NRL transfer news: Retired star Tevita Pangai Jr’s future, Dolphins link
Tevita Pangai Jr’s bombshell retirement from the NRL shocked the sport last week, but the maligned former Bulldog is already getting attention to revive his career.
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Dolphins super coach Wayne Bennett has offered Tevita Pangai Jnr an NRL lifeline in the wake of the NSW Origin star’s shock decision to quit the Bulldogs.
Pangai Jnr dropped a bombshell at Belmore on Tuesday when he advised Canterbury teammates at a team meeting he would quit the club at season’s end - and walk away from the NRL - to take up a career in boxing.
The decision could potentially cost Pangai Jnr at least $3 million - he stood to earn more than $700,000 annually for the next five years - if he fails to succeed in the fight game.
But Bennett is not convinced Pangai Jnr has played his last game of top-level rugby league and has put out the welcome mat for the Tongan torpedo.
“I won’t knock Tevita Pangai back if he wants to come to the Dolphins,” said Bennett, who blooded the forward during their time together at the Broncos. “At this stage, I’ve had no conversations with Tevita.
“I’m not privy to anything going on with him. He hasn’t spoken to me, we haven’t crossed paths and I didn’t know he was doing this (leaving the NRL to take up boxing).
“I have no idea if Tevita is moving back to Brisbane or taking up boxing full-time. Tevita better be a good boxer because he won’t make a lot of money if he ain’t. He is on a big contract in rugby league, so I don’t quite understand why he has done it, but anyway, it’s his choice.
“If Tevita is keen to play rugby league again, I would certainly be interested in talking to him, but I’m just letting him go on his own path right now.”
Pangai Jnr’s trainer, former Australian super lightweight champion Chris McCullen, told the Telegraph on Thursday the forward has missed family in Brisbane and the comforts of his fight family at Logan boxing gym.
Should Pangai Jnr consider mixing boxing with an NRL comeback in Queensland, Bennett’s Dolphins are the most realistic option.
“Tevita is a wonderful talent and in the first few years I had with him, I was really impressed,” he said.
“Tevita is not finished.”
THE ENIGMA THAT IS TEVITA PANGAI JR
By David Riccio
Tevita Pangai Jr is the footballer you don’t know.
He is the NRL star from Canterbury walking away from his rugby league career -- and a $750,000 salary -- at just 27.
That should be enough to tell you this strapping hulk of a player is no ordinary man. No one-dimensional thinker.
You know him in the NRL as a wrecking ball, enforcer and intimidator, yet Pangai Jr is as complex a footballer as you will find.
Weighing in at 115kg with talent capable of anything, Pangai Jr has teased the game with flashes of ferocity and glimpses of pure power since his debut in 2016.
Pangai Jr has always been different to other footballers.
Like his most recent call, he’s always done what others wouldn’t dare do.
Almost 10 years ago, the 18-year-old Pangai Jr had the gumption to cold-call supercoach Wayne Bennett for a start at the Broncos.
Down the phone, Bennett offered the softly spoken kid pacing the floor of his lounge room in Canberra a minimum wage contract.
“Give me the minimum wage and I’ll come straightaway’,” is how Pangai Jr recalled the conversation.
“Looking back, that probably sounded a bit desperate, but I was just determined to get a chance to play in the NRL. The pay cheque was irrelevant.’’
He wanted to be a star like his heroes, Sonny Bill Williams and fellow Tongan national Israel Folau.
So much so, Pangai Jr would strap his right wrist exactly the same way as the former NRL and Wallabies star before every game.
On the weekend he tries to hurt grown men. In his spare time, he likes to read books. He’s not your average footballer.
What Pangai Jr enjoys most is reading about how coaches and leaders draw performances out of athletes.
Books about legendary coaches such as Manchester United’s Sir Alex Ferguson and Chicago Bulls’ mentor Phil Jackson are his favourites. Not so long ago, he pulled aside the Bulldogs GM of football Phil Gould to ask questions about one of rugby league’s greatest minds, Jack Gibson.
Pangai Jr rarely gives interviews, but will readily contact a journalist or commentator to disagree with a story they’ve written or something they’ve said.
In reality, he beats himself up more than any journo could.
Where other footballers use a checklist of people to blame for their blunders or indiscretions, Pangai Jr shoves his hand up straight away.
In 2020, with his career at a crossroads after a drama-charged season where he was docked more than $100,000 in wages and almost had his Broncos contract torn up for several off-field transgressions, including a bizarre barber shop rendezvous with some bikie acquaintances that was raided by police, Pangai Jr copped his medicine and began working a garden nursery for $23 an hour.
“The pay wasn’t so great but I was grateful that I got to learn what everyday people do and it was a wake-up call for how lucky we are as NRL players,” Pangai Jr said.
“I have made some mistakes and I want to change how I am perceived.’’
There he was, apologising again, this time inside the Adelaide Oval dressing rooms after State of Origin I this year.
NSW coach Brad Fittler’s most stunning selection of the entire series made his debut for the Blues in the front-row.
Pangai played the opening 20 minutes before being replaced by Liam Martin and returned to the fray in the 51st minute.
However, he was taken off nine minutes later after conceding a penalty, losing the ball through an unnecessary offload and missing a tackle as Maroons winger Selwyn Cobbo crossed for his second try in Queensland’s 26-18 win.
There was no one player more critical of his own performance inside the NSW dressing room post-match than the man himself.
