playmaker. When asked how Olsen would contain Wally, he responded: ‘‘I wonder whether Wally can contain Olsen.’’
But behind the scenes Lowe wasn’t so cocky. He knew Wally was a tremendous player. And Lowe’s cultural competence was so attuned that he unleashed his secret weapon. He phoned Olsen’s mother Sissie at her home in Auckland to explain the challenges facing her boy.
‘‘No coach will ever have as much power as a mother and she is the best judge of what he is capable of,’’ Lowe later explained. ‘‘Sissie was a unique woman with a strong influence over Olsen and if she had even the slightest doubt of him being able to handle Wally, I would’ve switched him to the centres. The right words from her would be ten times more effective than anything I could say.’’
After a one-hour discussion, Sissie told Lowe that her son could handle whatever Wally threw at him. Then, according to Lowe, she announced that she would clip Olsen’s ear if he didn’t get on top of Wally. Lowe relayed the news to Olsen. ‘‘Your mother said you’re up to it,’’ he said.
For a player like Olsen, regimentation and conformity made him feel inauthentic. He wanted to be creative, solve the problem of breaking defences and entertain. He needed the right environment to thrive.
‘‘Lowey was different; he did the little things that made you comfortable, unlike the Australian coaches who were in your face and shouting a million words at you,’’ says Olsen. ‘‘Graham Lowe never asked me to change my game — he knew I had played like this all my life. Within the game plan he would give me freedom.’’
For Olsen, the build-up to the first test was ‘‘like a blur’’. At Eastern Suburbs he had been operating in a depressive and crippling fog of uncertainty: ‘‘I had doubts and I’ll admit I was nervous. But when I tried on my new Kiwi jersey in the mirror, I felt instantly crisp.’’
And he was about to face the best in the world: ‘‘Watching Wally in State of Origin for six years, every year he would carve up NSW. I’d played against Wally before but never opposite him at five-eighth.’’
Yet there comes a time in a footballer’s career when to be great, retreat is not an option. Over the next three weeks, Olsen would take his stand. He would show that Wally — ‘the King’ — could indeed be toppled and ensure that his own name would live on in the memories of every Australian and New Zealand rugby league supporter that bore witness to his epic performances.
In those fateful days of 1985, Olsen would win over his doubters in the Sydney press, transforming their snide remarks of ‘Remember him?’ into the awestruck ‘Where did he come from?’
Graham Lowe, meanwhile, was asked by Australian reporters how he expected an ‘overweight, reservegrade garbo’ could possibly compete against Wally Lewis...
‘You counted the days until the tour,’’ Kiwis fullback Gary Kemble says. ‘It had been slowly building since 1977. We were all mates and if you joined the group you were instantly mates. It was all about love, respect and shared experience and there wasn’t a hint of ego or selfishness from any player.
Lowey encouraged us to talk to each other about our fears and dreams, which bound us closer. The vulnerability bonded us quickly. It seemed impossible to imagine a team more committed to each other or to their coach.’’
For Kiwis players like Kemble, Olsen’s temperament was a crucial part of their team chemistry: ‘‘Regardless of what was happening in Sydney, Olsen was a key part of our leadership group. He balanced out some of
the more intense guys as his mantra was enjoyment first. He always made the new blokes welcome and kept it light. And for us, Olsen and Mark Graham had such enormous mana for sticking it out in Sydney.’’
The dressing room doors burst open for the first test in Brisbane, and the Kiwis players ‘‘roared out of the players tunnel looking for blood,’’ says Olsen.
‘‘The Lang Park crowd was deafening. Everything was set. Graham Lowe had drilled into me time and time again that if I could contain and rattle Wally, it would break their structure.’’
For Olsen there were some early omens: ‘‘After we ran on and were doing final warm-ups, I had my eye on Wally, and he didn’t look at me. I knew it was my night.’’
In a blistering first half, Olsen had scored one try, created another, kicked three conversions and kept Wally quiet in front of his adoring Lang Park faithful. At one stage Wally stood staring at Olsen with his hands on his hips, unable to rationalise the ill Kiwi wind that had blown across Lang Park.
The Australians left the field with a narrow victory, although everyone could see that New Zealand had not only matched but for most of the match overwhelmed the surprised Australians.
Olsen was crowned the official man of the match and Kangaroos centre Mal Meninga acknowledged in his post-match interview that Olsen had ‘‘a magical game’’.
The man-of-the-match announcement did not go down well with rowdy Lang Park fans, with Olsen later telling media: ‘‘I didn’t get a good reception because of what I had done to their hero.’’
Kangaroos centre Chris Close was impressed with Olsen that night, who appeared like an animating force that verged on the supernatural: ‘‘That night he was like a bolt of lightning out of the Kiwi sky that hit rugby league,’’ remembers Close: ‘‘He was fast, strong and agile and I remember having conversations with Wally and us both marveling and saying, ‘Where did he come from?’’’
For King Wally Lewis it was a night to forget. He remembers having a torrid time handling Olsen: ‘‘His performance on the night was a surprise. It was an extremely good performance and an eye opener not just for the Australian side but the bloke he was playing directly against. It was size and power and brute strength running directly at you.’’