NRL finals 2023: Siua Wong’s journey from army brat to NRL finals with the Sydney Roosters
Sydney Roosters star Siua Wong once dreamt of the army and the All Blacks, but his sights are set on Melbourne as he prepares for Friday night’s sudden-death final.
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Siua Wong takes a seat in the warm spring sunshine outside gate five at Allianz Stadium and quietly takes you back to where his dream began.
Back to the days when he would walk the streets of the town he called home in New Zealand wearing his father’s military uniform, his way of paying homage to his parents Akuila and Sekola.
“He would patrol down the street with a stick and his father’s kit on,” Sekola Wong said.
“Everyone would call or text and say our neighbourhood is safe.”
Siua Wong was your archetypal army brat. In between his parents’ missions to far flung places such as Afghanistan and East Timor, the family would travel from town to town and the likeable Siua would make friends along the way, often through sport.
Rugby union, rugby league or even hockey. It didn’t matter. He grew up wanting to be an All Black like most New Zealand kids but if that didn’t work out, he aspired to follow in his parent’s footsteps with a career in the military.
“I always told my dad if I never took the path of footy, I would definitely go along the lines of the military,” Siua Wong said.
“I have always wanted to do the SAS in New Zealand. I remember when my dad was training, I was a young fella – he was training for his SAS trials but unfortunately he was unable to pass.
“One thing he has always told me is that he is happy that on his last SAS trial, he passed all the physical tests and everything but they said because of his eyesight and wearing glasses, that he was unable to do it.
“One thing he always wishes upon me is that I don’t have his eyes.”
Wong’s life took a twist when he started boarding at the famed Mt Albert Grammar School in Auckland, once the home of Sonny Bill Williams and Matthew Ridge.
He was spotted by former Roosters scout Fita Hala at a Pacifica rugby league tournament as a 14-year-old and offered the chance to move to Sydney to study The Scot’s College and join the Roosters academy.
Wong was hesitant. His parents had other ideas.
“I still remember the phone call when my parents called me asking me to move over,” Wong says.
“I was pretty sad. I am pretty sure I cried that night because …. a lot of my childhood I was moving around.
“When I finally started high school and Mt Albert Grammar was home, I thought I finally found home, finally found a place where I could stay with my friends and grow up with them.
“Yeah, the opportunity to move over to Scot’s College was something that couldn’t be denied. They really pushed it, especially for the education part of it.”
Wong starred at Scot’s and his name has been whispered in rugby league circles for more than a year. The Dolphins came calling with a big deal last year but he stayed at the Roosters out of a sense of loyalty to the club that gave him his chance.
He has had to be patient but when his opportunity finally arrived in round 18 against Manly, he grabbed it with both hands. Last weekend, as the Roosters battled for survival against Cronulla, he scored a crucial try and finished the game in the centres.
He rarely looked flustered and his demeanour on the field matches his personality off it. He is quiet and respectful, a reflection of his childhood and his parents’ insistence on following a disciplined regime.
“I definitely learned a lot of little things off them in terms of how they present themselves, routines they go through every morning,” Wong said.
“I still remember the early mornings when they would wake up getting ready for work, they had to iron their shirt and make sure everything was looking clean.
“That is something I pride myself on. It might seem like a little thing to look presentable but it goes a long way.”
His parents watched his performance against Cronulla from the other side of the Tasman, bubbling with pride.
“We are just low key,” Sekola said.
“We sit there together and give each other silent high-fives. We don’t have friends around. We are just there to watch our son.”
Wong’s father Akuila adds: “It is not often you get to see your son or daughter following their dream. To actually see it, it is happening before us.
“We’re just happy for him. He has a good head on him. A lot of people have contributed to that.”
Lots of them are at the Roosters and that won’t be forgotten as Wong sits down in coming weeks to decide his future. Wong will be tempted by rugby union and rival NRL clubs – he is off contract at the end of next year and free to sign elsewhere on November 1 – but he feels a debt to the Roosters.
They saw something in him that others didn’t and for that, he will be eternally grateful. He paid them back in part with his performance against the Sharks and the understrength Roosters will be relying on him repeating that display on Friday night as they travel to Melbourne to meet the Storm.
“I think all I have known about rugby league is the Roosters,” Wong said.
“Since I was 14, I have called the Roosters home. For myself, I couldn’t see myself in any other journey but red, white and blue.”
‘I’m different to these boys’: Proud westie makes splash in Bondi
-Pamela Whaley
The jewellery, fashion, tattoos and hard knock stories – they all form part of Terrell May’s irreplaceable swagger at the Sydney Roosters.
In the heart of Sydney’s affluent eastern suburbs, the 24-year-old prop from Tregear in Sydney’s west stands out. He knows it and embraces it.
“I think [coach Trent Robinson] was impressed with the way I trained and the way I went about myself,” he says of getting pulled out of North Sydney Bears and into the Roosters’ front row last year.
“I didn’t come in being fake or trying to be someone else, I still brought the Westie that’s in me and I still dress the same and walk around the same, and I think Robbo really liked that I was a bit different to the boys here.”
In his eyes, that point of difference, his personality and work ethic is what got him out of NSW Cup and into a crucial role as an impact forward off the bench in Friday’s semi-final against Melbourne.
THE EARLY YEARS
That work ethic was drilled into him as a kid as his dad Jay put Terrell and his brothers, Tyrone and Taylan, through rigorous training sessions while their friends and cousins were out playing and having fun.
They would do video sessions and run hills in Western Sydney, all with the goal that an NRL deal would be a way out of the cycle of struggle his parents went through.
“Growing up my family didn’t want us to do what they do, they work in factories and warehousing, so when I grew up my parents put us into footy at a young age, and we trained a lot,” he says.
“There was a lot of pressure on us when we were young, we did a lot of video. Dad was really strict when we were young, he didn’t let us play with our friends or cousins, it was all about footy and where we needed to get to as adults. Now it’s paid off.
“Sometimes I hated footy just because of the pressure on us, but when you see your brothers make it and you’re the only one who hasn’t, you get pretty down.
“When they’re telling you, ‘bro, you could have been this or that’ and you don’t want to be that guy talking about what could have been. I want to be the guy who did it.”
TURNING POINT
Tyrone and Taylan both went on to debut and play for Penrith, while Terrell had a harder time making first grade.
When Covid hit, he gave up his dream of playing football and worked as a disability support worker for the Nepean Area Disabilities Organisation – a job he loved and still visits to volunteer from time to time.
But when Taylan made his NRL debut with the Panthers in 2021, his mindset changed.
He realised he didn’t want to die wondering what could have been, and throw away all the years of hard work to chase a rugby league career.
He signed with the Bears not long afterwards and worked his way up through the Roosters system, where Robinson discovered him.
“Seeing him debut, I was so happy and proud of him, and it motivated me so much to come in and give it a crack and it ended up working,” Terrell says.
“I told him I was going to sign with the Bears and he was so happy, he knew how hard I was training for that pre-season and it paid off.”
Two seasons later and he fits in perfectly in the Roosters pack as a big, physical prop with footwork.
He drives in daily to Moore Park from St Mary’s in Sydney’s west, and he’s taken some adjusting to the consistency required to play first grade.
But while he admits he’s a work in progress, he pinches himself over what he’s been able to achieve and how his confidence has skyrocketed this season.
“Sometimes I think how did (me and my brothers) do this? But the dream is to all be at the one club together, hopefully that can happen one day,” he says.
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Originally published as NRL finals 2023: Siua Wong’s journey from army brat to NRL finals with the Sydney Roosters
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