Hingano has limited experience at NRL level, while DCE is the classic and very much complete halfback. Tonga is set to celebrate the historic rugby league wins over Australia and Great Britain with a public holiday and reception for players next Friday. Tonga beat australia for the first time, australia ex players had no faith in the tongan team. Ata Hingano has recovered from a shoulder injury and has been named to start in the No.7 jersey this weekend. Andrew Fifita starts, with Addin Fonua-Blake to come off the bench. A new-look Australian side was also very slick in a comfortable win over the Kiwis in Wollongong with 'Blues brothers' Damien Cook and James Tedesco combining particularly well. You can watch the match on TV or live stream for free. To see a fanbase mobilised from almost nowhere and to watch and hear the way they support their team has been truly incredible. Josh Addo-Carr, Daly Cherry-Evans, Damien Cook, Boyd Cordner, Nick Cotric, Tyson Frizell, Wade Graham, Payne Haas, Ben Hunt, Luke Keary, David Klemmer, Latrell Mitchell, Cameron Munster, Cameron Murray, Josh Papalii, James Tedesco, Jake Trbojevic, Paul Vaughan, Jack Wighton. Find out more about our policy and your choices, including how to opt-out. Never mind them beating Australia at Eden Park on Saturday, or Great Britain the week before that. The Kangaroos Test squad has been revealed by coach Mal Meninga, featuring seven grand final players and six potential debutants. He's also talked of being on tour with the All Blacks in 2017 and how he and team-mate Vaea Fifita spent hours together watching and revelling in Tonga's march to that year's Rugby League Cup semifinals. Jack Wighton has got the call up.Source:Getty Images. Tonga Invitational: Ata Hingano has recovered from a shoulder injury and has been named at halfback after Fanitesi Niu was a late inclusion last week. Kangaroos:  Rabbitohs' NSW Origin forward Cameron Murray is set to become Kangaroo No.832 after coach Mal Meninga named him at No.14, relegating Ben Hunt to the extended bench alongside Victor Radley and Clint Gutherson. The coach of Mate Ma'a Tonga, Kristian Woolf, is a white Australian. Players are commodities with a limited shelf-life. Rugby and rugby league are businesses. They defended impeccably against a Great Britain side boasting some high-calibre play makers, keeping the Lions scoreless for the first 70 minutes, while conjuring two tries of their own through off-the-cuff adventure. They accept the game is their job and go about things accordingly. That will need to be the recipe once again - they'll just have to do it even better. After 45 matches and six weeks of action across Japan, the Rugby World Cup came to a close over the weekend. Australia and Tonga have only played once before, in a test match last year. They are Boyd Corner, who retains the captaincy, James Tedesco, Luke Keary, Latrell Mitchell, Nick Cotric, Josh Papalii and Clive Churchill Medallist Jack Wighton. It was Taumalolo who led a group of high-profile players to commit to represent Tonga before the 2017 World Cup, an event which saw the team reach unprecedented levels of success and support, including a first victory over New Zealand and a … We don't have a great fan culture here. There has only ever been one match between Australia and a Tongan side and that came 12 months ago, with the Kangaroos cruising to a 34-16 win in Auckland. Two impressive winners from last weekend's Tests face off in Auckland on Saturday with Tonga, as always, desperate to prove their credentials as a genuine tier-one threat. A NOTE ABOUT RELEVANT ADVERTISING: We collect information about the content (including ads) you use across this site and use it to make both advertising and content more relevant to you on our network and other sites. All times AEDT (GMT +11). thanks to issues with their national body, beating Australia at Eden Park on Saturday, To see a fanbase mobilised from almost nowhere, Brown's coaching loyalties lie with Joseph, All Blacks need a revamp from stale, pale and male - Bidwell, Rugby World Cup: Predictable, mediocre and unfair, A curmudgeon's Rugby World Cup diary: Week 15, Sport: Tongan team want to move on from chaos, Three debutants in All Blacks squad to play Australia, NZR refuse to confirm cost of Rugby Championship fixture changes, Week in Politics: Collins faces problem as Labour holds poll lead, Election 2020: Health and housing at the forefront for Pasifika people in Gisborne, Doctor censured in UK for faking qualification has identity suppressed in NZ, All Blacks fans pledge to stay home from match if ill, Minor parties' debate becomes a rushed, uninformative melee. Photo: © Photosport Ltd 2019 www.photosport.nz Again, it's not just the results that have made this Tonga rugby league thing so special. Increasingly, though, they want their representative football to be from the heart. At least not if you are a happy and engaged workforce. The team was formed to compete in the 1986 Pacific Cup, and have competed at five Rugby League World Cups, starting in 1995 and continuing consecutively until the most recent tournament in 2017, where they achieved their best ever … The good folk from Yellow Fever try to generate a bit of atmosphere at Wellington Phoenix games, otherwise sport in this country is a pretty quiet affair. Get a summary of the Australia vs Fiji, Rugby World Cup 2019 21 Sep, 2019 rugby match. Tonga Invitational XIII vs Australia Oceania Cup 2019 - Round 3. Andrew