George Smith: The Biography

(Japan)

Late 1995. The end of year awards day at Balgowlah Boys High School had just drawn to a close. George Smith, then in Year 10 at the Northern Beaches public school and captain of the Under 15As rugby team, was not a scholar. He had not won any prizes. He certainly was not expected to either. His mind was elsewhere—on the summer Christmas holidays that were about to begin, on long hot days at Dee Why and Curl Curl beaches with his friends, on the exciting now of his mid-teens. On anything but the year to come and the direction of his life. That is, until his school principal took him aside outside the school hall and forced George to think very hard—and very quickly—about that future.

This was not the first time that George has been spoken to by Mr Houghton. He had already been suspended five or six times during the course of his school career for offences that ranged from swearing to being late for—or simply not attending—classes, to fighting. But this latest suspension, one that stemmed from George’s overly aggressive play in a school rugby union final against Mosman High, forced the principal’s hand. Going to the aid of a teammate who was being bashed, George retaliated by stomping on the head of the combatant, who lost half an ear.

For Mr Houghton it was the last straw and he had decided to eliminate the problematic George for good. The boy didn’t need to be top of the class to realise that his days at Balgowlah Boys’ High were over and his most pressing problem was how to tell his mother Selanoa and his father Rick. Heading home with a poor report card was one thing, but to do so after the principal has told you that if you return you will not be welcomed back, was another.

With the quick thinking and intuitive tactics that would work so well in rugby in the years to come, George rapidly hatched the perfect plan. He didn’t give his parents Mr Houghton’s message. Instead of trying to worm his way out of the situation with excuses, he told his parents he would like to follow in the footsteps of his older brothers, Egan and Patrick, and spend the next year in Tonga at Tupou College, a Methodist boarding school founded in 1866 at Toloa, near the village of Fua’amotu, 35 kilometres from the capital of Nuku’alofa. I knew how happy they were that they’d done it, the feeling of going back and experiencing Tonga … It had an affect on them. Mum thought it was a great idea.

George Smith is the son of a Tongan woman and an Australian father and was brought up in a large family—nine siblings—as many Tongan families are. Although the Tongan language was not generally spoken in the household, the children were raised with Tongan and English values, attending Sunday morning service at the Uniting Church in Dee Why, where hymns were sung in English and Tongan and services were followed by traditional Tongan family lunches that included taro, sweet potato, chicken, pork and shellfish. George might have thought he knew about Tongan culture but he was soon to find out that he didn’t have a clue.

Both of George’s older brothers had experienced a big culture shock when they went to Tupou, despite their Tongan heritage, so when George wanted to follow them there his siblings were concerned, more than his parents.

Patrick recalls: It was the little, things like showering—you showered in [a tiny] tub …Your scrubbing brush was a coconut husk. [And] it was very strict, very religious. Patrick has not forgotten the system that was in place at the school, which allowed not only teachers but also prefects to hit errant students. Patrick recalls his first experience: Because I was new everyone would call me over to talk to me. So the prefect called me out to the front and [as they did] one of the guys said, ‘Break the stick.’ I had to touch my toes … he belted me and the first time really hurt. Then I remembered the ‘break the stick’ comment, so as he went for the second [swipe] I put my butt back a bit and the stick broke. Patrick recalls another occasion when all students were ordered to line up, sit down, lean forward and cop the hose across their backs when one of them had failed to hand in their paper after an exam. The beating left thick welts across his skin.

Little wonder that George’s older sister Margaret was worried about him: I remember thinking, ‘I don’t know how he is going to go because he is such a quiet kid.’ He didn’t understand the language. It was a whole new culture he was going to.

George didn’t fly to Tonga, but instead travelled on a container ship. It was a two-week journey from Sydney that included delivery stops at Brisbane, Fiji, Western and American Samoa before arriving at its final destination. His mother bought George a one-way ticket on the Fuakavehga for the cost of $200 and two pigs: We killed them on a pig farm and brought them on to the boat.

