Word: penrith
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...polynesian surge has forced coaches and administrators to review old habits. As a young player, Don Feltis idolized champions of the 1950s and '60s such as Clive Churchill and Johnny Raper. Nowadays, at 73, Feltis is immersed in the new wave as the boss of junior league at the Penrith Panthers, an NRL club west of Sydney where close to half the youngsters are of Polynesian descent. It's a realm very different from league of old, in which the Islander players routinely gather to pray before matches; in which a coach couldn't connect with his church-going...
...Daniel Penese and Willie Isa, both Auckland-born to Samoan parents, are Penrith teammates in the National Youth Competition, a nursery for the NRL. "Me and Willie were always stronger than the other kids," says Penese, who'd scatter opponents with a cattle-prod-like fend. Both say they were targeted by referees and implored by parents to take it easy. Isa contends there are two distinct sides of him: the aggressive, ultra-competitive footballer and the otherwise gentle man. Young Willie would crunch his fine-boned foes, then approach them after the game to say sorry. But the smaller...
...theorizes that, despite the grumbling on the sidelines, the spirit of rugby league is that you play the man in front of you. If that means being swatted aside by a bigger boy and having to pick yourself up, then that's football. "And in the long run," says Penrith recruitment manager Jim Jones, "it makes the smaller boys better players." At the same time, "The game is there for everybody to play," says Queensland Rugby League official Robert Moore. "We would just hope that we continue to have viable competitions that attract enough of the little guys...