Some clarity and a pig or two

The dates are in, the decisions have been made by the OFC top brass and we now have a goal to aim for. As I mentioned in my previous blog Tonga will no longer be competing at year’s South Pacific Games in New Caledonia as the football competition will not be recognised by FIFA as official Oceania regional World Cup Qualifiers due to Guam’s participation. Instead, the “bottom four countries” in the region – Tonga, Western Samoa, American Samoa and Cook Islands, will play in a preliminary qualifying competition from November 21^st to November 28^th in American Samoa and Samoa. What has since made this decision even more unpalatable is that is appears Tonga is the only team now not competing at the South Pacific Games. So our “bottom four” competitors will have had the benefit of four to five tough matches before we play them in November.

This decision was made on Thursday of last week and rumour quickly spread to my team before I was able to communicate the decision myself. As such when the boys arrived for our monthly fitness testing the atmosphere can only be described as despondent. The boys were upset. They had been training, hard, very hard, over the course of 13 weeks and had committed to up to six days per week. This I had been told was the most committed a Tongan Men’s National Team had ever been and the boys had not only gave up their time (remember these are all amateur players) but had to spend what little money they had each week on bus fares to training each day. Out of a squad of 26 players three have jobs and two are still at school, so this was a massive commitment for the boys and I can understand why they were so upset. They had been promised a chance to play the region’s best, to represent their country at the region’s most prestigious event and the light at the end of the tunnel had been blacked out.

When I arrived at training the boys were sitting, huddled mumbling to each other. I instantly realised they knew something was up as I was usually greeted to training by a chorus of laughter as the boys would start their own games of ‘head-tennis’, pig in the middle or would be practicing dribbling/shooting techniques. I was very proud of this as it represented a shift in culture, teams of the past usually waited until training started at 4pm before even touching a football and the fact my boys were voluntarily kicking a football round at 330pm each day proved their commitment to the cause. I sat down with the lads and they all looked at me and conversation stopped until one of the senior lads told me, “We’ve heard we are not going to New Caledonia anymore. We don’t want to train anymore and some of the boys want to quit. We want a meeting with you and Lui Aho (TFA’s CEO)”.

Tents at The Church Conference Feast

I essentially had a group of players that after training so hard and improving to a level where we could have been competitive at any regional competition were willing to pack it all in, and I couldn’t blame them. They had been told previously that we would go to New Zealand, then Fiji, then Fiji and New Zealand before travelling to New Caledonia, and now we were going nowhere. There are not many teams round the world that would train for 13 weeks without playing a competitive game or going on tour and the fact we had been able to keep the boys’ commitment at such a high level is testament to the coaching staff. I spent the next 30 minutes explaining to the boys in a variety of broken Tongan and English what the situation was (why we weren’t going to New Caledonia), what would happen now ( we would travel to the Samoas in November) and what I personally thought of the situation and why I believed the boys should carry on training. I then offered the boys a few alternatives for training ranging from carrying on as we were for a couple of weeks before a larger rest period and to taking a break now and resuming light training the following week. I didn’t want to stand there and tell the boys what they had to do, I wanted them to take ownership of the situation and come together as a team to make a decision. I told them that whatever decision they came to I would support them but not to throw away what we had achieved in the past 13 weeks.

I left the boys to it and went to clear our field of the markers I had set out for training while watching intermittently as the boys raised their hands to vote on various ideas. Eventually they came to an agreement and decided, as a team that they wanted to keep on training after a short rest period of five days (one of the options I gave to them). I said we would train three times per week until the start of August and pick up then pick up the pace once more. Having gone from threatening to quit the boys had made a collective decision to commit to football and to commit to a further five months of hard work. I was incredibly proud of the boys as anyone who has worked or lived here will tell you Tongans will generally take the easy way out, they will take the easy road rather than commit to hard work and usually in group situations decisions are made based on what the ‘elder’ of the group wants, rather than consensus. The fact that my boys took a vote and that each lad ranging in age from 17 to 39 had a say in a collective decision is amazing. The boys had committed to hard work over five months by coming to a collective consensus, this doesn’t happen regularly in Tonga!

To celebrate, all the boys invited me to a feast the following day (Friday of last week). The feast was part of the Wesleyan Church’s ‘Conference Week’, which from what I could gather, consisted of people eating as much food as possible for ten days. If there is one thing Tongans can do well, it is feast! When I arrived at the feast, which was held in a field behind a church in central Nuku’Alofa, I have never seen so much food in all my life. Tables were 20m long and there were at least 50 tables in this field. Each table was covered in food, multiple layers high. To put this into perspective, I sat on the corner of one of these tables and in front of me was: a pig, lobsters, crabs, lamb, roast chicken, fried fish, oysters, root vegetables, mussels, potato salads, crab salads, fried rice, bacon & egg pies (my personal favourite), omelettes, sausages and a fruit platter. Now that was only one corner of one table and I’d say each table had five to six of everything I mention above! It was just huge. Not only does this happen every day for ten days but it happens four times each day at 7am, 1pm, 5pm and 10pm!!

