KEY POINTS:
Moments after scoring a try in Wakefield's 54-16 win over Super League rivals Castleford last May, Adam Watene pointed to a tattoo in honour of his father who had died a month earlier.
It was Watene's first game back after burying his father and few knew he'd had 'Barry Watene' inscribed on his forearm.
No one knew Adam Watene himself would be dead less than six months later after suffering a heart attack while training. He was 31.
The prop had been lifting weights at the club's gym on October 13 when he collapsed.
"It's been horrific," says Moana, his partner of 16 years, of the past three months. "How do you start your life again when you've been with someone for 16 years and then there's nothing? I have been trying to do the best for my kids."
There had been no warning,
despite his father and another close relative having died in the previous 12 months. The extensive medical tests he went through as a Wakefield professional revealed nothing of the
timebomb inside his chest.
He had complained of soreness, Moana says, but that wasn't unusual after resuming training following a month off. The coroner's report said he died of cardiomyopathy, literally heart muscle disease.
The cruel irony was that he was the fittest he had ever been after a frustrating 2008 season marred by injury and family bereavement.
More than 1000 people turned out on a wet Yorkshire day for his
memorial service at Wakefield Cathedral, yet his death barely rated a mention in the country of his birth, where he was a virtual unknown.
"He impressed me so much, I told Howie [Tamati] they should consider him for the Kiwis," says former Kiwis coach Frank Endacott. "He would have been an asset because he was big and mobile."
For all his playing abilities, however, he made an even bigger impression off the field.
"He was a very good rugby league player and a champion of a man," Wakefield coach John Kear says.
It was a sentiment shared by everyone who met him and was why he was invited by Wakefield deputy mayor Heather Hudson to accompany her to official functions.
The consort role required someone of profile and standing in the community and Watene was the obvious choice for Hudson. The pair had become good friends during Watene's six-month stint with Castleford and the families used to holiday together.
"It was a great opportunity for him," Moana says, "and he jumped at the chance. It was a great opportunity to meet different people.
"He was very quiet, very private. He was a really good guy and a soft and gentle person, which is a bit out of the ordinary for someone who plays rugby league. He was always smiling."
Smiling is something Moana has found hard to do of late but she has travelled back to Britain with their children, Arana (10) and Ena (four), for a catalogue of events planned as part of a testimonial year to support the family.
Two weeks ago, a Wakefield side that included his son played a selection from the English soap opera
Emmerdale and tonight, Wakefield and Castleford, two of the clubs Watene played for, will contest the Adam Watene Memorial Cup. It's
expected the cup will be contested annually.
Wakefield's 2009 jerseys will all have Watene's No 8 and his signature inscribed on the front.
The family will receive the proceeds from a Full Monty-style calendar featuring players with only a strategically-placed rugby league ball to protect their modesty.
A host of UK-based rugby union and rugby league identities, including Chris Jack, Lesley Vainikolo, Shontayne Hape and Willie Poching, will also gather in London later this year for a fundraiser.
It's an evening being organised by close friend Kim Parkinson and his wife, who were on holiday in the Serengeti when they found out about Watene's death.
They couldn't get a flight out of Tanzania to attend his funeral, when he was laid to rest beside his father at a cemetery in Thames.
"He was the most genuine man I ever met," Parkinson says from his London home.
"He never changed in the time I knew him. He wasn't there for the fame, he just wanted to make his family proud."
Parkinson met Watene in 2000 when the pair played for the Burleigh Bears on the Gold Coast and Watene soon joined him building swimming pools.
Watene was signed for the Canterbury Bulldogs but couldn't crack the NRL, returning to Burleigh six months later. But it wasn't long before he secured a contract with Castleford, who were in the UK first division.
"When he was at Castleford, he got the players' player award nearly every other week," says former team-mate and distant relative Frank Watene. "The winner got to drive a classic car for a week. He had that most of the time and mostly because he never had a car, so the boys would sort it out for him. But he could play a bit. He was too good for the first division."
He helped Castleford win promotion to the Super League and had an offer to stay but signed for Bradford, who were Super League champions in 2005. He played only four games for the Bulls but his fortunes turned when he joined Wakefield mid-season.
"His big year with me was 2007, when he won all the players' player and coach's player of the year awards," Kear says. "He swept the board. In 2007, he had an absolutely outstanding season.
"He had a great presence in the dressing room and on the field. He didn't say much but when he spoke, everyone listened. He was a leader who led by example.
"He was a very good prop forward. If Stephen Kearney had asked me, I would have been pushing him to play prop for New Zealand, I rated him so highly. He was an aggressive ball
carrier and a really tough defender. He was everything you wanted in a prop forward and everything you wanted in a senior professional at your club."
Watene wanted to keep playing for as long as he could, whether that was in the UK or France, but he was already thinking about life after rugby league.
"He didn't want to do the normal thing and go into coaching," Moana says. "He wanted to become a PE teacher. He was really good with kids and was always going to schools. He really enjoyed that and enjoyed talking to kids more than adults. We planned to settle back in Australia. Our dream was to buy a place by the beach and the kids wanted a pool and a trampoline. We just wanted the quiet life."
For Moana, Arana and Ena, it's a different type of quiet they are dealing with now.
