Rugby League
Motu Tony – I got to play for a team that I grew up watching, and not many people can say that.
51 Thoughts were fortunate to speak to former Warriors, Kiwis, and Hull FC utility Motu Tony and got his thoughts on his career and his thoughts about how the game is now.
Motu Tony – I got to play for a team that I grew up watching, and not many people can say that.
51 Thoughts were fortunate to speak to former Warriors, Kiwis, and Hull FC utility Motu Tony and got his thoughts on his career and his thoughts about how the game is now.
Former Warrior and Kiwi Utility Motu Tony started playing Rugby League when he was six-year-old as a lock. As he got older and more skilful he moved in the half’s and played his junior football at Marist. Motu was recognised by the Warriors in a Junior Kiwis Vs Junior Kangaroos game where he was marking the Australian number six Luke Branighan, (the player that the Warriors came to watch on this particular day). Motu outplayed Branighan and won player of the match, he was signed by the Warriors in October 2000. Motu was a Warriors fan growing up and felt that it was a no-brainer to sign for a club that he watched when they first started in the Winfield Cup.
He made his debut for the Warriors in April 2001 against the St George Illawarra Dragons and felt that it was a dream come true to play at home on Ericsson Stadium (Mt Smart as it is known as today). Later that year Motu was a part of the side who played in the Warriors first ever playoff match, where they got thumped 52-10 against the Parramatta Eels who stepped up another gear in the playoffs. “Thinking back now to do something that the club has never done before I think it’s a great achievement. At the same time, it was only making the eight and the Warriors should have been making the eight anyway.”
In 2002, was the year that Warriors made history, they won the minor premiership (their first) and made the grand final for the very first time (At the same time the Bulldogs lost the majority of their points in 2002 for salary cap breaches). That year the Warriors were able to win the difficult games when it counted and also had good depth in the squad. After beating Cronulla in a physical grand final qualifier the week before 16-12 but ran out of steam against the strong Sydney City Roosters side and lost the final 30-8. “It happened so fast, it felt like we bet Cronulla the weekend before and then all of a sudden it felt like we were on the field for the biggest game of our careers. It came around really quick and the Roosters had a great side and at our best, maybe we couldn’t get them but it felt like that we didn’t give it our best shot.”
Heading into 2003 the Warriors knew that there would be pressure on them as they were the second best side in the competition last year and sides wanted to beat them. The Warriors lost players like Kevin Campion, Ivan Cleary and John Carlaw and had a very young side that year. Motu felt that they had a better chance of winning the competition in 2003 than they did in 2002. “I just think that after the experience of 2002 we knew what it took to get to a final but to win it. So that’s why I say that and I was coming off the bench and I felt that we were better all round. We had Brent Webb at Fullback, Thomas Leuluai and Stacey Jones in the half’s and PJ Marsh as hooker. I felt that we had a bit more in 2003.” They finished the year in 6th position. They thumped the Bulldogs in the first round of the playoffs 48-22, won a tough match against the Canberra Raiders 17-16 and lost to the eventual winners of the 2003 competition the Penrith Panthers 28-20 (a side they couldn’t beat all year).
At the end of 2003, with a year still to run on his contract Motu asked for a release from the Warriors so that he could experience something new, Motu wanted to go to the Super League after he received an offer by Castleford. Unfortunately, that deal failed and he received a call from the legendary Brisbane Broncos coach Wayne Bennett to see whether he would be interested in going to the play there. “There’s not many people who could not turn down Wayne. I told Wayne that I was going to England, he said look come to Brisbane first and see if you like it or not, if it doesn’t work out you can still move to England.”
Halfway through the 2004 season, after playing three games at Brisbane and unable to crack into the Broncos starting side due to an injury. He then signed for Castleford, a debut which he didn’t enjoy one bit. “We got thrashed. It was weird how things work out, the team that we played when I played at Castleford was against Hull FC. I played in the last ever game at Hull FC at their home ground, the boulevard for the Kiwis.” When Motu started playing games in the Super League he noticed a big difference between the styles, skills and speed between the NRL and Super League. “The NRL is faster but the Super League is physical. With the Super League you have bigger men, slower rugby due to the conditions so it’s a physical battle. That’s why I felt the Super League was more physical but you just had better athletes in the NRL.”