The Feast

I later learnt the downside to this feast, the church (without doubt the richest institution in Tonga) does not actually organise any food itself. Instead it asks mostly poverty stricken Tongans to prepare one or two of these feasts for the week. Each village takes it in turn to prepare a feast and it can cost Tongans months of savings to simply supply food for the church. As one of my boys said, “Tongans are not rich, I don’t know how we do it but we are always rich and rich in food for the conference”. Make up your own mind but I think it is a disgrace.

The Food

The Queen - people would approach the table with gifts of.... tinned beef

So where do I go from here? As frustrating as it has been and as much as my enthusiasm has waned somewhat, I now see this break as an opportunity rather than a hindrance. I am heading to Samoa for a three day coaching seminar with the coaches of Samoa, American Samoa and the Cook Islands on July 20^th and will then return to Australia for seven and a half weeks following that course. Since the decision not to travel to New Caledonia has been taken I emailed an Australian based FIFA Coaching Instructor asking if there was any way he could assist me in finding elite training sessions that I could attend in Australia. To my surprise (I had sent these types of emails before, in fact in 2006 I sent an email to 100 professional clubs in the UK and received three responses, one positive from Motherwell FC where I attended training sessions for three weeks) I received an email a few days later from one of the most senior figures within the Football Australia (FFA) saying yes, the FFA would definitely help you and can look to organise training sessions at the AIS and A-League clubs for you to attend.

Needless to say this is an amazing opportunity for me to learn from some of the best in Australia and I can’t wait to get along to these sessions and bring back what I learn with me to Tonga.

Seven weeks to go… I think

Today marks seven weeks until the National Football (soccer) Team of Tonga, of which I am head coach, is supposedly leaving for our 2014 FIFA World Cup Qualifying matches in New Caledonia at this year’s South Pacific Games (SPG). At present the plan is to spend 10-14 days in Fiji prior to the tournament kicking off in New Caledonia on August 24^th and play a number of regional Fijian teams and other international sides who will be using Fiji as a training base before playing in New Caledonia.

Before training - still no training gear!

The team has been preparing for 13 weeks now and after coming through a fairly intense period of developing the side’s fitness we are now down to a final squad of 26 which will be trimmed to 20 for the qualifying tournament. I am incredibly happy with how the boys have transformed themselves into a team over the past three and a bit months and how the coaching staff (of which I have a Fijian assistant, an American strength and conditioning coach, three local assistants who we are grooming to take over national sides in the future and my Tongan Technical Director) have developed the boys’ technical and tactical ability over that time. Over 13 weeks we have gone from playing kick and rush football with no particular aim to keeping the ball on the deck and trying to play effective football. Needless to say I am incredibly proud of the way the boys have developed and they are a pleasure to coach. There are no egos in the squad, as you get at all levels in Australia, and the boys always give 100% in training and will try to comprehend what we ask of them and to put it into practice. I have even got the boys asking questions in training and requesting extra training, which for anyone who has worked in Tonga knows that Tongans asking for extra work of any sort is a rarity!

We recently had a FIFA official here in Tonga who was inspecting our facilities to ensure FIFA’s Goal Project money was spent properly; however the inspector had also been a national coach of New Zealand and has an intimate knowledge of Oceania football. On his final day here we played an ‘inter-club trial’ and the inspector said he was very impressed with the level of the boys’ play for a team from Tonga. A back-handed compliment if there ever was one, but a compliment none the less.

I say supposedly leaving, as while we have been preparing the squad for 13 weeks a spanner has recently been thrown into the works that mean our plans could change completely. As mentioned the first round of Oceania World Cup FIFA Qualifiers were to be part of the 2011 SPG in New Caledonia. However there are countries eligible to compete in the SPG that are not part of FIFA’s Oceania Football Confederation (OFC). One country, Guam (from FIFA’s Asian Football Confederation), had previously agreed not to compete in the football competition at the SPG as if they did play, FIFA would not recognise the SPG football tournament as World Cup Qualifiers for Oceania, as a team from Asia would be playing in the tournament. To put it into perspective it would be like Morocco or Brazil playing in the European World Cup Qualifying competition. Guam have now said they want to play in the football tournament - as is their legal entitlement with Guam being part of the South Pacific Games Council - however this now means the OFC will need to organise another tournament to act as the 2014 FIFA World Cup Qualifying competition for Oceania.

