Ex-Stag fronts for Pacific Islands
Tongan flanker Hale T-Pole quickly become a fan favourite in Southland during his stint with the Stags in the early 2000s. He’s now retired and has taken up the fight for Pacific Island rugby players. Logan Savory reflects on his journey.
Hale T-Pole remembers the loud bang on the door well. It was early one Sunday morning in 2001. T-Pole was living in the heart of scarfie territory in a flat in Dundas St in Dunedin.
The night before had been a student’s typical Saturday night. By T-Pole’s own admission, he was a little foggy the next morning.
‘‘Someone was banging on my door early and I thought, ‘who is this?’,’’ T-Pole recalls.
‘‘I went and opened the door and Leicester Rutledge was standing there; I didn’t know who the hell Leicester Rutledge was.’’
Rutledge is a former All Blacks loose forward who played 100 games for Southland. At that point, as Rutledge stood at T-Pole’s flat door, he was the coach of the Southland Stags rugby team. ‘‘He said; ‘I want you to come and play for me’.’’
T-Pole spent a day thinking about it before agreeing to Rutledge’s request.
‘‘I appreciated someone turning up at my flat like that because he’s obviously done a bit of homework about me and found out where my flat is. I said; ‘sweet as, I’ll come down’.’’ T-Pole had moved to Auckland from Tonga as a teenager a few years earlier. He’d attended Wesley College before shifting to Dunedin to study and play rugby. He was a fringe Otago loose forward when Rutledge came knocking.
He initially joined Southland as a loan player and given the loan arrangements he was recalled into the Otago squad after just a couple of games for the Stags.
The next season T-Pole ditched that loan tag, opting to move to Invercargill to play for the Star Rugby Club in Southland and sign full-time with the Stags.
‘‘I wanted to get out of Dunedin too. I’d done three years, I’d made the New Zealand 20s and thought I needed to get out of Dunedin.’’
The initial thought was for a couple of seasons with Southland before heading overseas.
However, over the next seven seasons, he amassed 60 games in the maroon jersey and become a key figure in Southland rugby at that time. During that time he also played for the Highlanders at Super Rugby level.
‘‘I enjoyed my time down [in Southland] and the people that were running the cutter. I also enjoyed my time at Star; it was one
of my best times with everyone there. I was playing some good footy there.’’
T-Pole also developed into a fan favourite of long-serving and wellknown Southland rugby supporter Doug ‘‘Waratah’’ Turner.
Waratah’s encouragement from the sideline could be heard from any point of the ground.
‘‘I love the Waratah. I’ve come down and seen him a few times. He’s got all my Stags and Highlanders jackets and that. I rang him last month, and I’m due to pop down and see old Doug again,’’ T-Pole says.
He pinpoints the 22-20 victory over Wellington in 2002 as probably his most memorable playing for Southland. Southland was given next to no chance, and there was every reason for that. The Wellington team featured names like Christian Cullen, Tana Umaga, Jonah Lomu, and a young Ma’a Nonu.
T-Pole’s loose forward partner Ben Herring intercepted a pass from the kick-off in the second half and scurried away to score.
‘‘We were expected to get hammered by 50 points, they had the whole Hurricanes team. That game sticks out.’’
T-Pole’s first stint with Southland came to an end in 2007 when he joined the Tongan team for the World Cup.
After that, he linked with Ospreys in Wales before spending three years playing in Japan.
On his return to New Zealand in 2012, T-Pole had a season with Northland before bringing the curtain down on his provincial career with one more season with Southland in 2013.
‘‘I was going to go back up to Northland or play for Otago for one more stint. But I thought; ‘Nah, I want to go back to the Stags for my last season’.’’
T-Pole believes he was probably one of the lowestpaid provincial players that season, but he felt he owed something to the Stags.
‘‘I played two games in 2007 and then left for the World Cup, and we were getting well paid at that time with the Stags. So that was a driving factor for taking less than the minimum [in 2013] because it will make up for when I left.’’
After his provincial playing days were over T-Pole continued to play club rugby for Harbour in Dunedin, as well as for Tonga on the international stage. He retired from playing for Tonga following the 2015 World Cup.
While the hard-working exploits as a loose forward endeared him to many rugby followers, it’s arguably what he is now doing off the field where his biggest impact on rugby is taking place.
During T-Pole’s time playing for Tonga, he pushed back at the way the players were treated and the way the Tongan management was using funds.
At one point he led a player strike that resulted in him being banned from playing for Tonga for two years. It included missing the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand.
‘‘In a way, it was kind of good because people took notice of what we were trying to do. World Rugby flew over, and I met with them during that strike. I started to realise how it was supposed to work with the governance and the assistance from World Rugby.’’
During his playing days, he met with New Zealand Rugby Players Association chief executive Rob Nicol, alongside Samoa’s Seilala
Mapusua and Fiji’s Deacon Manu. He felt something needed to be in place to fight for the Pacific Island players.
From there T-Pole helped cofound the Pacific Rugby Players organisation. He is now the organisation’s chief executive.
‘‘It was not something I was aiming to do, it just came out of my passion for playing for Tonga.’’
There are still plenty of challenges in regard to looking after Pacific players’ best interests but also helping countries like Tonga to be competitive internationally.
Probably the biggest challenge he says is working through the intense interest Japanese clubs are showing in young Tongans.
‘‘There was a whole planeload of kids go from Tonga to Japan last week. We can’t stop that because these young kids go there and get a life and then build churches and help their families back in Tonga.’’
‘‘[Japanese officials] fly over to Tonga and watch them from under14, 15, 16 so most of our good kids are in Japan at the moment.’’
T-Pole says if a Tongan youngster moves to Japan, is paid well, and ends up playing for Japan, he is comfortable with that.
What concerns him is the Tongan players who did not make the Japanese team will also not opt to play for Tonga.
They would turn down the Tongan opportunity to ensure their Japanese eligible status remains at their Japanese clubs. Clubs have restrictions in place as to how many non-eligible players they can field.
As soon as a Tongan pulls on a Tonga jersey their value in Japan changes. ‘‘So if they play for Tonga they’ll be a foreigner, and they’ll be competing [for contracts] with the likes of Damian McKenzie.’’
T-Pole wants a system that allows Tongan players who went to high school in Tonga to be able to earn money for their family by playing in Japan but still playing for their home country.
‘‘It would be the dream result because we don’t have a pro-comp in Tonga to prepare these players. They then hit Japan somewhere, sharpen up their skills, and then boom they are a top-class player.’’
Those discussions haven’t yet led to any changes.
T-Pole agrees the emergence of the Moana Pasifika and Fijian Drua teams in Super Rugby has been a win for Pacific Island rugby.
He says coach Aaron Mauger had done a great job pulling together the Moana Pasifika team in challenging circumstances.
Long-term, T-Pole says the quest needs to be to have a separate Samoan and Tongan teams in Super Rugby, as is the case with the Fijian Drua team. Fiji has already made big strides through the Super Rugby exposure, T-Pole says.
‘‘Of the players picked for the Drua, I think there were only three or four regulars in the national team. Now you’ve got these players playing week in week out and putting their hand up for the national team.
‘‘All of a sudden [Fiji coach] Vern Cotter is smiling away because he’s now got a squad of 50 players playing at the elite level.’’
It’s not perfect, with the Fijian Drua team not having a base and getting moved around, but they are still performing, T-Pole says.
He admits there are often moments he wonders whether the fight is all worth it, but he remains determined.
‘‘I’m running into a brick wall every second day, but I just feel like I can’t drop everything now.’’