Paul Kent: Tommy Raudonikis, rugby league’s greatest winner
Tommy Raudonikis was a true character. He represents a part of rugby league that has been lost, and the game is poorer for it, writes Paul Kent.
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There is a story about Tommy Raudonikis that is told a lot but is also very much true about the day Warren Ryan, then the young coach at Newtown, took a team list to one of the club’s selectors Johnny Lewis and asked him what he thought.
“One other thing,” Lewis said after. “You’ve got to lay off Tommy.”
Ryan did not want to hear that.
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He dropped an expletive and said, “Whenever we lose it’s Ryan and whenever we win it’s Raudonikis.”
Lewis fully agreed with that.
“But Warren,” he said, “you only taught them how to play football. Tommy taught them how to win.”
Tommy Raudonikis had a will to win you could photograph.
It is something worth thinking about among the many sadnesses this week, after Tommy’s death on Wednesday at 70, and for some the memories immediately went there but, the more time passed, the more the eulogies slipped into caricature.
It is understandable in some ways.
He made people laugh so everybody has a story they want to share.
Tommy’s career was also over before a great many of today’s league fans were even born and so the Tommy many got to know was as the Blues “cattle dog” coach, or from the grainy footage of Tommy being pulled from a brawl at Western Suburbs or slapping his teammates’ faces before a game.
Lost in it, though, is that Tommy was one of the great winners, if not the greatest winner his sport has known.
Tommy simply found a way to get it done, and he did it for years.
He played for Australia for 10 years, won the Rothman’s Medal in 1972 as the game’s best and fairest player, captained NSW in the first Origin game, won World Cups and Tests series for Australia and was inducted into the NRL and NSW Halls of Fame.
When Great Britain came hard at Australia one year, Bob Fulton, the captain, saw Tommy jogging past.
“Where you going?”
“I just got sent,” Tommy said.
Whatever he did, it was subtle enough for Fulton to miss, but not the referee. Tommy took a Pom with him.
But as the memories went one way, it also became clear that Tommy represents a part of the game that has been lost, and the game is poorer for it.
All anybody has heard through the first five rounds of this NRL season is of the difference between the good teams and the bad teams and how hard it is to win in the modern game.
PODCAST: Buzz, Mick and Mobbsy pay tribute to the late, great Tommy Raudonikis, celebrate Jake Friend’s career, try to fix the Bulldogs and Buzz vows to critique Mick’s radio credentials ... and of course, towards the end of this episode, everyone’s favourite segment - Thursday night food orders.
Blowouts have become frequent as teams, on the short end of the scoreboard, simply give up and let their opposition rattle in the tries.
This type of behaviour always offended Tommy. He couldn’t understand a man not trying.
In a violent era, where he was fearless, giving anything less than your best was unacceptable.
This was the reason why Raudonikis was brought to Newtown in 1980 to lead them.
The Jets were young and Ryan was showing an awful lot as a coach but they lacked a leader and Wests were breaking up and Tommy met John Singleton.
Four rounds into his career at Newtown, the Jets played Parramatta at Henson Park.
The Eels were also building something.
Ray Price was captain and around him were six internationals: Arthur Beetson, Mick Cronin, Bob O’Reilly, Ron Hilditch, Neville Glover and Geoff Gerard.
Brett Kenny and Steve Ella were yet to emerge but future internationals Eric Grothe, Garry Dowling and Peter Sterling were in the team with another future international, the long-striding Peter Wynn, on the bench.
Newtown’s lone international was Tommy, though five-eighth Phil Sigsworth would play for Australia a year later.
The game went as most expected and Parramatta led 12-9 at halftime on their way to what many expected would be a comfortable victory.
It is important to remember the Jets were the NSW Rugby League’s celebrated losers. They finished last in 1976 and 1977 and 1978. In 1979, the year before Tommy got there, they climbed way up the ladder from last to second last.
So four games into his career at Newtown, still getting to know his teammates, the Jets sat around at halftime as Ryan began educating them on how to get over Parramatta.
The halftime break was needed, and the only man that wanted to get to halftime quicker than Ryan was the Jets’ doctor.
Tommy had a gash in his head you could lose your watch in. It bled so profusely blood was bubbling out of it and running through Tommy’s matted hair and down his face and along his neck and staining his jersey.
The doctor walked quietly past Ryan with a needle and his surgical kit to sew Tommy’s wound closed.
None of them had any idea at the time that this was Tommy’s stage.
He pushed the doctor away.
“F… off.”
The doctor, somewhat confused, went in again, the big needle dripping novocaine and time running out before the knock on the door for the second half.
“F… off,” Tommy said again, pushing the doctor away.
It was one of those small commotions in the dressing room that happen so regularly that few even noticed. Most were focused on Ryan trying to coach his players back into the game.
Before the doc came in for his final dip, Tommy stood and pushed past him and walked to the centre of the changeroom.
He pushed his fingers into the wound in his head and smeared the blood down over his face.
“Bleed with me,” he said.
“Let’s go out and show these [expletive] [expletive] what we can [expletive] do.”
His teammates looked at this man in the middle of the changeroom, this legend of the game with blood spilling down his face and over his jersey, and it confirmed everything they had ever heard about the man.
“Bleed with me,” he said.
The Jets went out and beat Parramatta 17-14 that day at Henson Park, and that was the beginning of it all for Newtown.
For the first time they believed it was possible and the next season Tommy took them all the way to the grand final and, for half a game, had his hand on the prize.
That was Tommy, who never quit on winning.
That was Tommy, who bled.
SHORT SHOT
Jake Friend, who retired this week, was quite literally too tough for his own good.
A concussion earlier in the season was finally one too many for Friend.
He sat out for a few weeks but the advice he got on top of the fact it was his third concussion in six games really showed it was time for Friend to retire.
We should all thank Jake Friend, though.
Young men make decisions old men don’t.
That is why they play rugby league, or step into the boxing ring, or drive race cars.
They accept the inherent risk of each sport, gambling their health if not their lives, all in the hope they can provide themselves and their families a better life.
When Origin was over last year, Friend had ticked off all the boxes and now gets to enjoy retirement without regret.
The Roosters club is showing enormous concern for its players and should be congratulated for how it is handling it.
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