Motu’s other favourite moment in his footballing career is when he made his debut for the Kiwis in 2001 against France. Today players get a phone call the day before the announcement to say whether they in the side or not. Back then, Motu like all the other Kiwis League players who were waiting to find out whether they were selected in the side they had to watch the announcement on Sky. “They announced it in jersey order, so they read out your name and your junior. I started at fullback for that game and my name was read out first. It felt like time had stood still and it was a realisation of all the hard work that you have done as a child and playing age group Rugby it all seemed to culminate in that one moment.” The Kiwis went on to win the game 36-0 with Motu again scoring a try on debut.
Motu played thirteen caps for New Zealand and beat the strong Australian side twice (In 2003, 30-16 and 2005 24-0). Over the last few years the Kiwi sides perform better on tours rather than the one off test matches because they gel together better as a group and their football gets better. Motu remembers when they beat the Aussies in the 2005 Tri-Nations final in England, he knew that you could never count them out but it was great to beat them. “They always came back into a game and it just seemed like 50 minutes had gone and we were still winning, 60 mins had gone and we were still winning and 70 mins had gone and we were still winning. It was like these guys were done, it’s not like they are going to score 24 points now. Even when that final whistle went it was like wow, they can’t come back.”
In 2009 Motu left Hull FC after playing 100 games for them, in which he scored 25 tries there. At that stage in his career, he was coming back from an injury / illness and signed a deal with Nottingham Rugby which allowed him to get back to full fitness and to give Rugby a go. Motu enjoyed playing Rugby at Nottingham but felt that he was a League man at heart and couldn’t let go of that.
Motu feels that a good coach who tells his players how to become better players both on and off the field so that you can use those skills once you retire. He felt that Daniel Anderson was the best coach he has worked with as he was technically very smart and was doing things that the game hadn’t seen before. “The way that the Warriors were playing in 2001, 2002, 2003 that is the way that the game is now. He was doing it back then and working with players like myself who hadn’t been brought up in the system that teaches you how do you catch and kick the ball properly. Daniel was in the Brian Smith school, very smart and the team had a lot of success under him.”
In hindsight Motu felt that he would have benefited from being in the Warriors from an early age. Motu was signed by the Warriors after the Junior Kiwis Vs Junior Kangaroos game in October 2000 and made his debut in April 2001, without properly being in a gym before. He feels that today if “you look at some of the NRL players now and they are in the NRL system for seven years before they even play NRL. They might be at a club when they are 14, 15 or 16 and they might make there NRL debut when they play a year in the NYC competition.” He feels that guys who go through a program like this learn how to become a professional athlete, they are told what to develop physically and mentally to become a consistent performer when they play in first grade.
Motu feels that the NRL in general has improved since he has played but he feels that the Super League needs to keep up with it or else it will be left behind. He feels that if English Super League doesn’t improve you could have an American competition where the NRL sides are in a better position to win games against Super League sides. “Now, when I say Americanised you don’t a professional sport to be like a team that wins in American Sports are classed as world champions.” He feels that the Super League has given the NRL some great English players in recent years like Adrian Morley and Gareth Ellis, along with current stars like Sam Burgess, Elliot Whitehead and Josh Hodgson. He also feels that some non-English players have benefited from having stints in England like Sam Moa and Iosia Soliola.
He feels that the best player that he has played with is the little general, Stacey Jones because he could do it all. He also feels that the best player he played against was the eighth immortal Andrew Jones because he could influence and change the momentum of the game very easily. “I don’t think you will ever see a half back as him as he could do it all.”
When Motu retired he went back to University to finish his master’s degree in business. Unlike some past Rugby League players who wanted to get into coaching, Motu had an interest in sports administration and one day he received a phone call from Hull FC to see whether he would like to be the CEO of the club and has been there since ……
