Power Play

The size issue has led to calls in Australia for competitions to be structured by weight rather than age. Such competitions have been around for more than a decade in New Zealand, and the Australian Rugby League sent a delegation there in 2006 to research the concept. Junior Panthers executive Feltis was a member of that party. He returned keen to start a weight-based league west of Sydney, but couldn't get parents interested. Feltis theorizes that, despite the grumbling on the sidelines, the spirit of rugby league is that you play the man in front of you. If that means being swatted aside by a bigger boy and having to pick yourself up, then that's football. "And in the long run," says Penrith recruitment manager Jim Jones, "it makes the smaller boys better players." At the same time, "The game is there for everybody to play," says Queensland Rugby League official Robert Moore. "We would just hope that we continue to have viable competitions that attract enough of the little guys."

Most people involved in rugby and rugby league will tell you that Polynesians are naturally suited to the sports. "Oh, they're gifted athletically, there's no doubt about it," says Peter O'Sullivan, recruitment manager for the Sydney Roosters NRL club. "It's not just size. It's balance, footwork, skill and strength." But attributing Polynesians' football prowess to inherent qualities can lead to the quicksand of racial stereotyping. In focusing on the physiques of Maoris and Islanders, it's easy to overlook other, perhaps more important, factors in their growing presence in elite football — motivation, hard work, and early exposure to competition. "Polynesians have no genetic predisposition to be good at football," says Helen Lee, a lecturer in sociology and anthropology at Melbourne's LaTrobe University. "But on a general level, Polynesian men do tend to be large built. They do tend to put on a lot of muscle easily."

In 10 years as an elite footballer, Lote Tuqiri, the Wallabies' granite-hard Fijian-born winger, has collided with players of all colors. The truth, he says, is that they all feel more or less the same. But, he adds, the Maori and Islander player "grows up with the sense that you're bigger than most of the people you play against. That puts a thing in your head that you're a powerful force, and you never quite lose that feeling. And you don't want to. You always want to intimidate with your physicality."

Such intimidation is rare at the elite level, says the Queensland-born NRL veteran Steve Price. Since his NRL debut with Canterbury in 1994, Price has seen numerous Polynesian players who've excelled through sheer power in junior football and paid the price in the big time. "They're used to scoring a lot of tries, being patted on the back by everyone and thinking they're bulletproof," says Price, who's now captain of the New Zealand Warriors. "But they get to senior football and come unstuck because they're suddenly up against guys every bit as big and as strong as they are."

One Way Out
In New Zealand, talent scouts swarm all over Manukau City, a poor region of Auckland with a large Polynesian population. It's a similar situation in pockets of Sydney and Brisbane, where mostly unskilled Maori and Islander migrants settled in significant numbers from the 1970s until recently, when Australian authorities tightened immigration laws. On both sides of the Tasman Sea, there's a sense that sports can offer a way out of poverty.

"In Polynesian families, there is tremendous pressure on the eldest son especially to become a bread winner," says David Lakisa, the NSWRL's Pacific coaching and development officer. "They're using league as their meal ticket." Twelve years after his family left New Zealand for Sydney's west, both Willie Isa's parents work in factories to support their four children. "I want to ease their workload," says Isa, who aims to secure an NRL contract within two years. Says team-mate Penese: "Family comes first for me. Dad's been a taxi driver since we got here [16 years ago]. I just want to get Dad off the road."

To cope with the change, clubs in both codes are increasingly appointing Maori and Islander men to their administrative staffs. "I think that's a really good idea," says Tuqiri. "We do hear and interpret things differently at times. It's not racism, but it can be easier to talk to someone of the same cultural background." Justifying his decision to leave Canterbury, Williams said the club was underpaying many of the players, and "I think it is my duty to speak up, especially for the Polynesian boys."

Some purists argue that the modern rugby codes would be better for having less power. But that's not the way the games are going anywhere. For Australasian football, the future is with youngsters like Penese and Isa. By the time the 2011 Rugby Union World Cup, to be played in New Zealand, rolls around, both codes will have evolved a little more toward cosmopolitanism. Neither code can turn back — and few fans or players would want them to.