George slept in the ship’s medical quarters, sharing with a cousin, Tevita, who was from American Samoa and was also heading to Tonga to attend Tupou College after a lengthy stay in Sydney. George suffered seasickness for a day part of the way into his fourteen days at sea, but he soon got his sea legs back and was able to enjoy the communal life on board. There was plenty of downtime on the Fuakavehga and it had its influence on George’s future: it was while he was watching a video on the ship that George was inspired to have dreadlocks.

But once he arrived in Tonga—5 kilograms lighter than his pre-trip 80-kilo body weight—the learning curve suddenly shot straight up. And that was despite the shock he felt when he discovered that his mother was there to greet him and to introduce him to her family, the local people, and the land that was still family property: I was surprised to see her but happy … I didn’t know anyone. I hadn’t even seen a coconut before, unless it had been peeled. Mum gave me a machete and said, ‘Get me a coconut’. I thought, ‘I can’t see the coconuts anywhere’, but she said, ‘There, the green things there.’ I was standing there a good fifteen minutes trying to figure out what to do with it when my cousin came over and said, ‘Look here.’ And he started slicing the coconut back. That was the first moment I realised I was out of my depth. What was I doing there?

Fua’amotu today has tarred roads, but when George Smith was there the roads were clay, hardened by the ever-present heat and humidity. Houses were small and weatherboard. For food and other supplies, there was one small corner store in the village, not the air-conditioned supermarkets he was accustomed to in Australia.

Imported beers and liquor were not commonly drunk; instead most people would drink a homemade, fermented alcohol called hopi which was poured into old Coca Cola bottles or milk bottles, and sometimes sweetened with flavouring. For day-to-day entertainment, there were no cinemas or game parlours. Telephones were a rarity.

Little wonder George didn’t need much money: I could survive on 20 cents a day. My parents always sent money to my bank account and I remember having a lot in there, but not knowing what to do with it.

George learned to appreciate the simple things in life. Once his mother left, he became friends with one of his cousins in Fua’amotu, Villi, who spoke enough broken English to help him pick up a smattering of the Tongan language and customs. A luxury he and Villi enjoyed was to buy a loaf of bread, cut it in half and push half a huge chunk of butter into each side then eat it along with a large mug of sugared tea.

The children, George discovered, played barefoot in the street—shoes being a rarity—and often used an old coconut in games of rugby. He didn’t shy away. I found it awkward walking in bare feet. Early, I was in lots of pain, but I got used to it. Your feet ‘callous up’, get hard. I also felt embarrassed wearing shoes. When I got new shoes I’d give them to the older cousins. In an early street game with the villagers, George floored one of the bigger boys: This big guy wouldn’t change his line and ran directly at me. I remember hitting him really good and putting him to the deck. All the others were laughing at the guy, that he could get tackled by me.

Initially, life in the village seemed beset by poverty to George, but he soon adapted to what was going on. It was an early awakening to different perceptions about wealth and what is important; what western society deemed valuable stood in stark contrast to what societies such as the one in Tonga regarded highly.

George’s first recollection of Tupou College was of the long, potholed and rubble-strewn road that led to its grounds. The road cut straight through thick bushland before suddenly opening up to the school grounds where an array of teachers’ houses and twelve dormitories stood in which ninety pupils slept side by side on paper thin mats that were rolled up each morning and stored next to the chest each boy had for clothes and personal items. There were also classrooms and rugby fields. At the centre of the entire complex was the church—the hub of all school activity.

Daily life in this self-sustaining school was unlike anything George had ever experienced in Sydney. First, the dress code was totally different: short-sleeved shirts were de rigueur—but with a tie. But in place of the usual black Bata shoes, long socks and shorts more usual in Australian high schools, Tupou College students wore tupenu—traditional Polynesian skirts—and thongs. Religion was strongly enforced. On Fridays, students would attend mass before class and then go to their homes in the village for the weekend. George would stay at the house of his Uncle Maile Holakeituai. Then on Sunday, when they returned, another mass was held in the school church in the evening.

