Va'aiga Tuigamala & Joeli Vidiri
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R.I.P Inga the Winger
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Oh man, that sucks.
RIP
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@kirwan time for a name change?
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Dammit really? He'd be barely in his 50s. Remember him absolutely destroying it for the Colts in 89. Scored 4 if I think. Recall the joke that Grizz was only selecting Wright because he couldn't pronounce Inga's name!
He was an absolute beast in 92-93 and I was gutted when he went to League.
Fark me, with Jonah, Jerry and now Inga, the Heaven First XV is looking bloody strong these days.
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I had Inga in junior teams for 4 years from U12 to U15 before he went straight into the Kelston 1st xv (Apollo Perelini was also with us in that team). Inga mostly played openside flanker or Halfback for us as the more ball he got the more devastating he was for the opposition. He would often score multiple tries in a game. Sometimes he would open a team up with a clear run to the line but then head back to the traffic looking for more players to beat. When he got selected for the All Blacks we were invited to a celebration event at his local church. It was huge with amazing performances from Samoan and Tongan cultural groups and Church Choirs. Inga grew up in an overcrowded house brought up by his mom and older brother Silika, as their father died when he was very young. When he got the Wigan offer Inga asked myself and my co-coach, who knew him from very young, for advice as he was in turmoil about the decision. At that time he and his partner were living in his moms garage and they had little money. I think the offer was five hundred thousand dollars for three seasons and was an obvious choice but he still found it hard to make leaving family and the game he loved, but he did so and was able to eventually buy his Mother a house.
Rarely without a smile on his face, you would struggle to meet a more cheerful, kinder human than Inga the winger.
Finally a story I was told about him in his under 11 team. Inga was playing openside flanker and before a game his coach told him his job was to "kill the first five". Inga left his team huddle and went over to the opposition coach and asked who their first five was? When the coach pointed him out Inga approached the boy and said "I'm going to Kill you" before trotting back to his own team, then gave the kid a cheerful wave from the tail of the first lineout.
RIP to the Big Black Bus (what the French papers called him back in the day). -
shit news day gets shitter. RIP Big Man, Absolute pioneer & only 52.
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Think Ted said Inga was the best schoolboy player he ever saw.
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@rancid-schnitzel said in Va'aiga Tuigamala:
Dammit really? He'd be barely in his 50s. Remember him absolutely destroying it for the Colts in 89. Scored 4 if I think. Recall the joke that Grizz was only selecting Wright because he couldn't pronounce Inga's name!
He was an absolute beast in 92-93 and I was gutted when he went to League.
Fark me, with Jonah, Jerry and now Inga, the Heaven First XV is looking bloody strong these days.
Not to mention Lauaki off the bench.
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Interview from 2020 -
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How awful. Such a young age.
His rivalry with Campo is one of my favourite rugby memories.
RIP smiley guy.
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From NZ Herald.
For some reason I can't post the link.
Tuigamala's cause of death has not yet been confirmed - he was about to launch a new video series in which he talks openly about his health struggles, including being diagnosed last year with type 2 diabetes.
"The reality was, I was facing an early graveyard," Tuigamala says in a preview video of the series, Project ODICE (obesity diabetes intervention champion evangelist). "And when I say early grave, my father died at the age of 48 from a stroke. He wasn't obese, but he had a stroke and died and left 15 children to my mum to look after.
"I suppose for me, I just don't want to be another statistic. Hence the reason ODICE was born. The reality is unfortunately I've been diagnosed with type two diabetes recently. I'm obese as you can see. High blood pressure, I had a stroke about nine years ago. I've really - in rugby terms - just dropped the ball."
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Loved watching him play, that huge smile.
RIP Big man.
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That is such a sad, poignant article. Thanks for posting. I think. 😟
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Just when I thought today couldn't get more shit.
Rest In Peace and thank you.
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Shit news, RIP Inga.
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Very sad, gosh he was fun to watch back in the day.
When I was perusing the stats in the paper and looking at the weights listed( Fox and Wright were in the 70s I think ) I remember thinking, “Whoa, 94 kilos….and he’s a winger ????, what the ?”
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I first watched Inga when Kelston came to Hamilton for a 1st XV game. I remember him dominating down the left wing that day.
Sad that his younger sister died in an accident only a few weeks ago. RIP.
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The guy showed the world a new blueprint for the wing.
Pre-Inga wingers were like Terry Wright. Fast skinny blokes that didn't expect much contact in a game.
Suddenly we woke up to the realisation that there are fast big guys around too and if they got to run in space watch out.RIP Inga the Winga!
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Only saw Inga just after New Year , he was with his wife at Countdown Glendene , he was telling me about a show he was doing with Eroni Clark and couple of other lads he had played with , he had such a booming personality with the greatest of smiles ,we shared a couple of laughs a real good bugger.