At the outset I saw this development as positive. With the SPG no longer being World Cup Qualifying, Tonga would have competitive warm-up matches in a serious tournament before World Cup Qualifying. However, I have since learnt the basic issue for football associations from countries in the region like Tonga is we cannot afford to participate in New Caledonia this September and then travel once more to another country in the region a few months later to play more games. With very little funding going into the game here in Tonga, apart from FIFA’s annual handout, it is an incredibly expensive project to send 20 players and four staff anywhere in the Pacific. From Tonga we can only fly directly to Fiji, New Zealand or Australia and once you add on connecting flights to a place like New Caledonia, then four weeks’ worth of accommodation, food, training and playing kits, medical and physiotherapy supplies the cost to send our team easily reaches six figures. Tonga simply cannot afford to spend up to one million Pa’anga (nearly 500,000 Australian Dollars) within three-six months to send one representative team to two competitions.

While nothing has been set in stone as yet, it appears 99% certain that Guam will exercise their legal right to play football at the SPG. So what does this mean for Tonga? From my perspective it is annoying. We have been preparing for 13 weeks on the basis that we would leave in seven weeks’ time and our preparation has been scheduled accordingly. Initial rumblings from OFC indicate a regional World Cup Qualifying tournament would now not be held until March, nine months away. This would basically mean the boys would have been training for 12 months without any competitive matches and would necessitate a change in schedule to ensure that while the boys stayed together as a group over the next five to six months, we would not train six days per week as is our current schedule. Ideally it would also mean we would play International Friendlies as a warm-up, however I can't be certain this would eventuate.

Bit of defensive shape work

If this does happen and Tonga will not be playing until March, 2012 and it also leaves my position in the air. As those of you who read this blog know, I am here as a volunteer and have found myself in the right place and the right time to be elevated to the position of national coach. My contract here is to finish on September 19^th (one week after I was scheduled to return from New Caledonia), so if I was to go home the Tonga Football Association (TFA) would need to then need to decide if they wanted me to stay on as their coach. Luckily for me, the TFA have indicated they want me as their National Coach and are willing to do what it takes to ensure I am in charge of the boys come March. However, monetarily they cannot afford any wages for me (which would will be modest at best, perhaps $500 Australian per week at the very highest end of the wage spectrum) for any longer than two months.

All things considered I would certainly put my hand up to come back a month earlier without pay to ensure the boys got a good 12 week intensive program in before the World Cup matches however that still means I would be home in Australia for four-five months before returning, what would I do? I have no idea, probably try and get a short term role in PR and in an ideal world I would be able to visit a few Australian clubs and potentially the AIS Football Academies to observe training and bring back those methods to the boys here to help them prepare for their Qualifiers. Maybe even follow in the footsteps of this man - http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/13846140.stm. Don’t worry…. I know I’m dreaming!

Every Friday kids from all over Tonga come in for the national School's Competition - a few shots

Palangi United - The Volunteers' attempts at playing football here in Tonga

Men's team after 6-0 loss to National Champions... was only 1-0 at half time so not too bad!

Women's team after 4-2 loss to Popua... was an awesome effort to nab two goals, hopefully the blokes can do the same next week!

The trouble with Tonga....

The trouble with Tonga is that you just can’t trust the majority of Tongans. I have been back in Tonga now for a week after a very quick visit to Sydney for a series of meetings (i.e. going to the pub with mates) and for the birthday of a “special friend”. I returned with 13 pairs of football boots that my two brothers (one aged 12) decided would be better off on the feet of Tongan children as opposed to sitting at the bottom of a cupboard.

On my first day back I decided to leave the bag of boots under my desk rather than cycle them the 11km back home. I returned the next day and a pair of boots had been stolen. This is an unfortunate common aspect of life in Tonga - lying and petty crime is endemic.

Kids who need boots... looks like one kid has footy boots

A month previously I was chatting to a colleague of mine, a Fijian, who has lived in Tonga for 18 years. He is married to a Tongan and his job is community orientated, where ever we go in Tonga people are shouting out to him and he is well liked. We were discussing the recent theft of a my housemate’s bike while driving my National team back home after training and he said,

“Man… Tongans are the biggest hypocrites in the world. All week they steal and lie but think if they go to church on Sunday, say sorry and put some Pa’anga in the collection plate it is all OK.”

At first I didn’t give his comment too much credence as I assumed it was simply a frustrated comment from a frustrated man who has had to deal with Tongans in his professional, private and community life for the past 18 years. And believe me; I can see how that may lead you to be frustrated!

However, after the latest in what is becoming a long line of incidents involving theft, deception and flat out lying that I and my housemates have experienced, I fundamentally think he is correct. I want to make clear that I am no angel and I, like everyone else have lied before. However there is something about the endemic nature of petty crime and deception here in Tonga that means it is hard to swallow. Collectively we have had bikes, bags, clothes, underwear and speedos stolen from our house. Other friends here have had the same and more stolen from their houses and the suspicion is that my Fijian colleague is correct. A number of Tongans really do believe that if they repent their sins on Sunday, what they have done during the week is fundamentally ‘forgiven’.