Why? Because before his debut he had watched the previous year’s series and noticed the lack of ball-control from the NSW forwards. He made a vow to himself not to be that guy. It killed him that in that pressure-cooker moment, he was them.
“I made some crucial errors. Particularly, the offload,’’ Pangai Jr said.
“That one was crucial. They scored off that error.
“I was pretty filthy at myself. You can’t make errors coming out of yardage.’’
Pangai Jr moved quickly from his minimum wage contract at the Broncos to be one of the highest-paid forwards in the game.
Not that it ever sat well with him. Pangai Jr is a player who has struggled to manage the pressure of earning a big salary. It sounds absurd, but be it through pressure and expectation to perform, being one of the highest-paid players in the game isn’t something he enjoys.
Talk to any of his old Broncos coaches and they will tell you the same.
The irony of the latest chapter in the curious tale of Pangai Jr came at Canterbury on Tuesday, when he announced to his teammates, after much soul-searching, that he would retire at the end of the season. He might be walking out on a $750,000 contract, but he will leave with a deep sense of his worth.
Where the majority of cashed-up NRL stars would spend their hard-earned on shoes, cars and the usual bling, Pangai Jr used large chunks of the salary accrued across his eight NRL seasons with the Broncos, Panthers and Bulldogs to pay off his mother’s house.
The real story with trying to understand the footballer you don’t know is that he is a father before he’s a footballer. And at 27, he understands the sadness of pain much deeper than others his own age.
Two years ago, he and his wife Anna lost their precious girl Georgia to a devastating stillbirth.
Pangai Jr, with courage and bravery, shared his and Anna’s story with The Sunday Telegraph, using the tragedy to help comfort others overcome by grief.
“The advice that I got from other fathers was to make sure you’re there for your wife,’’ Pangai Jr said.
“So that’s what I’m trying to do. I want every man and father going through this to support their partner or wife.
“I also want the people who follow rugby league to understand, footballers go through pain too. I don’t feel the public see us as human.
“We’re all young and we’re human.’’
Of course, the complexity that is Tevita Pangai Jr hit the hardest this week.
Difficult to predict in life and in football, Pangai Jr walked into Belmore Sports Ground last Tuesday morning with a bombshell in his back pocket.
“I’m going to give rugby league away. Let’s go finish the year together.’’
This is the last thing the man that State of Origin legend Gorden Tallis says “could be anything” told his Bulldogs teammates after breaking the news that he was walking away from the game.
An emotional Pangai Jr stood before his Canterbury teammates explaining his sudden decision to retire at the end of this season — with another year of his $750,000 contract still to run.
As rain fell outside on to Belmore Sports Ground, Pangai Jr’s eyes were wet as his quiet voice tried to explain how he needed to leave because he had fallen behind the standards he had set himself as an NRL player.
These are words few footballers would admit — with many down on their form gladly opting to play park football and keep their weekly wage dropping into their bank account.
Pangai Jr said “for personal reasons” his family had to come first, and so he would be moving back to his home in Queensland. And what’s more, this enigmatic talent wants to have a serious crack at becoming a boxer.
This appears a man that can’t seem to settle. From Canberra to Brisbane. Brisbane to Penrith. Penrith to Canterbury. Three managers in the past two seasons.
He did not negotiate a release with the Bulldogs from his $750,000 contract. None of the three different managers popped their head up to help him haggle for a parting gift.
Truth be told, his exit had been building inside Pangai Jr’s mind for some time.
He had spoken with the Bulldogs coaching staff halfway through the year about whether he should keep playing.
It came back to those standards. His most loyal supporter, head coach Cameron Ciraldo, told him to keep working. Keep believing.
But Pangai Jr couldn’t ignore the promise he made to himself last year.
And again, this is where Pangai Jr held himself to account more than any other fan or commentator.
In an interview, more candid than most players would declare publicly, Pangai Jr told Nine news last November the Bulldogs could sack him if he fell behind.
“I just told (head coach Cameron Ciraldo) that if I don’t come under 110kg then he can pretty much sack me. I’m a man of my word — if I don’t come in at 110kg then I’ll leave,” Pangai Jr said.
A few months earlier he told this masthead he was sitting out the 2024 World Cup with Tonga to ensure he was in the best shape of his career for Canterbury. He said he would spend the entire summer training, including working on a construction site for his brother’s company in Canberra. He would do it to keep fit, but also to appreciate his lot in life.
“You can take it (rugby league) for granted,’’ Pangai Jr said.
“I’ve seen Melbourne Storm do it. They do it with their young players.
“The Broncos made me do it when I got stood down (in 2020). It was good: you train and go to work. I enjoyed it.
“It was hard. It made me appreciate footy.’’
After a sub-par performance against the Knights in Newcastle last Sunday, Pangai Jr knew he had to decide whether or not he wanted to be a professional footballer.
Boxing may be the ticket towards finding his love for footy again. So he walked into work on Tuesday at Belmore and said he wanted to leave.
Teammates left the room whispering to each other how they could never have made such a call.
Once the news filtered around that Pangai Jr was leaving without his pay, ex-players admitted to The Sunday Telegraph they would have stayed next year — if for nothing else than for the money.
Some have called it an act of stupidity. His closest allies say it shows his bravery. With so much talent and ability, it won’t shock anyone in the game to see Pangai Jr back in the NRL.
When exactly? Only Pangai Jr knows.
Originally published as NRL transfer news: Retired star Tevita Pangai Jr’s future, Dolphins link
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