A Kelston Boys High School ,Ponsonby ,Auckland ,All Black and Wigan Rugby League legend
E aroha nui atu ana ki te Tuigamala Whānau i tēnei wa pōuri.🙏🏼❤️ -
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Fuck, way too young.
RIP.
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great player
by all accounts a great bloke too.
i watched a lot of Wigan in the mid-90s too so Inga had a place in my heart from there as much as Black
52 is no age. (and far too close to me for my liking)
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@mariner4life said in Va'aiga Tuigamala:
great player
by all accounts a great bloke too.
i watched a lot of Wigan in the mid-90s too so Inga had a place in my heart from there as much as Black
52 is no age. (and far too close to me for my liking)
Sounds like he had let himself go physically. A shame Ted didn't rope him into that Match Fit TV show
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@canefan said in Va'aiga Tuigamala:
@mariner4life said in Va'aiga Tuigamala:
great player
by all accounts a great bloke too.
i watched a lot of Wigan in the mid-90s too so Inga had a place in my heart from there as much as Black
52 is no age. (and far too close to me for my liking)
Sounds like he had let himself go physically. A shame Ted didn't rope him into that Match Fit TV show
He'd dropped 30kgs plus as of December (https://www.facebook.com/brownbuttabean/posts/444364063725615) so he was back on the right track as of late.
Any of the recent All Blacks we've lost all hit hard, but there's something particularly sad about losing Inga. As has been mentioned, he was the first antithesis to Terry Wright that I can remember watching play the game. A bit scary to remember how long ago the 1991 RWC is now.
An absolutely top bloke too. Jason Robinson was one of the first to tweet the news, and had this to say in 2015: Jason Robinson thanks Inga Tuigamala for saving him
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Wow and now I just read that Joeli Vidiri has also just passed away
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@jk just had message from my son ,Hoskings Sotutu has posted on instagram
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@steven-harris yeah I saw it on the blues FB page
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@jk sad day alround , shows how fickle life is
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holy fuck, today sucks more now!
Joeli, was up there as one of the finest in the game, and for a period, was almost peerless, sadly alot of that time he was in the international doldrums and didnt get to show his wares properly in Black.
RIP Joeli!
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@mariner4life said in Va'aiga Tuigamala & Joeli Vidiri:
great player
by all accounts a great bloke too.
i watched a lot of Wigan in the mid-90s too so Inga had a place in my heart from there as much as Black
52 is no age. (and far too close to me for my liking)
Younger than me. Mind you, I had my heart attack at 49.
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@booboo said in Va'aiga Tuigamala & Joeli Vidiri:
@mariner4life said in Va'aiga Tuigamala & Joeli Vidiri:
great player
by all accounts a great bloke too.
i watched a lot of Wigan in the mid-90s too so Inga had a place in my heart from there as much as Black
52 is no age. (and far too close to me for my liking)
Younger than me. Mind you, I had my heart attack at 49.
Did you have it just after someone else also had it?
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This is a sad time, so many of these rugby players I idolised growing up are gone too soon.
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@kirwan said in Va'aiga Tuigamala & Joeli Vidiri:
This is a sad time, so many of these rugby players I idolised growing up are gone too soon.
Both Joeli and Jonah gone now. So sad.
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@donsteppa said in Va'aiga Tuigamala & Joeli Vidiri:
@canefan said in Va'aiga Tuigamala:
@mariner4life said in Va'aiga Tuigamala:
great player
by all accounts a great bloke too.
i watched a lot of Wigan in the mid-90s too so Inga had a place in my heart from there as much as Black
52 is no age. (and far too close to me for my liking)
Sounds like he had let himself go physically. A shame Ted didn't rope him into that Match Fit TV show
He'd dropped 30kgs plus as of December (https://www.facebook.com/brownbuttabean/posts/444364063725615) so he was back on the right track as of late.
Any of the recent All Blacks we've lost all hit hard, but there's something particularly sad about losing Inga. As has been mentioned, he was the first antithesis to Terry Wright that I can remember watching play the game. A bit scary to remember how long ago the 1991 RWC is now.
An absolutely top bloke too. Jason Robinson was one of the first to tweet the news, and had this to say in 2015: Jason Robinson thanks Inga Tuigamala for saving him
- Losing the weight unfortunately won't get rid of the blockages in the arteries.
- Definitely hard. Is the first of those I had the good fortune to play against.
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@mariner4life said in Va'aiga Tuigamala & Joeli Vidiri:
@booboo said in Va'aiga Tuigamala & Joeli Vidiri:
@mariner4life said in Va'aiga Tuigamala & Joeli Vidiri:
great player
by all accounts a great bloke too.
i watched a lot of Wigan in the mid-90s too so Inga had a place in my heart from there as much as Black
52 is no age. (and far too close to me for my liking)
Younger than me. Mind you, I had my heart attack at 49.
Did you have it just after someone else also had it?
Yeah, comes across a bit me, me, me doesn't it (and my next post).
