For almost 40 years, Wayne Bennett has been coaching elite rugby league teams. By the time he finishes his next contract at South Sydney, he will have overseen more than 1000 games and thousands of tries.
On a bitterly cold winter night in southern Sydney, Bennett sat in a tiny coaching box at the southern end of PointsBet Stadium and was in awe.
At the other end of the field his Dolphins fullback, Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow, caught a ball and then went on a magical run which even took his grisly old coach’s breath away.
“It’s in the top two or three [tries I’ve ever seen],” Bennett says.
Some statement.
“Steve Renouf scored a try I’ll never forget [for the Broncos in the 1992 grand final against St George], and I’ll never forget this one either. It was very special.”
It took 16 seconds and involved Tabuai-Fidow going 98 metres – but covering many more with a slaloming run.
“That’s why you fall in love with rugby league,” Phil Gould said in commentary. “This is just astonishing.”
So, how did Tabuai-Fidow do it?
Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow starts the run for his amazing try.Credit: Getty Images
So fast he’s got no one to train with
Tabuai-Fidow has a saying he likes to tell Dolphins high-performance staff and teammates: that he’s built different.
He’s built so different, in fact, he confesses to being forced to spend speed training days away from everyone else.
“I race myself because no one else can keep up,” he laughs. “If I am running with one of the boys, I just try to go as quick as them. It’s all natural.”
Tabuai-Fidow says he only ever clocked himself running the 100 metres once. He was 16 years old and recorded 10.85 seconds.
But instead of chasing a career defined by milliseconds as a sprinter, or continuing on with an Australian Rules background, Tabuai-Fidow settled on rugby league – and produced the most thrilling moment of his career on Thursday night.
“[Renouf] and ‘Hammer’ would probably be the two players in my time that I’ve coached that have that absolute magic to get to the try line and create a moment,” Bennett says.
The start of the magic
Having scored three tries in Queensland’s thumping State of Origin win last Wednesday night, Tabuai-Fidow was never going to be short of confidence in his next match.
But after the Dolphins squandered a 22-point first-half lead, his team looked to be on the rack against a resurgent Sharks.
At least until NSW and Cronulla halfback Nicho Hynes put up a high kick midway through the second half, and Tabuai-Fidow fielded it without issue about eight metres out from his own line.
Tabuai-Fidow’s technique in catching the ball might have been the most crucial element to his try. Most safety-first fullbacks would have been happy to field the ball, brace for the imminent collision, and then get up to play the ball.
Not Tabuai-Fidow.
Instead of catching it with his feet planted facing the on-rushing defenders, he jumped and collected the ball midair, but importantly with his back to the Sharks chasers. This allowed him to spring off the ground and go back towards his own try line to evade the swarm of rivals hunting him.
Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow starts the remarkable move.
Tabuai-Fidow then started running about six metres backwards towards his own line. Did he know what he was doing?
“I just try to find some space,” he says.
Sharks five-eighth Braydon Trindall had surged downfield to put pressure on the fullback. Instead of waiting for his teammates to present a united line, Trindall wanted to harass Tabuai-Fidow first. It backfired as Tabuai-Fidow started trekking backwards, and then circled past Trindall.
Was Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon happy Trindall rolled the dice on the kick chase?
“It depends on the scenario really,” he says.
“Where is [the kick]? Is it a kick in the corner? Is it central? I thought Braydon could have made a play and gone and got him.
“But if you don’t get him, that’s what happens.”
Strength to go with speed
For all the blistering speed needed for the length-of-the-field special, Tabuai-Fidow started and finished it with a show of strength.
The first was shrugging away from Trindall’s tackle, and then surging through a small gap between back-rowers Siosifa Talakai and Briton Nikora, both of whom had played 58 minutes continuously until that point. But even then, Tabuai-Fidow still had 95 metres to go.
Within a few seconds though, he had surged and swerved past four other Cronulla defenders who were in his vicinity – Jack Williams, Kayal Iro, Tom Hazelton and Ronaldo Mulitalo – none of whom were able to make a meaningful tackle.
It’s here Tabuai-Fidow showcases one of his best assets: an ability to change direction while maintaining top speed.
Just as he did for the winning try in last year’s Origin victory in Adelaide when he blasted past James Tedesco, Tabuai-Fidow stays close to his maximum pace while altering his line.
Only one Dolphins player, Jake Averillo, manages to set off in support as Tabuai-Fidow tries to glide past the last Sharks defender: his opposite number Will Kennedy.
“He’s a freak,” Averillo says. “I was in shock and I was right next to him. I didn’t know what was happening. I was sprinting my hardest, and it just looked like he was jogging to be honest.”
Perhaps a reason why he’s so enjoyable to watch in full flight is because he seems like he’s having fun himself. As Tabuai-Fidow is scorching downfield at warp speed while Kennedy hustles to stop him, television cameras pick up Tabuai-Fidow smiling.
“That’s when I play my best footy, when I’m going out there having fun and not putting too much pressure on myself,” he says. “To do it with a smile on my face, it makes me enjoy it more. There’s not too much I’ve got to worry about.”
Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow heads for the line.
The killer move
Having cleared the halfway line and trying to burn Kennedy down the western touch line, Tabuai-Fidow has one last trick: a stutter step about 25 metres out. It’s not quite a David Campese goose step, but it’s enough to put a shred of doubt in Kennedy’s mind.
As he looks over his left shoulder for support, Tabuai-Fidow quickly accelerates again. The split second of hesitation throws Kennedy off balance, and when he tries to make the tackle, he has lost all momentum and force.
“If I’m being honest, I didn’t think I was going to score,” Tabuai-Fidow says. “I did a stop-start, and got past him, then I was over the moon. That’s one of my attacking powers, my speed. To showcase it out there is pretty special.”
Says Averillo: “When he scored it, I said, ‘what just happened?’ I was in shock. I can’t imagine what he was thinking. That changed the whole game to be honest.”
‘Good game’, handshake and a hug
Bennett hates handshakes. It’s a greeting he’s never been comfortable with.
But when Tabuai-Fidow returned to the dressing room, he was waiting with one, plus a hug and a little two words of encouragement for his star man.
“He said, ‘good game’,” Tabuai-Fidow laughs. “That’s always good coming into the dressing room and hearing that off your coach, especially off Wayne. It gives me heaps of confidence.”
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