Tevita Pangai Jnr

From Fox Sports

NEWCASTLE have confirmed they’ve identified Brisbane prop Tevita Pangai Junior as a possible recruitment target for 2019.

The 22-year-old is off-contract and has started the season in stellar form for the Broncos, starring in the team’s thrilling round two win over North Queensland.

A South Newcastle Lions junior, Pangai is no stranger to the Knights have represented the club in the Harold Matthews Cup, before he spent two seasons playing the lower grades for Canberra.

“He’s a Newcastle junior, and he’s good mates with Sione (Mata’utia) and a few of the boys,” Knights coach Nathan Brown told media on Wednesday.

“He’s certainly the type of player that we’d like to add to our roster.

“Whether there’s any legs in it or not, I suppose the Broncos would love to keep him, and generally the Roosters are keen on good players, aren’t they?

“There are going to be plenty of clubs interested in him, but he’s certainly a player we’d like to have a conversation with.”

The news comes after it was revealed Pangai had decided to turn down the chance to represent NSW at Origin in favour of playing for Tonga.

The Knights have veteran props Jacob Lillyman and Chris Heighington off-contract at the end of the season, and Pangai could prove to be a valuable long-term aqusition.

Brown may have to do a fair bit of convincing, however, given Pangai reached out to the Broncos before the 2016 season because he wanted to be coached by Wayne Bennett.

But money talks, and the Knights have plenty of it, as NRL 360 host Paul Kent explained on Wednesday.

“The Knights have cash sitting there in their salary cap,” Kent said.

“They’ve actually started to front load some contract to hit the salary cap floor — the minimum spend.

“That shows they’ve got money there and they can spend it and they want to have a big dip at Tevita Pangai Junior.

“It’s going to be very tough for the Broncos to keep him.

“The Broncos have a few guys who ... Matt Gillett can go to market right now, he had a clause built into his contract where he could examine the market value.

“Corey Oates is another, and then you’ve got Matt Lodge who’s going to come off contract and is supposedly on minimum wage at the moment who will be looking for some sort of upgrade.”

League legend Paul Sironen warned the Knights shouldn’t get too excited and throw big money at the former Junior Kangaroos representative given he’s played all but two NRL games off the bench.

“I’ve watched Tevita played since he played Harold Matthews for Newcastle,” Sironen said.

“He’s been a good young forward off the bench for them, but we’re talking bit dollars for him now.

“He’s got to do it week in, week out, in this game.

“All well and good doing it against the Cowboys, it was a great one-off performance.

“He’s got to do it every week in the toughest game in the world.”


https://www.foxsports.com.au/nrl/nr...r/news-story/612725c6df226d7644988c60a9e43680
 
Pangai Jr wants to commit to the club for life



Peter Badel, The Courier-Mail
An hour ago



RAMPAGING Brisbane prop Tevita Pangai Jr says he has no plans to quit the club, with the Tongan tearaway revealing his ambition to be a Bronco for life.

Ahead of Friday’s clash against Wests Tigers, Pangai Jr has revealed how shunning McDonald’s and KFC has seen him go from a chubby 127kg to a chiselled 113kg front-row weapon.

The 22-year-old is off-contract at season’s end and has become one of the most sought-after young forwards in the game after his outstanding opening fortnight in Brisbane’s starting pack.

Pangai Jr could pocket upwards of $500,000-a-season on the open market but the Tongan international is happy to sign a new deal at Red Hill, praising Brisbane’s senior core for helping him ditch junk food.

“I want to be a Bronco for life, so I’m going to work hard to do that,” he said.

“I’ve tried to stay away from all the takeaway food and worked hard in the pre-season.

“I remember one pre-season when I was down in Canberra (former club) and I got up to 127kg. You can’t do that being a professional.

“Darius (Boyd, Brisbane skipper) is pretty good with his diet and I just watch what he eats and Adam Blair (former Broncos prop) last year.

“They were pretty hard on me on my diet.

“I used to go hard on the Maccas and the KFC, all the bad stuff. I reckon I could finish a dinner box on my own pretty easily.”

The Broncos are banking on Pangai Jr’s powerhouse charges to counter Tigers hardman Russell Packer tomorrow night and his evolution has not surprised the man who snared him for $1000.

Leading Newcastle scout Keith Onslow, the talent identification guru who also spotted Andrew and Matthew Johns, signed Pangai Jr as a 15-year-old in 2011.

At the time, he was playing in the centres for the South Newcastle Lions but Onslow suspected Pangai Jr would grow into a high-class forward.

“I cried the day he told me he was leaving the club to join Canberra,” Onslow said.

“I knew he would become a very good player but most importantly he was a wonderful young man.

