Playing for my country was never about money

MY playing career with Tonga (a record 54 caps) really came about as a result of the riots of 2006 when political unrest over an election result back home led to Nuku’alofa, the capital, being burnt down.

- Jon Newcombe

The country was in a big mess and divided and it was a sad time. Those of us overseas, in New Zealand in my case, felt helpless. So me and a few others playing professionally decided that we had to do something to try and reunite the country and put smiles back on people’s faces and we thought what better way than through rugby, the sport that every Tongan loves. I was with the Chiefs at the time dreaming of becoming an All Black but I let that dream go in order to play for Tonga at the 2007 World Cup and make a difference the only way I knew how.

For me, playing for my country was never about money. It was bigger picture stuff - about showing Tonga in a good light to the rest of the world so that the country would maybe benefit from extra tourism down the line. In 11 years of Test rugby, the most our match fee went up to was 1,000 Pa’anga (about €400) so I was never exactly going to get rich; rich in experiences but not in the bank.

Man, you should’ve seen our build-up to that 2007 World Cup. We had to beg our way out of Tonga to get to England, via our only warmup game against Auckland B, for a week’s preparation before heading out to Montpellier. World Rugby only paid for you to be in France a week before the tournament started, but we knew if we were going to have a good crack at it we needed a bit more time together. So we went to every bank and did as much fund-raising as we could. Eventually we got enough money together to get the squad over to England where an ex-‘Ikale Tahi player put us up in his motel. It was four to a room but in ours, it felt like five because we had two of the props, including Taufa’ao Filise.