School days began with a 6am wake-up after which students would spend an hour working in an adjoining school plantation collecting coconuts, taro and yams for the day’s meals. Similarly, after school, which lasted from 9am to 3pm, the day would end with students returning to the plantation to farm again. As a newcomer, George wasn’t immediately thrust into this routine; all new students were appointed a house teacher whose task was to help them fit in, which in George’s case meant that instead of working on the plantation, he spent the first few months working with his teacher preparing and cooking meals and cleaning the school grounds. And because the teacher spoke English, George had a way in to learn Tongan.

In time, the early bouts of homesickness subsided—George’s only form of contact with his family was one telephone call to Sydney each weekend from the sole village telephone—and he became more au fait with life at Tupou. He soon graduated to working on the plantation where he became best mates with his house teacher’s nephew, Veili.

On the plantation George learned to use the hula—a tool to cut crops and trees—which increased his strength and developed a new understanding of teamwork. Having only seen a coconut in its natural state for the first time just a few weeks earlier, George discovered how hard it is to climb coconut trees and cut the nuts down. He still can’t climb them properly: I can get about three-quarters of the way up. But it hurts so much on the feet. From not wearing shoes [the other Tongan boys had] developed calluses, which hardened them up.

Apart from newcomers, the only students not required to work on the school plantation were those training with the school rugby team. But George, despite his talent and potential, was advised against joining up because of his mixed racial background. My mates said: ‘Look George, it’s not worth it for you to try out. And even if you did make the team, you’d be the main target.’ Just because I was a light-skinned guy. So I didn’t bother. The main reason that I wanted to try out, though, was because the first XV and the second XV sides got to eat meat for lunch while all the other students just ate taro and yams.

George’s decision not to play rugby was probably wise but it did not stop him from discovering the rivalry that exists between opposing teams in Tongan rugby—and ultimately among the Pacific Islands. The ferocity of games he watched between Tupou College, a proud rugby school that used to tour France and Britain regularly, and its major rivals at Tonga’s main Teufaiva Stadium showed how deep the passion for rugby extends there. To this day, even as a Wallaby centurion, George has never underestimated playing against Islander sides.

By the time he left Tonga, George viewed the experience as a turning point in my life. To see the humility of the people, how they don’t strive for material gain … After eight months away, his family was shocked that the boy who walked through the door of their North Curl Curl home no longer weighed 75 to 80 kilograms, but was now only 60 kilograms. In such a short time I hadn’t noticed any difference, but my family said that I’d lost a hell of a lot of weight. But, if anything, I felt healthier. His body told him as much. Upon his return he satisfied his craving for a hamburger and chips—but he couldn’t finish them. I wasn’t used to eating that amount of food.

The impact of his stay and his attachment to his mother’s country of birth is strong. Selanoa Smith believes those eight months spent at school in Tonga were pivotal to her son. While he wasn’t there long enough to learn the Tongan language, he better understood the Tongan culture and with that developed a sense of Tongan identity that has endured.

George visited Tonga twice more after his 1996 stay. In 2001, he travelled there with his mother, David Weinstein, who was then his manager, and Hopoi Taione, a Tongan-born former rugby player. The principal reason for their trip was to take part in a series of rugby union clinics sponsored by the Macquarie Bank Sports program. But George had already become a rugby celebrity in Tonga and remembers being feted at the public parade at the annual Heilala festival during which he sat in the front of a convertible and threw lollies to an adoring crowd. Heady stuff for a nineteen-year-old. George says it felt weird but Weinstein recalls that his mum was so proud of him. They just loved him. They treated him like a king.

For all the headiness and happiness of that trip, it also nearly turned into a tragic misadventure. One day, George and Weinstein were taken deep-sea fishing for mahi-mahi. The trip was supposed to last for just a couple of hours, but when they ran out of petrol they realised they hadn’t told anyone about it (they had originally planned to go surfing) and they had no radio. The potential danger of their situation didn’t strike them until the sun began to set. They were facing the prospect of drifting further and further out and spending the night at sea. We were drifting and kind of seeing the funny side of it until the sun started to go down. We were laughing, but it was a pretty nervous laugh.

