* Extracted with permission from Inga: My Story by Myan Subrayan.
* Published by Penguin Books, RRP $40, trade paperback.
* Available now from all good booksellers.
* Copyright © Va'aiga Tuigamala, 2009
That first physical training session at Wigan is vivid in my memory. It was held on the top field and the conditions were a typical English winter's day: cold and wet. The coaching staff wanted to put me to the test. They wanted to find out where I was at with regard to my fitness and physical strength.
There were many lessons to be learned in my transition from union to league and no one gave me a rulebook so I could familiarise myself with the laws. I admit it could have been easier, but then I don't think it would have been as much fun. Having played in union as a winger, it was an obvious choice that they put me out on the wing - the reasoning being that it would be easier for me to learn the new game from a distance.
One of my first lessons in league was in the art of 'scrambling'. Those familiar with the code will know all about it. Usually it happens when the opposition kicks the ball on their fifth tackle.
The winger's role is to pick up the ball in the first and second tackles and run on from dummy-half. Picking up the ball in that first training session, I made my run. Surveying my options - or rather my 'victims' - my trained rugby eye was quick to pick out a puny-looking Englishman who seemed an 'easy target'. I could bowl this guy over effortlessly.
Boy, was I in for a surprise! I got sat on my backside big time. The shudder that went through my whole body when he hit me was immense. I'd never felt that kind of pain from a 'white boy' tackling me before.
I wish I could say that that was the end of it, but it wasn't. I had another crack at him during that training session. This time I would surely prove that his earlier tackle was a fluke. This time I'd make certain he was the one that went down. Boy, was I wrong again! He sat me on my backside for the second time and totally smashed me. I couldn't believe that one of the smallest guys on the park had flattened me twice in the one training session. So much for getting off to a flying start at Wigan and making an immediate good impression! This was totally embarrassing. How could it be?
Back at the showers afterwards the mystery of why it felt like I'd just been run over by a bus was explained. This puny white boy took off his shirt to reveal his 'muscle monkeys'. He may have looked scrawny but he was ripped and his body was as hard as an ox - I knew all about that as I'd just felt the full brunt of it, not once but twice. Looks were indeed deceiving in this new game. The guy in question who had flipped me on my back turned out to be none other than the great scrum-half Shaun Edwards, captain of Great Britain and Wigan. Boy, did I single out the wrong guy to go up against in training!
It was a rude awakening. The build of these league blokes, with their well-proportioned and battle-hardened bodies, was incredible. The long hours they put into working out at the gym, training with weights every day, made them as tough as nails.
It really woke me up to the reality that I had to get my body into much better physical shape. Those early months were an absolute shocker for me. I turned up not as fit as I thought I was and should have been. By playing union at the highest level I mistakenly thought I'd done enough to make the league grade.
The truth was that it took a good half-year to get myself into some respectable sort of shape to compete effectively. In my first week I had to undertake some fitness testing. I really wanted to impress my British team-mates and the fellow Kiwi contingent that was there - Frano Botica, Dean Bell and Sam Panapa. To be brutally honest, I was an absolute disgrace.
I couldn't even bench-press 115kg properly. As for doing a proper chin-up, all I could manage was one. What made it even more humiliating was that we had the youth academy training with us. They were talented school kids of about sixteen years of age and even they were beating me week in and week out.
It also took me a little while to get my head around the whole 'professional' aspect to playing sport. You were paid to play and train. Initially the regime came as a complete shock: regimented training sessions and programmes to follow that started early in the morning. You were told what time you had to turn up and what you had to do. We trained twice a day, early mornings and afternoons. We got to go back home in between and come back later in the afternoon which was good as I got to pick up my kids from school and spend time with them.
Back in New Zealand you went to work and trained only twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then played on Saturdays. The current routine was vigorous. On top of training every day and playing once a week, on the day before the game there was the 'captain's run' (when the team captain takes the team for a workout). It was not as intense but you had a good burst.
The hard, cold reality was that my unfitness exposed to me where I needed to be and it opened my eyes to the need to step up to the mark. League was certainly a very different kettle of fish to union. For a start, the game was much faster - in fact, I was blown away by just how fast it was. It was like playing a union test week in and week out. We played in so many competitions that it was not uncommon to take the field up to three times a week when the season heated up.
My body had to get accustomed to the pain that I was constantly subjecting it to as part of the relentless training and game time. It was really, really tough and that's no understatement. There were occasions when I ran so hard that I blanked out. But even the prop forwards were still beating me left, right and centre. It used to amaze me that they could run all day, and still make on average twelve tackles each time they went out on the park.
Some people might think me crazy to have continued to subject myself to this level of discomfort. But that was all part and parcel of the wonderful challenge I had in front of me. Sure, I could have felt sorry for myself, packed my bags and hopped on the next plane back to New Zealand with my tail between my legs. What inspired me to stick with it was the collective effort that I saw in evidence at Wigan. This truly great team was renowned for decades of outstanding achievements. That shared will to win was their hallmark. Just like the All Blacks, the priority was not the individual - whoever put on the team jersey was focused not on themselves but the team.
However, it is one thing to be a part of a team but quite another thing to contribute to it as well. A team full of champions is no promise of a champion team. In most sports you always have your prima donnas. At Wigan, individuals had to learn to let go of their egos for the team to succeed.
One is too small a number to achieve greatness
(John Maxwell).
These guys lived and breathed that ethos. And here I was playing alongside the likes of Martin 'Chariots' Offiah, Shaun Edwards, Sam Panapa, Dean Bell. These players were bona fide 'living legends' of the game, and I was out there in the middle with them.
When I arrived at Wigan, the season, which started in August and went through till about May, was already well under way. The good news was that the more I trained the fitter and stronger and more confident I became, and the more I started to enjoy my game. I played my first match about six or seven weeks after arrival. What a delight it was to score on debut, right on 80 minutes, against Widnes. Former Wigan chairman Jack Robinson was one of those taking a keen interest in the progress of their new 'convert'.
As you can see, the big challenge of those early days was to step up to the mark - do or die, I had to enter the furnace and come out the other end, refined. There was no other way.
