Big League Feature: Ben Te’o – Second Wind
Joe Barton
Big League
Given their current state of woes it’s likely the Warriors are ruing cutting loose exciting back-rower Ben Te’o, who is poised to take his NRL career to a new level.
JUST days after being cut by the New Zealand Warriors’ junior program as a promising 17-year-old, the image of Wests Tigers’ second-rower Ben Te’o running through orange-tipped witches hats on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula showed why he would eventually cut it in the NRL.
Independence has always come easily to Te’o, the middle child in a family of six, who had to push five siblings for the attention of his parents – but it didn’t bother him.
In early 2005 the Junior Kiwi was “brushed” by the Warriors when a serious calf injury took longer than expected to recover –and yes, that bothered him; but it didn’t stop him.
While doing his rehabilitation, Te’o was effectively told “thanks, but no thanks” by the old Warriors management. But instead of going into his shell and giving up on his NRL dream, Te’o used the snubbing as motivation to get his career back on track.
Every school lunchtime, the St Pauls College student would take out the witches hats and set up his own grueling drill sessions – determined to overcome the injury and reach his NRL goal.
The hard work paid off – one of his old friends, Auckland Vulcan Herman Retzlaff, was turning heads at Keebra Park High, the Gold Coast nursery that produced Benji Marshall, and an opportunity arose.
“I was raised like that, from my parents,” Te’o told Big League. “My dad always says things like ‘whatever you want to do, put your mind to it and you can do it, you don’t need anyone else’.
“So when (the Warriors) just said ‘see ya later, thanks for coming to training but we don’t need you any more’, I was halfway through my rehab and just did the rest myself.”
Going solo is clearly something that doesn’t intimidate the youngster – just as Brisbane great Shane Webcke did in his illustrious 12-year career for the Broncos,
Te’o currently manages his own contracts after parting ways with manager Daryl Mather in the pre-season.
The 21-year-old wasn’t happy with what he says was a limited amount of feedback and thought it would be easier to take on the added responsibility himself.
Again, it was a strategy that paid off – Te’o is currently weighing up three healthy contracts he negotiated on his own, including one from the Wests Tigers, but sources say he will tell the club on Friday that he has taken up an offer to join the St George Illawarra Dragons.
But even for a master of independence such as Te’o, the taxing process of contract negotiations began to take its toll in recent weeks.
“I’ve been (here) for three years now, and I love the Tigers and get along really well with the boys and the coaching staff,” Te’o said.
“I’d love to stay, but it doesn’t always work out. It’s a hard thing. It’s been really stressful.
“Come Thursday (of every week) I try not to think about contracts and all that, I just try to think about the game, but it’s been pretty stressful trying to handle my management and my football at the same time.
“I always thought in the future that I would like to do something like that because management fees are pretty big these days, and if you’re on a big contract then they’re getting a lot of money… and to be honest… the amount of work that they say they do is not that hard.
“For Shane Webcke being in Brisbane, I mean he could always just rock up into the CEO’s office and say ‘look, I want this, that or whatever’ and get it done because he’s Shane Webcke.
“But I always thought that maybe down the track when I get a bit of a profile that I could do that but it sort of happened pretty fast now and I’m doing it without a profile…”
And it was some sage advice from his old Keebra Park coach Greg Lenton that proved the catalyst for his burgeoning managerial skills. It stuck with him over a rocky 12 months where he has been forced to work out who his real friends are.
“He used to say things and I’d look at him and go ‘are you sure?’ but now I see a lot of those things are coming true.” he said. “Just things to do with being a professional footballer, and managers, and management… sometimes you come across people where all they want it something out of you. They don’t care about you, they just care about their part of the deal.”
‘Management fees are pretty big these days, and if you’re on a big contract then they’re getting a lot of money; to be honest the amount of work that they say they do is not that hard’ – Ben Te’o
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Posted:Fri, 13 Jun 2008 10:37:00