Johns and Danika Mason break down all the big talking points ahead of the second week of Finals footy of the 2020 NRL Premiership. Tonga have named a strong 21-man squad for the upcoming Tests against Australia and Great Britain after board turmoil threatened their end-of-season campaign. The sea of red that could be seen at Eden Park for the Tonga vs Australia rugby league match on Saturday. The squad announcement brought further news: Meninga's coaching contract has been extended until the end of the 2021 Rugby League World Cup in the UK. When Williams says there are a lot of Māori and Pacific Island players in the All Blacks, and that it would be good for the coaching staff to reflect that, he's talking about things like respect and identity. Photo: AFP/Photosport. Seven players from the NRL grand final were included — Boyd Cordner, Luke Keary, Latrell Mitchell and James Tedesco from the triumphant Sydney Roosters, and Cotric, Wighton and Josh Papalii from Canberra. Nor is it only the support. The starting 13 from the win over the Kiwis is unchanged. ... Tonga vs Australia 2019 - To'a Ma'a Tonga … A team of true brothers who might not be as talented as the Kiwis or Kangaroos, but who share a culture and a bond that other teams can only imagine. Josh Addo-Carr, Jai Arrow, AJ Brimson, Nathan Brown, Kyle Feldt, Tyson Frizell, Reuben Garrick, Wade Graham, Clint Gutherson, Ben Hunt, Mitchell Moses, Ryan Papenhuyzen, Kalyn Ponga, Curtis Scott, Cody Walker. The next head coach of the All Blacks doesn't have to be Pasifika and maybe not even the one after that. And Australia's squad for the World Nines tournament at Bankwest Stadium from October 18-19 was also announced on Monday, headlined by Kalyn Ponga. New Zealand Rugby tried to tap into the team's phenomenal supporter base by staging a game between the All Blacks and Tonga ahead of the Rugby World Cup. These things are indicative of a cultural awakening that many of our professional rugby and rugby league players are experiencing and one the rest of us would be foolish to ignore. A † denotes a recognised, ... (all Australia), Braden Hamlin-Uele, and Corey Harawira-Naera (both New Zealand) made their Test debuts, ... (Tonga), Jackson Hastings, and Josh Jones (both Great Britain) made their Test debuts. It's why, if the stories are to be believed, he's considering playing for Samoa should a move back to rugby league materialise. To, in the truest sense of the word, represent who they are and where they're from. "This is an exciting squad of players and I can't wait to see what they can do in this format," Meninga said. Hingano returns as halfback after recovering from a shoulder injury that resulted in him sitting out last … Opinion - It's not just rugby's administrators who've noticed the Tonga rugby league team. NINES SQUAD: Josh Addo-Carr, Jai Arrow, AJ Brimson, Nathan Brown, Kyle Feldt, Tyson Frizell, Reuben Garrick, Wade Graham, Clint Gutheron, Ben Hunt, Mitchell Moses, Ryan Papenhuyzen, Kalyn Ponga, Curtis Scott, Cody Walker. Raiders star Jack Wighton headlines the new-look squad, which also included seven players from the 2019 NRL Grand Final. Benji Marshall could end a seven-year Kiwis exile after he was named in a strong New Zealand Test squad to face Tonga in the Oceania Cup on June 22 at Mt Smart Stadium. With a forward pack arguably the equal or better of any other nation and backs that hold their own, playmaking depth has generally been Tonga's Achilles heel. International rugby league matches will be played throughout 2019. Meninga has also signed a contract extension that will retain him as Kangaroos coach until the end of the 2021 World Cup. Expect plenty of red jerseys in the crowd again as Tonga searches for an upset. The whole thing's as moving as it is remarkable and it's not been lost on some of our rugby players. It's the fact that this was built by men who were established internationals with bigger teams who said 'you know what, I'd actually rather play for the nation that best represents me and how I feel and what I believe in'. It's a talent-packed Australian squad, branded "great" by Meninga. They all loved their experiences with those teams, and were proud of the achievement, but playing for Tonga became something of a calling. Fittler's insight into the difficult decisions of an Origin coach has to make. A hymn! "Nines is a fantastic innovation and this group of players have been picked with this form of the game in mind - but also with a view to seeing what a number of them can do in an Australian jumper.". The sea of red that could be seen at Eden Park for the Tonga vs Australia rugby league match on Saturday. They are currently the fourth ranked team in the world. (L): The Tonga Invitational XIII celebrates beating Australia. The uncapped players in the squad are Wighton, Cotric, Josh Addo-Carr, Payne Haas, Paul Vaughan and Cameron Murray. Includes official live player and team stats. I've had plenty of advice from people in recent days since the publication of an opinion piece in which I said rugby cannot continue to be a game in which a large proportion of the players are brown and those in coaching and administrative roles are white. Rugby League legend Billy Slater discusses how Clint Gutherson could go close, if not all the way, to collecting the RLPA Players' Champion for 2020. Tonga triumphed 16-12 against Australia as the 2021 World Cup was thrown wide open ... 2019 — 8.44pm. : Immortal Behaviour - Finals week 2.