Campbell Burnes on Rugby – Former Manu Samoa No 10 and freelance rugby scribe Campbell Burnes recalls two brilliant wingers who played with freedom and flair.
Rugby endured a heart-breaking 24 hours back in late February.
The game lost two of its great entertainers in Va’aiga ‘Inga’ Tuigamala and Joeli Vidiri. They played just 19 and two tests respectively for the All Blacks, but could, and should, have played many more.
Tuigamala was a schoolboy sensation. Future All Blacks teammate Craig Innes was just about the only one who could consistently lower Tuigamala in full flight, and often from fullback, for Kelson Boys’ High School First XV in 1986-87.
The following season, 1988, ‘Inga’ took senior rugby by storm with his Ponsonby Club. At just 18, he started laying waste to most club defences like Jonah in his prime. And that was in the days when Auckland club rugby was much stronger than it is now. At rep level, he needed patience, with John Kirwan and Terry Wright, both at their peak, ahead of him for Auckland and the All Blacks.
Tuigamala was not always a great trainer in those early days, but he still performed well for the All Blacks, scoring some of his trademark blockbusting tries, notably against Italy at Rugby World Cup 1991. By 1993, he was lost to league for three years, but returned a more mature pro and helped Manu Samoa, coming to the end of a golden decade.
My abiding memory of Inga was the image of he and David Campese, arm in arm and sporting broad smiles after the 1993 Bledisloe at Carisbrook, two great rugby men sharing a moment.
Vidiri was unlucky that Jeff Wilson was such a talent in the No 14 jersey, or he would surely have played far more rugby for the All Blacks. He was, on his day unstoppable for the Blues and Counties Manukau from about 1994 to 1998, often in tandem with the incomparable Jonah Lomu.
In 2000 he scored a quartet for the Blues against the Bulls at Eden Park, one of which involved two (!) chip and regathers in the same movement. But his kidney issues were slowing him up at that stage.
They did not slow him down in 1997 when his hat-trick for the Steelers in the NPC semifinal versus Waikato ignited one of the greatest comebacks in provincial history. Nor earlier that season for the Blues when he skinned the great Andre Joubert with an in and away that should be required viewing for every aspiring wing in the game.
Vidiri played for his native Fiji and also the New Zealand Sevens team, one of the finest squads ever assembled by Gordon Tietjens, which won 1998 Commonwealth Games gold. He lit up Eden Park and Pukekohe Stadium with his deadly finishing and broken field running. He’s fit to rank as the Blues’ finest ever No 14. We know what damage he and Lomu did to opponents. Can you imagine Vidiri and the freakish Rupeni Caucaunibuca in tandem? Can you imagine, too, if Vidiri had been able to have a long career unimpeded by his health setbacks?
A clutch of speedsters have scored more than his 114 first-class tries from 153 outings, but few with a better strike-rate.
Like Norm Berryman and Jonah Lomu, this great wing duo mostly played with smiles on their faces and often wings on their heels. They’ve all gone too soon but their deeds and the manner in which they played the game will live on.
Campbell Burnes
Rugby Writer