Ultimately, their fishing guide—weighing a sprightly 70 kilograms—volunteered to try to haul them to safety. After tying a rope around his waist and attaching it to the boat, he leapt into the ocean and began to swim to shore several kilometres away. The image of such a small person towing two larger people and a catch of mahi-mahi is something neither George nor Weinstein will ever forget. He’s swimming and keeps looking back asking, ‘Are we getting there?’ At the time, the fun kind of went out of it, Weinstein says.

Eventually, the guide stopped swimming, got back in the boat and began siphoning whatever fuel was still left in the tubes between the motor and petrol tank. He managed to extract just enough petrol to re-start the engine and, pointing the boat to the nearest shoreline, they got to within 30 metres of land from where George and his sunburnt crew walked through the shallow water to the beach. Potential Australian rugby disaster averted!

On his second trip in 2004, George also actually met the King of Tonga, Taufa’ahau Tupou IV, and presented him with a framed Wallabies jersey. George’s mother recalls that the king even asked him to return to Tonga to coach rugby. George believes he would consider a future relationship with Tongan rugby—but not as a coach. I’d like to be associated in some capacity, either in a consultancy, or mentoring backrowers. But coaching … That’s not something I want to do. Sometimes good players don’t make great coaches and I probably fall into that category.

It was the king, who died in 2006 and whose father was from the same village as Selanoa Smith, who gave George a plot of land overlooking the beach. He plans to build a house there one day, not to live in but to visit as a way of maintaining his family’s ties with the land of his forbears. I feel strong ties with Tonga and the village, he says. Going there helped me understand what the family—especially my grandparents—are talking about. It’s also important when I meet kids that they see me as Tongan … that they are proud I am Tongan. I am not looking for acceptance … rather that they can identify and say, ‘Look, in terms of rugby, George has done all right.’

As proud as his mother is of his rugby career in Australia, she yearns for George to one day play for Tonga before he stops playing for good. He wouldn’t be the first in his family to do so. In 2005, during his days at the Roosters, his brother Tyrone played for the island kingdom in a rugby league Test against Samoa in Sydney, and then again in 2008 in rugby union in an international against a World XV to celebrate the coronation of the new King of Tonga, George Tupou V.

Until he went to Tupou, most of what George had understood of his Tongan heritage came from what he had absorbed from the teachings of his mother. Selanoa Metuisela moved to Sydney to continue studying religion at Sydney University. Her goal was to become a church minister, and, while she never completed the task, in between work as an interpreter for new Pacific Islanders who had moved to Australia, she, assisted by her Australian husband Rick, resolutely ensured their family of nine children was raised with an understanding of the Tongan way.

The third eldest of his siblings, George was born on 14 July 1980 and named after his paternal grandfather who moved to Australia from England in the 1960s. The others in the family were his sisters, Margaret and Sulianna, his brothers—Patrick, Egan, Tyrone, Herbie (or Lisiate) and Tom—and his first cousin, Tevita, who had been adopted from his Melbourne uncle.

George has fond memories of his childhood on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, where his family moved from Beacon Hill. Sport was played constantly on the grass nature strip in front of the family house; games of footy, cricket, tennis, basketball and handball were regular fixtures. Patrick says the Smith children were the worst neighbours on Sunday morning. We were so competitive … from 6am to sunset. Every car copped a tennis ball … we didn’t appreciate the value of cars back then … George’s brothers and sisters remember him as a docile child who, according to his sister Margaret, was so relaxed he slept half the day away—including at school.

But he was not so docile that he could not cause more than his share of havoc. When George was a toddler he accidently burnt the family house down after playing with a box of matches and lighting some paper under his aunt Tina’s bed. "I was a bit of a ‘pyro’ and liked to burn stuff. I lit the paper under her bed one day and it caught fire. The flames just got bigger and burned the whole house down. There was a picture of our family in the Manly Daily … of us having a burned house and being a charity case. The insurance paid for the rebuild."

George’s sister Margaret has a clear recollection of the fire that broke out at about 4pm—and the panic. "I remember Mum was watching Gilligan’s Island and all of a sudden she was running out with the TV and a photo album."

Selanoa Smith recalls the plume of smoke over the house was so big that the Red Robbins rugby team—a sub-district side of Tongans who lived in the area and were training nearby—saw it and decided it had to be our house, and sure enough it was.

