Rob Apanui on his burning desire to keep playing footy more than three decades after debuting
Rob Apanui tried hanging up the boots. He didn’t like it.
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ROB Apanui tried hanging up the boots. He didn’t like it.
A legend of the Rugby League Gold Coast competition, Apanui is still cutting it with the best despite coming up against blokes half his age.
The 39-year-old first played for the Tugun Seahawks in 1984 in under-7s.
He has not missed a beat since there, primarily sticking to Tugun’s blue and white jerseys between some brief junior stints at Cudgen and Tweed and eight years in the Intrust Super Cup with Burleigh that netted a premiership in 2004. All up, Apanui amassed 135 state league games for the Bears but it’s with the Seahawks that his heart lies.
After captaining Tugun to the 2016 title – their sixth successive grand final appearance – the second-rower felt the time was right to move on.
“I got to a stage where I wanted to retire and sit on a hill and watch the boys play,” Apanui reflected.
“But I missed everything about it: The football, the boys, the competitiveness.”
So with his wife’s blessing, he made his comeback last year and has played on into 2019.
“Age is only a number if you’re feeling it and you have still got the passion for it,” the father-of-three said.
“My mind is still feeling footy and my body is still feeling footy, so it’s just one of those things: You have got to give the body what the mind wants.
“Touch wood that I can keep going for a lot longer, but in saying that I know that there is a time in this relationship with rugby league that you have to call it quits.”
Beyond leading the way on the field, Apanui has a passion for helping the next wave of footballers coming through.
He was assistant coach to Scott Cooke in the Gold Coast Vikings and SEQ representative set-ups this year and has mentored various Seahawks junior teams, currently working with their under-18s alongside brother Selwyn.
He also contributes as Tugun’s junior coaching director.
“The fulfilment I get from coaching the younger generation and also instilling passion and desire of playing the game of rugby league sits high with me,” Apanui said.
“When you go down to training with the juniors and you teach them a new skill and they utilise that skill on a Saturday or Sunday, whether it’s kicking, tackling or passing, that’s more fulfilment for myself personally than what it is actually in a game.
“Junior development is a big thing for me. Even at club level I think the skill level of rugby league has gone out of it and we’re just taught to play the game but I really want to bring that skill level back to junior rugby league and even into seniors.”
The way he is going, he will have a while longer yet to show youngsters first-hand given he confirmed he has no plans in mind to hang up the boots for good any time soon.
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