Born in Tonga, Martin Masella was a 1990s Pasifika rugby league trailblazer – and he left a trail of destruction as one of the most feared tacklers in the game during stints with the Tigers, Steelers and Rabbitohs, before finishing his career in England. Big League tracked down the genial hitman.
YOU HUNG UP THE BOOTS IN 2001, MARTIN – WHAT’S BEEN KEEPING YOU OCCUPIED SINCE THEN?
I’m the General Manager of Move and Clean – we do cleaning, we do moving, and that’s predominantly been my go-to since I finished playing rugby league. But I’ve done a whole heap of other things as well – your capacity as a person when you play rugby league becomes a lot greater than it normally is, you have so much more energy, you have so many more things you want to do. I don’t think there’s much that I haven’t done and it all adds up to living life and making the most of it.
HOW DID YOU START OUT IN RUGBY LEAGUE AFTER MOVING TO SYDNEY AS A YOUNG FELLA?
I started playing footy when I was 13 for a team called St Peter’s. We were originally in the Newtown competition. The popular kids at school played rugby league, so I wanted to play … my dad tried to talk me out of it. By nature I’m a soft person, and he said to me, ‘You’re probably not cut out for rugby league’. I started playing and struggled to catch a ball but still had a lot of fun and made a lot of really good friends. There was a whole heap of kids of different nationalities: a Fijian kid, a Tongan, a couple of Lebanese, we had Greek, we had a Macedonian. We moved to the Canterbury comp and won that, then went to the Souths comp and I played SG Ball. Some of us went to Balmain to play Jersey Flegg, we lost the [1987] grand final to Manly playing against Geoff Toovey and those sort of blokes.
AND YOU WERE RUBBING SHOULDERS WITH SPORTING GREATS BEFORE EVEN GETTING NEAR FIRST GRADE?
My mum was of Tongan descent and my father’s German descent – they didn’t understand sport, you know? But when I was 15, a guy by the name of Jeff Fenech became my coach. He was probably one of the biggest influences in my life. A group of us started running with him, then we did boxing training – it was the fittest that I have ever been. Johnny Lewis got a hold of us, we’d have to do 15 rounds on the bags, skipping. As a young kid growing up and seeing Jeff go through and fight for world titles, it had a huge influence on me. There was a nurturing part about him.
BALMAIN WAS IN DECLINE BY THE TIME YOU DEBUTED IN 1991, BUT IT MUST HAVE BEEN A GREAT EXPERIENCE PLAYING ALONGSIDE ELIAS, JACK, ROACH AND SIRONEN AS A ROOKIE?
Mate, it was pretty phenomenal, really. Taking over the position of Wayne Pearce (who retired in 1990), I just went, ‘Wow’. I got offered contracts to go to Canberra when Tim Sheams was there, he flew up to Sydney twice. Chris Anderson at Canterbury wanted me to go over there. When you’re young, you’re a little bit naïve – I weighed everything up, and [the determining factor] was which one had the best nightclubs. At the time, Balmain had the best nightclubs, so that’s where I played.
YOU QUICKLY DEVELOPED A REPUTATION AS ONE OF THE MOST FEARED HITTERS IN THE GAME…
My debut was against Penrith in Darwin, it’s a TV game and they put me in off the bench in the first 20 minutes. The first tackle that I made was against Mark Geyer … I clipped him on the chin and next thing he’s on the ground, out cold. I thought he was playing for a penalty, but he was out. I think I grew an extra 10 inches – this is Mark Geyer! – and the next thing you know, a guy named Brook Kennedy came on the field. His first hit up, he saw I had ‘Blocker’ (Roach) on one side and ‘Sirro’ on the other, so he ran straight at me – and then he was out cold, too. I was able to go into a collision and come out better off than the other person.
I was voted the best dresser in the NRL at the time, because every second week I was at the judiciary. I said to my wife, ‘I can’t wear the same suit – it’s all over TV and in the newspaper’. I had a mate who had a clothes shop and did really nice suits, so I had a new suit every time I went to the judiciary.
AFTER FOUR SEASONS WITH BALMAIN, THEN ONE EACH WITH ILLAWARRA AND SOUTHS, YOU WENT TO ENGLAND. WHAT WAS BEHIND THAT SEA CHANGE?
I was in there again at the judiciary and they said, ‘If you come back, we’re going to suspend you for life’. So I thought I’d like to see England. It came at a time in my life where I needed a new challenge and going to England was something that I’ve always wanted to do. My time at Leeds was just phenomenal. The people over there, it’s like going home. The Leeds supporters, they’re the best in the world … they’re just so generous with their time and everything that they do. My second son was born in Yorkshire, so I’m very happy about that, and my oldest son got to experience travelling. By the time we came back we worked out we’d been to 15 different countries.
Playing with ‘Alfie’ (Langer) and Andrew Gee at Warrington – terrific people. Tawera Nikau, what an amazing story he has. It’s pretty amazing to look at yourself and say, ‘How blessed am I that I played alongside them, because I’m not what you’d call your typical footballer. I don’t have too many skills, I can’t pass the ball – the only thing I did was run straight at people. The Tongan sidestep.
YOU WERE A KEY PART OF TONGA’S FIRST TWO WORLD CUP CAMPAIGNS AS WELL. HOW PROUD HAS THEIR PROGRESS ON THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE OVER THE PAST DECADE MADE YOU?
In 1995 our first ever World Cup game was against New Zealand, they had a stacked side. We had about seven guys who’d played first grade; the rest were from Tonga, [lower grades] and country NSW. We came together as a group and only got beat at the very death, 25-24, which was just incredible. In 2000 I captained my country to their first ever win at a World Cup, we beat South Africa. It was only going to grow from there – and now they’ve beaten New Zealand, they’ve beaten Australia. It’s been a blessing, because when first I played here in Australia, I was one of the first few Tongans coming through.
DATE OF BIRTH
4 November, 1969
CURRENT AGE
56
BIRTHPLACE
ʻEua, Tonga
POSITIONS
Prop, second-row, lock
PLAYING HISTORY
1991-94: Balmain Tigers
1995: Illawarra Steelers
1996: South Sydney Rabbitohs
1997-99: Leeds Rhinos
2000: Wakefield Trinity
2001: Warrington Wolves
REP FOOTBALL
1995-2000: Tonga
JUNIOR CLUB
St Peter’s
TOTAL NRL MATCHES
98
TRIES | POINTS
5 | 20
