Transcript
JONATHAN PROSSER: So our squad currently is about 50/52 percent of Pacific heritage and the statistic I heard earlier this morning is that the NRL have forecast that by 2020 about 62 percent of the NRL is expected to be of Pasifika heritage. That's obviously just the men (but) with the World Cup and the growing interest in the women's game that trend should only be multiplied. Our aspiration is to be the best club we can be for our current player base, from all types of background, but also as we continue with these programs and our efforts around community engagement we want to make sure that we build up a really strong understanding of the cultural nuances between different nations and people from different backgrounds, so that we can be the club of choice for people in Fiji, so that we can be the club of choice in the wider Pacific and we can be the club of choice here in New South Wales in Australia.
VINNIE WYLIE: Is this something that the players have been on-board with or have they been involved with?
JP: To some extent and quite recently. So the wonderful work that the Core Group do with the Sharks has included building out a Pasifika homestay programme.
Often some of the young, aspiring superstars that come over from Pacific nations to stay in our area, to trial and move up through our squads, often they find it hard to settle in and get used to Australian and Sydney life. So we've been building out a network of communities of families, who are not necessarily all Pacific people themselves but are people who are very open to learning about Pacific culture, who spend time with the Core Group and with our player well being and education management to really understand the nuances, differences of culture and how they can really create that true home environment that's going to enable a young person to really thrive.
VW: The player welfare officers, a lot of them are of Pacific backgrounds because they're dealing with them and they can related to them. Have they had any involvement or have you had any other clubs looking over your shoulder going, "that's a bit interesting" and thinking about it themselves?
JP: Yeah absolutely. I've spent a bit of time chatting to Frank Puletua, who's at the NRL and does a wonderful job there as the Head of Pacific Strategy. In the football department they have great links into all of the different football development managers. The other thing, that was I guess a less structured basis, was that recently we were invited to the New South Wales Council for Pacific Communities annual awards. A couple of our NRL players were present and that night we actually won three awards. I don't say that to bang our drum but rather just again it's encouraging we seem to be listening to people and being guided to carry on doing the kind of things we're doing. (Toa Samoa international) Sam Tagataese was one of the NRL stars present that night and he turned around at one point and he looked at the three trophies on the table. I'm obviously paraphrasing but he said something along the lines of, "wow this is not only very special to see an NRL club playing in this space and being recognised for it. He said, "I've been in the NRL over 12 years and I've been through some stuff, I've seen some different things but this is my club". You could just sense that real pride and that sort of gave that special feeling again of encouraging to say yes we're doing some good stuff here so let's keep going.