Va'aiga Tuigamala was one of the first blockbusting wingers in New Zealand, and indeed, world rugby before leaving the game to pursue a British league career. At his best, he was fast, powerful and tricky, but if he allowed the training to slip, not an unknown occurrence, he could look pedestrian and almost clumsy. Especially in his younger days, he looked capable of achieving anything on a rugby field.

Va'aiga Lealuga Tuigamala was born at Faleasiu, Western Samoa, on September 4, 1969, and was therefore six days older than Craig Innes, a player whose career would be closely connected with his own. He was one of the first of the Ponsonby-Kelston schoolboys to go right through the ranks, and the Tuigamala family have long, strong connections with that arm of the club.

Va'aiga was first noticed at Kelston Boys' High School, as a big, fast and exceptionally agile three-quarter. He made the New Zealand schools side in 1986 and 1987. Five of the latter backline would be All Blacks within four years and Tuigamala was clearly one destined for higher honours.

His first-class debut was in 1988, for Auckland B against New South Wales Country, and three days later he played in the same trial as Craig Innes. He had a few matches for Auckland, without making the same impression as Innes, and such was the strength at Ponsonby that he had several matches in reserve grade. At club level, his talent was starting to blossom and in 1989 he really made people sit up.

While still unable to command an Auckland place, he had a few games and scored a swag of tries. In all first-class play, he scored 22 times in 11 games, an extraordinary record, including three in the All Black trial, three for the Colts as they walloped Australia, three for the Barbarians against Counties and five for Auckland against Mid-Canterbury. There was little doubt he'd be one of the new players introduced into the All Blacks for the British tour, and so it proved.

Amazingly, he still played the odd game in reserves at Ponsonby, although he was soon a fixture in the seniors. He scored 25 tries in the season and turned out for a highly-talented Auckland Colts team rather than the main XV. In one colts match, against Waikato, he scored or created nine tries as Auckland ran up a century. He was within a week or so of All Black selection, and his unfortunate marker had no show of containing the man who had scored more than 50 tries that season.

After 1989, a subtle change started to come over his game. At club level he was still devastating, but at rep level he was no longer the dashing runner with the yard-wide side-step. Auckland started to use him as a bulldozer up the middle, normally running off Fox and turning the ball back into the loosies. It was effective, but also served to blunt Tuigamala's sharpest weapons. While he made the test team at the World Cup, he wasn't the menace he could have been.

He was given that bash-crash role for most of 1992, both with Auckland and New Zealand, and his try totals dwindled away to almost nothing. As a result of the hammering he was taking from the loose forwards, he'd bulked up, but not in the right way. Now almost 17 stone (108kg), he looked out of condition and his speed was greatly reduced from what it had been only three years earlier.

Ponsonby abounded with tales of the weird and wonderful excuses he trotted out for not doing the hard yards at training. Even players who thought they'd heard them all were learning some new ones. The All Blacks dubbed him 'Mr Beep' after Laurie Mains introduced the dreaded beep test in 1992; the team joke was that the big winger only had to look at the machine to set it off. When he trained off, he packed the weight on quickly, and it showed on the field. While he held his All Black place, it was mainly as a set-up man; he was no longer capable of making those scorching 50-metre runs which had been the hallmark of his early days. Auckland weren't so patient; he was dropped before the end of 1993, a move Graham Henry was entirely justified in making.

In the Barbarians game of 1993, he scored his first try in All Black colours since the Queensland game in 1992 - 18 matches and 17 months earlier. Mike Brewer made the comment in his book that, with regular training and people looking over his diet, he lost two stone (13kg) during the tour, which suggested he'd been overweight by at least that amount before it started. As the weight came off, his performance picked up, until he was at last back to something like his proper form at the end.

The Barbarians match marked the end of Phase I of his rugby career, as he signed to play league for Wigan during the tour. The general feeling in New Zealand was that the loss wouldn't be a killer, especially as rumours came back about Wigan wanting to use him as a prop, one of those ball-carrying mules who get battered from one end of the game to the other.

Imagine the surprise, then, when we next saw him. The Wigan trainers had really got stuck into their work and he looked like the Tuigamala of old. Playing at centre, he was a menace few teams could combat. Whoever read the riot act had done the job brilliantly and the cherry-and-whites got full value from their new signing. There was disquiet in rugby circles when he was reported as saying that league training was harder than the rugby variety, several people felt he could have done more to help himself in his amateur days.

He was an undisputed success at Wigan, helping the club to several titles. When rugby turned professional, Tuigamala was an immediate target for Manu Samoa, and, having been out of test football for the required three years, he was soon back in the international arena. His first appearance was instrumental in the Samoans belting Ireland in Dublin and he remains a big part of their plans. He hasn't returned to New Zealand, playing out his club rugby in England, first for London Wasps, then for Newcastle.

His biography Inga the Winger by Bob Howitt was published in 1993.

During the years when discipline ruled his training regime, Tuigamala has been a footballer of rare talent. When he was allowed to drift, he did just that. New Zealand rugby, through a combination of circumstances, never saw the best of him after 1989. What we had seen before then made that loss all the greater.

Profile courtesy Ponsonby District Rugby Football Club.