“I will never forget seeing him and Sione Mata’utia (current Knights centre) playing together for Souths Newcastle in an under-17s grand-final. They were two years younger and they were still the stars of the grand final.

“Tevita was steamrolling kids older than him and I thought, ‘Wow, this kid is special’.

“Tevita worked in development with me as a teenager and he was the best trainee. He was always respectful, he was one of those kids who would walk around the office straightening up papers and getting tissues for staff. He was a joy to work with.

“Wayne Bennett (Broncos coach) has brought him along really well. He is very coachable and I always knew he would be a great asset for the Broncos on and off the field.”


https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/s...e/news-story/2b9397b80acf2adfb31144923da9b8a0
 
Brisbane will sign him for well below market value and Greenberg won’t bat an eyelid. The gutless turd he is.
 
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Still, throw some cash his way and make the Broncs show the salary cap for what it is again, a farce.

The Broncs may have an average year, rumours of Bennet's tenure at the Broncos coming to an end, we may have a good year, plus the cash and who knows what he will be thinking come time to actually put pen to paper.

He's not doing himself any favours though saying now that he wants to be a Bronco for life, lesson 1 in bargaining, don't compromise your position.
 
It's probably past history now, but he was a lazy sod when he was younger.
In our under 16s he looked like he could be as good as Sione if he had more than 2 or 3 runs a game, and I remember when he was playing in reserve grade for Canberra the coach was always sending trainers out to tell him to have a crack, and he'd get hooked off the field for not getting stuck in.
Wayne seems to have found the key to get him going, but I can't help remembering that he always looked like he could be anything, but always looked like he couldn't be bothered.
 
Kurriboy said:
Still, throw some cash his way and make the Broncs show the salary cap for what it is again, a farce.
The Broncs may have an average year, rumours of Bennet's tenure at the Broncos coming to an end, we may have a good year, plus the cash and who knows what he will be thinking come time to actually put pen to paper.
He's not doing himself any favours though saying now that he wants to be a Bronco for life, lesson 1 in bargaining, don't compromise your position.
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I really agree, and if Paul Kent is right about being able to have cap room to frontload, then why not offer something like $600k for the first year? use the power of his team mates like with how the Knights lured Pearce. Will laugh if he stayed for less because as its been mentioned he'll probably stay for 200k. But all islanders have that mentality that family/finances come first and providing for everyone.

Michael Jennings said he hated Parramatta, and would never play for the Eels, yet there he is playing for the Eels. It happens. Snowden was happy to stay at the Sharks who helped him be a better player (until the peptides kicked in) but again, money talked there.

Kent using Matt Lodge as an example of a player they need to work on keeping is a bit silly, getting an extension is probably the last thing on his or the Broncos mind. If they have to make him expendable to keep Pangai they will.

It's also so typical of the QLD media to come out with a rebuttal article about why Pangai will stay
 
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safs are our future so not to bothered. Still feel like we will need a couple more old heads for the forwards for a few more years.
 
I take nothing from that article, players always say that kind of stuff. The game is different now, let's see what he says when he's getting offered double his money from rival clubs than at Brisbane.
 
If Sione is demanding at least 600k.. how much are we going to throw at TPJ?
In any case he’s staying in Brisbane.
He has told his friends he doesn’t even want to look at other offers.
He had already knock back playing for NSW and instead represent Tonga.
He’s giving up easy money by doing so.
Money doesn’t buy happiness unless the ho is hot af lol
 
If Sione is demanding 600k then Ramien can start in the Centres. If there is nothing we can do then so be it. But finances/family do come first for islander families. Israel Folau said the biggest reason for his defection to AFL (even though he wasnt really interested) was that his dad talked him into it with the money on offer. Probably more cases like that too. It would be interesting to see if there is a bidding war especially if the broncos are sub par.
 
R_A said:
If Sione is demanding 600k then Ramien can start in the Centres. If there is nothing we can do then so be it. But finances/family do come first for islander families. Israel Folau said the biggest reason for his defection to AFL (even though he wasnt really interested) was that his dad talked him into it with the money on offer. Probably more cases like that too. It would be interesting to see if there is a bidding war especially if the broncos are sub par.
Click to expand...

A little bit different to Israel’s situation.
TPJ doesn’t need to give money to GOD lol
In any case he has already told his friends he won’t be looking at other offers.
If money was important to him he would’ve pledge his allegiance to NSW.
 
If that's the case that he isn't looking at other offers then fair enough, but it will be interesting to see if teams do get into a bidding war and his manager gets in his ear, and especially if it starts to drag out.
 
Tbh is he really that great? 2 games where he was ok but not outstanding by any means.
If ese is on 350k than tpj is worth less imo.
 
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