Brother’s big selection call
Kiwis captain Dallin Watene-Zelezniak was given the honour of telling brother Malakai that they had been selected together for the New Zealand Ma¯ ori team for next month’s All Stars rugby league clash on the Gold Coast.
Ma¯ ori coach David Kidwell dialled Dallin, the Canterbury Bulldogs fullback, to ask him to put the call through to Malakai, who plays on the wing for the Penrith Panthers.
‘‘He called me and broke the good news to me; I tried not to tear up,’’ Malakai said in a video on NRL.com as he talked about his call-up for the match against Australia’s Indigenous All Stars on February 22.
Kidwell said he thought it would be nice for Malakai to hear the news from his brother.
‘‘Steve Watene, their great grandfather, was actually the captain of the Ma¯ ori team and the Kiwis,’’ Kidwell told NRL. com. Malakai said he was ‘‘very excited and proud’’ to be following the family’s long league lineage. ‘‘To be able to put the jersey on that my great grandfather put on is a massive honour.’’
He said he had ‘‘got to represent my Dad’s side’’ when selected for the Tonga Nines team team in 2019. Dallin emulated Steve Watene’s achievement of captaining the Kiwis when chosen by Michael Maguire to lead the New Zealanders on their 2018 tour to England.
While the Kiwis lost a three-test series, Watene-Zelezniak was a finalist for international player of the year.
At that time the brothers were both on Penrith’s books, but Dallin negotiated a release midway through the 2019 season to switch to the Bulldogs where he was more likely to get regular game-time in his preferred fullback role. Although Malakai is four years older, he has played far fewer NRL games (30) to Dallin (116).
Both played in the age-group grades for the Panthers, but Malakai dabbled in Australia’s national rugby union championship with the NSW Country Eagles in 2014 – the year Dallin made his NRL first grade debut at 18.
Malakai later returned to the 13-man code, playing his first NRL game for the Panthers in 2017 before moving, mid-year, to Wests Tigers in 2018 where he scored nine tries in 25 matches across two seasons. He returned to Penrith last year, making four appearances.