Former NRL star Timana Tahu has shifted scrutiny away from All Stars scheduling and directed it squarely at club coaches, describing them as “selfish” in a stinging rebuke ahead of Sunday’s fixture.
Many of the game’s elite Indigenous and Māori players have not been named for the All Stars game, and while some are unavailable due to injury, others will miss the match because of pre-season football, the World Club Challenge or the looming Las Vegas trip.
A prime example is $13 million Newcastle recruit Dylan Brown.
Wide World of Sports confirmed with the Knights that Brown is eligible for the Māori team, but he chose to play his first game in his new club colours in a trial against the Bulldogs on Saturday instead.
The Knights will open their premiership campaign against the Cowboys in Las Vegas a fortnight later.
Newcastle’s Bradman Best and North Queensland’s Reuben Cotter would be automatic Indigenous selections if available for the All Stars fixture. Instead, they will be playing pre-season games for the Knights and Cowboys respectively, a fortnight before running out in Sin City.
Latrell Mitchell, Cody Walker, Kalyn Ponga and Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow won’t be lining up in the All Stars game either, but that’s due to injuries or fitness concerns rather than the prioritisation of club football.
Tahu, one of the great outside backs of the 2000s, has both Aboriginal and Māori heritage, and for several years has been the NRL’s senior manager of elite Indigenous pathways.
Many have singled out scheduling as a reason for the understrength Indigenous and Māori sides as the game will be played on the same weekend as round two of the pre-season challenge and only a fortnight out from the Las Vegas super show.
Not Tahu.
“The hardest thing is actually having coaches that pull players out because of the pre-season challenge or the World Club Challenge or Las Vegas,” Tahu told Wide World of Sports.
Wide World of Sports understands Brown made the call to play for the Knights this weekend, rather than his club coach Justin Holbrook.
The former Eel made a late start to pre-season training, having played in the Pacific Championships for New Zealand across October and November, and that factored in his decision, WWOS has learned.
WWOS also understands that Indigenous and Māori players whose clubs were set to play in the World Club Challenge or in Las Vegas were given the option of sitting out the All Stars game.
“The thing is, we can go through sports science, and your coach doesn’t want to break players, but they’re playing trials and they’re playing in Las Vegas or they’re playing in the World Club Challenge anyway, so it doesn’t make sense from our point of view when we’re looking at it,” Tahu continued.
“These players want to play in this game, but they’re pulled back because you want them to play a trial.
“What the clubs don’t understand is if you want to get more value out of your players, you let them play in the All Stars, because the thing is they get culturally uplifted. They have cultural advisors within the team, and it’s not just about football; it’s what they’re doing off the paddock.
“They’re doing community work … they want to do cultural practices, and what that actually does is recharge them for the season.
“When we do give them back, you watch in the next five rounds all these players that have played in the All Stars, they’re gonna probably stand out a lot more than most players because they’ve, one, played in an elite game, two, they’re being culturally uplifted, and three, they’ll do everything for their club and for their coach and for their teammates because they’ve been allowed to play this game.”
Tahu, who has weighed in on a wide range of similar issues on an episode of the Hi Society podcast to be released next Tuesday, admits that coaches, out of their own interests in clubland, also interfere with State of Origin and international selection.
Last year Canterbury was left fuming when Matt Burton was taken away from clubland only to be 18th man for the Blues, and not actually take the field.
“It’s a big fight even with Origin. You’ve got some coaches that are that selfish that they want to pull their players out. And with the Kangaroos — when you get to the back end of the year and the Pacific Championships are on, there’s big fights about [whether] a player needs to get a clean-up [surgery] so he can pre-season train for the next six to seven weeks,” Tahu said.
“The players want to represent their country, but then you’ve got coaches saying, ‘Oh no, let’s try and get cleaned up’.”
Broncos stars Ezra Mam, Kotoni Staggs and Jordan Riki are among the Indigenous or Māori players unavailable for the All Stars game because they’re in the UK for Brisbane’s World Club Challenge match against Hull HK, to be played next Friday morning (AEDT).
Tahu stressed the importance of the All Stars fixture and trumpeted the spectacle.
“Some of these coaches don’t understand that it means a lot to the players that play for their state or for their mob,” said Tahu, a former star of the Knights, Eels, NSW and Australia.
“Coaches get a bit selfish in their ways and think about themselves, and that’s probably the insecurities.
“I think it [the All Stars match] is a different game of footy compared to what you see week in, week out, even from an Origin game or an international game. The rules are a bit different and the players play a lot off the top of their head. Everyone’s on the edge of their seat … These types of players can just pull something out of nothing, and people want to watch that.
“But also … this game helps with social wellbeing, and cultural wellbeing as well. And having strong advocates like Foxx [Josh Addo-Carr], James Fisher-Harris and Nicho Hynes — these players are inspirational not only on the field but off the field, when it comes to the cultural issues as well.”
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