FULL NAME

Va'aiga Lealuga Tuigamala

BORN

Thursday, 4 September 1969 in Falesiu

AGE

40

PHYSICAL

1.79m, 94kg

POSITION

Wing three-quarter

LAST SCHOOL

Kelston Boys' High

RUGBY CLUB
(First made All Blacks from)

Ponsonby

PROVINCE

Auckland

RUGBY NICKNAME

Inga

ALL BLACK DEBUT

Sunday, 8 October 1989
v British Columbia at Vancouver
aged 20 years, 34 days

INTERNATIONAL DEBUT

Tuesday, 8 October 1991
v USA at Gloucester
aged 22 years, 34 days

LAST TEST

Saturday, 27 November 1993
v England at London
aged 24 years, 84 days

ALL BLACK TESTS

19 (0 as Captain)

ALL BLACK GAMES

20 (0 as Captain)

TOTAL ALL BLACK MATCHES

39 (0 as Captain)

ALL BLACK TEST POINTS

21pts (5t, 0c, 0p, 0dg, 0m)

ALL BLACK GAME POINTS

40pts (9t, 0c, 0p, 0dg, 0m)

TOTAL ALL BLACK POINTS

61pts (14t, 0c, 0p, 0dg, 0m)

ALL BLACK NUMBER

900

The All Black Games that Tuigamala played.
(+) = substitute; (-) = replaced

Click on the date to be taken to the Match Card

1989

 8 Oct vs British Columbia at Vancouver 48-3  

 18 Oct vs Pontypool at Pontypool 47-6  

 25 Oct vs Neath at Neath 26-15 (-) 

 8 Nov vs Leinster at Dublin 36-9 (-) 

 14 Nov vs Connacht at Galway 40-6  

 21 Nov vs Ulster at Belfast 21-3  

1990

 20 Oct vs Languedoc Selection at Narbonne 22-6  

 27 Oct vs French Barbarians at Agen 23-13  

 6 Nov vs A French XV at La Rochelle 22-15  

1991

 8 Oct vs USA at Gloucester 46-6  

 13 Oct vs Italy at Leicester 31-21  

 20 Oct vs Canada at Lille 29-13  

 30 Oct vs Scotland at Cardiff 13-6 (-) 

1992

 18 Apr vs World XV at Christchurch 14-28  

 22 Apr vs World XV at Wellington 54-26  

 25 Apr vs World XV at Auckland 26-15  

 30 May vs Ireland at Dunedin 24-21  

 21 Jun vs Western Australia at Perth 80-0  

 24 Jun vs South Australian Invitation XV at Adelaide 48-18  

 28 Jun vs N.S.W. at Sydney 41-9 (+) 

 4 Jul vs Australia at Sydney 15-16  

 12 Jul vs Queensland at Brisbane 26-19  

 19 Jul vs Australia at Brisbane 17-19  

 25 Jul vs Australia at Sydney 26-23  

 1 Aug vs Natal at Durban 43-25  

 5 Aug vs Orange Free State at Bloemfontein 33-14  

 15 Aug vs South Africa at Johannesburg 27-24 (-) 

1993

 12 Jun vs British & Irish Lions at Christchurch 20-18  

 26 Jun vs British & Irish Lions at Wellington 7-20  

 3 Jul vs British & Irish Lions at Auckland 30-13  

 17 Jul vs Australia at Dunedin 25-10  

 31 Jul vs Samoa at Auckland 35-13  

 23 Oct vs London & SE Division at London 39-12  

 30 Oct vs England South West at Redruth 19-15  

 7 Nov vs England 'A' at Gateshead 26-12  

 13 Nov vs Scotland 'A' at Glasgow 20-9  

 20 Nov vs Scotland at Edinburgh 51-15  

 27 Nov vs England at London 9-15  

 4 Dec vs Barbarians at Cardiff 25-12  

Points scored for the All Blacks

t

c

p

dg

pts

vs British Columbia, 8 Oct 1989

1

-

-

-

4

vs Pontypool, 18 Oct 1989

1

-

-

-

4

vs Connacht, 14 Nov 1989

1

-

-

-

4

vs Ulster, 21 Nov 1989

1

-

-

-

4

vs A French XV, 6 Nov 1990

1

-

-

-

4

vs USA, 8 Oct 1991

1

-

-

-

4

vs Italy, 13 Oct 1991

1

-

-

-

4

vs World XV, 18 Apr 1992

1

-

-

-

4

vs World XV, 22 Apr 1992

1

-

-

-

4

vs Western Australia, 21 Jun 1992

1

-

-

-

5

vs N.S.W., 28 Jun 1992

1

-

-

-

5

vs Australia, 4 Jul 1992

1

-

-

-

5

vs Queensland, 12 Jul 1992

1

-

-

-

5

vs Barbarians, 4 Dec 1993

1

-

-

-

5

Totals

14

0

0

0

61

Test Record by Nation

P

W

D

L

t

c

p

dg

pts

Australia

4

2

-

2

1

-

-

-

5

British & Irish Lions

3

2

-

1

-

-

-

-

-

Canada

1

1

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

England

1

-

-

1

-

-

-

-

-

Ireland

1

1

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Italy

1

1

-

-

1

-

-

-

4

Samoa

1

1

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Scotland

2

2

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

South Africa

1

1

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

USA

1

1

-

-

1

-

-

-

4

World XV

3

2

-

1

2

-

-

-

8

Totals

19

14

0

5

5

0

0

0

21