As potentially tragic as the fire might have been—and as disastrous as it still was—the Smith family discovered how tightly knit their neighbourhood was. In response, donations of food, clothes, money and even lifts to school for the children came their way. The people next door would even do their washing.

As for George, there was some retribution. He remembers that he was made to tell the story to students at North Curl Curl Primary School as an example of the dangers of fire.

Meanwhile, for the next eight months the Smiths lived in the double garage at the back of their property while builders constructed their new house—the two-storey building where George’s mother still lives. The Smiths had little trouble settling back into their new abode. The bottom floor was the romper room where all the brothers slept, while upstairs were the bedrooms taken by his two sisters and parents and the kitchen.

George’s parents divorced when he was seventeen years old. Rather than leave home altogether, however, his father Rick moved into the granny flat that had once been the double garage. George and his siblings therefore still saw his father a lot. Rick continued to organise trips to take them to play football—often with a writing pad in hand to jot down notes on their game and performance for discussion later. But when George was eighteen, their father left Dee Why to live on the New South Wales Central Coast.

During those years without their father, family discipline was always strict and deputised. George recalled that his mother would give the warnings but that his older brothers would carry the punishment out. There was a pecking order that stemmed from the regime in place at the school in Tonga: Patrick, as the eldest, would attend to disciplining Egan and Margaret; whereas George—the fourth eldest of the children—assumed the role as next in line to discipline his younger siblings. Pat would keep me and Egan and George in line, Margaret recalls. Because Sulianna came after George, he felt he was next in line to be in charge. As Tyrone explains: If Pat told George what to do, George would tell me what to do, and then I would go to Herbie …

It appears that when George returned from Tonga, he too brought the school’s disciplinary methods with him. After catching Tyrone and Tevita returning home late from a Trick or Treat run on Halloween, he stopped and ordered them to assume the touch your toes position Tyrone says, laughing: He got the broom and gave us fifty each. I’m pretty sure it was about fifty … maybe twenty. If you flinched you got another. We tried to bribe him with our stuff from trick or treating, but he wouldn’t have a bar of it.

The strength of identity with their Tongan heritage varied between the siblings—George’s brother Herbie even changed his last name to his mother’s maiden name, Metuisela—but all of them followed the traditional Tongan ways, mainly to please their mother. One constant in the family was religion, and Sunday service at the Uniting Church of Dee Why. Like his siblings, George thought the weekly church services he attended and the required recitation of the scriptures were a chore they undertook for their mother’s sake, culminating every year with festivals such as White Sunday or the Missionale.

All the Smith family children were consumed by sport, though. Everyone competed in his or her sports of choice several times during the week. Game day, in whatever sport, was near pandemonium as their parents transported them and a number of cousins around the area to playing fields or courts. Rick Smith had bought a milk truck after taking over a local milk run to earn some extra money, and used it to drive his brood about in. In an era when road laws were less severe, it was not uncommon to have up to a dozen children in the back with a blanket on the floor to provide some comfort, and Selanoa and Rick and one lucky child in the front.

George played both rugby league and rugby union when he was a schoolboy. He played union with the Warringah Roos, starting with the Under 7s, from 1984 to 1993, and league for the North Curl Curl Knights from 1991 to 1998. From the ages of eleven to thirteen, whenever there was a shortfall of teammates to make the numbers for a team in his age group, George moved up to play union in the Under 13s, Under 14s and Under 15s at the Warringah Roos with Egan, a very talented openside flanker. This continued until George was fourteen, by which time he morphed into a hooker. George also played union with Balgowlah Boys High School.

By the time he turned sixteen, after returning from Tonga, George was also playing rugby union for Cromer Boys High and still with the Manly Vikings under the tutelage of Ian McDonald, a long-standing stalwart of junior rugby in the area and one of the first coaches he remembers—not specifically for his coaching, but for his mentoring. McDonald was a regular face in the Smith household—a family friend. He spent many hours helping George and his fellow Pacific Islanders in the Northern Beaches to pursue rugby union—collecting Islander schoolboys from