Philadelphia Eagles left tackle Jordan Mailata is remembered by ex-Rabbitohs teammates for bravery after overcoming heart condition
Cut by the Bulldogs and offered just $5,000 by the Rabbitohs, Jordan Mailata is now poised to create Super Bowl history, writes BRENDAN BRADFORD.
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Ben Rogers walked into the gym at Redfern Oval and looked around, concerned.
It was late 2016 and Rogers had just helped bring a giant Samoan footy player with a heart condition to the Rabbitohs. He was checking in on the teenager’s first training session.
But there was a problem.
He couldn’t see him anywhere.
“I said to the strength coach, ‘Where is he? Did he leave? Was it too hard for him?’” Rogers remembers. “The trainer just pointed to the floor.”
There, flat on his back in a puddle of sweat, was Jordan Mailata, all 168kg of him.
Mailaita next week will take the field in Arizona as the Philadelphia Eagles’ left tackle for Super Bowl LVII, becoming just the third Australian to play in the NFL’s season decider and the first non-punter. He is the owner of a $US64 million contract, is adored by Philadelphia‘s raucous fan base and regarded among the very elite at his position across the league.
But, barely six years ago, he was literally working himself into the ground in suburban Sydney, desperate for a chance with the Rabbitohs after being let go by the Bulldogs on account of his medical condition, which had required surgery to the upper and lower chambers of his heart.
With his sporting future uncertain, Mailata returned to park footy with the Five Dock Dockers. That was where Rogers first spotted him, light-years away from being fit enough to play reserve grade rugby league, let alone in the NRL.
Unlike other clubs, South Sydney was willing to take a punt on the giant, talented kid from Bankstown. But there was plenty of work to be done. Rogers, Rabbitohs under-20s coach Ryan Carr and head coach Michael Maguire set him up with a training regime to get him in shape for pre-season.
“Some days I just said to him, ‘I want to see you get through it at your own pace, because coming off that [heart] condition, it’s not worth risking’,” Carr, who is now an assistant at the Dragons, tells CODE Sports.
“He just kept going. He never used it as an excuse, and never bailed himself out. It’s a real testament to his character and perseverance.”
‘It was disgusting’
By late 2016, Mailata was fit enough to attack pre-season, although he probably had second thoughts during the toughest day of training.
“It was a military style training camp, and to this day it gives me shivers,” Mailata’s Souths teammate, and fellow front-rower, Josh Saunders tells CODE. “We started at four in the morning and ran along Clovelly and Maroubra along the coastline and doing wrestling on the beach.
“It was disgusting.”
One of the club’s best wrestlers, Saunders was paired-up with Mailata that day.
“He really struggled. It wouldn’t have been easy,” Saunders says.
But Mailata never stopped. Never complained. Never broke.
Mailata’s transformation into one of the NFL’s hottest properties was far from an overnight success story, but Saunders reckons that pre-season training session helped imbue his teammate with a competitive edge.
“He didn’t really have that mongrel in him at first, he had to develop it,” he says.
“They paired me up with him to smash the shit out of each other while wrestling. It was like a superhero movie, where they’ve got the power, but they don’t know how to release it.
“You actually saw him transform, which was really cool.”
By the end of it, a change had come over the whole squad, Mailata included.
“Those guys from that team are brothers because of what we went through on that godawful f--king day,” Saunders says. “He vomited – as did a bunch of people – and I got cramps and couldn’t drive home.
“It didn’t matter how long it took him, he just kept putting one foot in front of the other.”
The months of early morning sweat sessions and extras on the stationary bike eventually paid off.
“We did a 40-yard dash and he actually beat me, which was crazy, because he was 30 or 40 kilos heavier at the time,” Saunders says. “How is a semi-trailer with limbs capable of that much locomotion? It was ridiculous.”
The Warriors game
Mailata’s physical presence is his most obvious trait - he is 2.03m tall, or six-foot-seven in the old money - but, to a man, his former coaches and teammates refer to his work ethic.
When the 2017 under-20s season kicked off, Mailata had dropped enough weight to be knocking on the door of selection. But he had never played at that level, lacked match fitness and was left out of the team at first.
He responded by working harder.
“We’d train in the afternoons because the boys all had jobs or school, and I’d do my individual video sessions with the guys, showing them their games and reviewing it,” Carr says.
“Jordan would sit outside my office, and because he hadn’t played, he’d just sit there waiting to watch someone else’s video so he could get better and make it into the team.”
Mailata eventually worked his way into the matchday side, coming off the bench as a devastating ballrunner. The Warriors found out the hard way just how damaging he could be during a mid-season match at Redfern Oval.
“He received the kick-off and he ran the length of the field, carrying four or five players,” Michael Maguire tells CODE Sports. “It happened a few times, and I don’t think the opposition realised they should be kicking to the other side of the field.”
He scored two tries that afternoon, but his limitations as a rugby league player were already obvious.
“I used to laugh with my assistants that I wish we had NFL rules so I could get him on to score a try, then take him off again,” Carr says. “We used to joke about it.
“But now look at him.”
Rogers adds: “When we didn’t have the ball, he’d find it hard. To get him to New South Wales Cup or the NRL was going to be really hard, because he’d just get targeted.”
Leaving home
Mailata, having stripped down to 140kg, was still desperate to make it in the NRL despite his shortcomings, but the Rabbitohs – who had offered him a $5,000 contract to play reserve grade – were more realistic. Rugby league requires physical strength and endurance.
Having one, but not the other, isn’t enough.
Mailata’s physical make-up seemed perfect for the short-burst, high impact world of the NFL, though. Accordingly, his manager edited a highlights package of his most explosive moments playing for South Sydney and sent the clip to teams, coaches and scouts around the US.
A few showed interest, but Mailata didn’t want to go.
He was the son of Samoan immigrants, Tupa’i and Maria, who favoured school over sport and had made sacrifices of their own as he chased his rugby league dream.
His family once drove non-stop from Sydney to the Sunshine Coast to watch him play, then made the 11 hour trip back home immediately afterwards.
“Faith and family are really important, and a lot of people wouldn’t have understood that side of the journey,” Rogers, who is now head of recruitment at the Eels, says. “For him to go and do that, to travel overseas, it took massive courage to take this journey.
“One of the last meetings we had, the family was saying, ‘He wants to stay at South Sydney, can we work something out?’ We said to him, ‘If all else fails, you can come back and take up the New South Wales Cup deal at South Sydney, but really, we hope we never see you again because you’ll get drafted’.”
After impressing at the NFL’s International Player Pathway Program, and receiving a crash course in a sport he had never played before, Mailata was drafted by the Eagles in April, 2018.
He made his NFL debut in September, 2020, became a regular starter in 2021 and recently inked a new four-year $US64 million contract - which could reportedly reach $US80 million if incentive clauses are triggered - making him one of the highest paid left tackles in the game.
A giant in a sport filled with them, Mailata’s job is to protect the Eagles’ star quarterback Jalen Hurts.
It’s a role that requires brute strength, instinct and plenty of mongrel.
But it’s a video of his emotional response to the Eagles’ win over the 49ers last weekend that is more revealing about his character. As confetti fell from the rafters, the big kid from Western Sydney put a gloved hand to his eyes as tears rolled down his face.
His fiancee Niki gave him a hug.
What a journey.
“Honestly, it could not have happened to a better person,” Saunders says. “He always had a smile on his face, and was always laughing.
“It’s poetic that he has a heart condition, because [he has a big heart].
“He really is such a lovely guy.”
Originally published as Philadelphia Eagles left tackle Jordan Mailata is remembered by ex-Rabbitohs teammates for bravery after overcoming heart condition
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