Dear Father, please forgive me as I have sinned... these Speedos are way too tight for a Tongan

The more people I talk to the more I realise that Tongans have no problem in lying outright, continuously to your face. The problem with this is that from the stories I have heard and experienced myself you just don’t want to question the honesty of that person. For example, a mate of mine recently told me a Tongan work colleague said he couldn’t attend anymore afternoon work meetings as his wife was in hospital sick and he needed to be with her. Of course she felt sorry for him and actually took him to the hospital more than once. It turned out, unsurprisingly now, that he just couldn’t be bothered working in the afternoon and his wife was in perfectly good health at home. The problem I have with this is that a number of Tongans have no problem ‘pulling a few heart strings’ to ensure their lies go unquestioned.

Maybe I am naïve, but in my professional and personal life back home I could never imagine anyone I know pulling a ‘sicky’ on the false basis that a relative of theirs was in hospital. You just wouldn’t ‘cry wolf’ like that. While I know people may throw ‘sickies’ as they are too hungover to stomach work or have a severe case of Man Flu, I just see it as disgusting to pretend one of your loved ones is sick or at death’s door in hospital to get an afternoon off work. I have experienced the same thing with people at work saying they need to visit the hospital to see a relative for long periods of time and even one, now ex-national player, saying he couldn’t come to training as his son was sick in hospital. This turned out to be a lie and I dropped from the team.

Now please don’t get me wrong. I love Tongans and they are genuinely friendly, lovely people. However when you have to question if people are telling you the truth everyday and you feel that your underwear would be much safer on a Hills Hoist back at home then it can leave a sour taste in your mouth sometimes.

The problem, as I see it, is that Tongans believe they have a ‘get out of jail free card’ in the church. If my Fijian colleague is correct, and I think that in most cases he is, what would Tongan communities look like if there wasn’t such an overbearing influence exuded by the church? I know the church does do some good here in Tonga, however would people be happy to steal and lie if they didn’t think that by going to church on a Sunday and giving a few Pa’anga they were given a clean slate for the coming week? I personally don’t think they would.

A Rough Guide to Ha'apai - Cashless, Clueless and a little Confused

Sunset on Uoleva with dormant volcano Kao towering over the Ha'apai Group

When you think of the South Pacific the image you conjure up in your mind is Ha’apai. The Ha’apai Group (a 30 min flight north of Nuku 'Alofa) is a sparsely populated group of islands, atolls and coral cays that sit upon crystal clear, aqua-coloured water teeming with marine life. It is an amazingly beautiful place and is the perfect getaway if you like spending your days snoozing/reading/having a few beers under the shade of coconut trees before strolling down to the water for a snorkel, or in our case spear fishing If you like fast-paced days visiting tourist attraction after tourist attraction, Ha’apai is not the place for you.

Our beach on Uoleva - Coconut Trees, beach and reef... that's it

For all its’ natural beauty, the tourist infrastructure in Ha’apai is basic at best. While this is part of Ha’apai’s charm I would like to point out the following:

What not to do if you travel to Ha’apai:

• Think that you can rely on ATMs or other forms of ‘modern’ banking systems to withdraw cash or pay for services.

• Rely on the majority of locally owned accommodation providers to offer food and drinks for guests.

• Think that locally owned accommodation providers have a basic sense of customer service and can in some way, shape or form, work with foreign owned service providers (such as Scuba Diving/Whale watching businesses) to ensure visitors enjoy their stay as much as possible.

After arriving at Ha’apai’s surprisingly modern looking airport we were promptly greeted by one of the manager’s of our accommodation (Taiana’s Place). Although we had booked the previous week we were informed that there had been a mistake and that all the fales were booked for the weekend and we (myself, Tom and Bruce) would have to share a tent during our stay. Fair enough. However, on that very same flight were a couple and their child who had not booked any accommodation and on asking our manager if there were any rooms available he replied there certainly was and they were welcome to stay at Taiana’s. We laughed it off as we didn’t mind the prospect of sleeping in a tent and would more than likely be collapsing every night after consuming too many beers and Tongan rum.

The weekend was spent with Tafi in hand looking out at this view

However, as we were being driven to the boat for our transfer (Taiana’s is located on Uoleva Island – a 15-60 minute boat transfer depending on how fast the ‘captain’ decides to go) the level of Tongan-style customer service confounded us once more. We asked to stop at the one and only dive shop in Ha’apai (Fins n Fluke) as we wanted to go diving that day and get dropped off to our resort after the dives. We were told in a rambling explanation that the owner of Taiana’s would not like that very much and it would be better off to go straight to Taiana’s. We were a bit confused and insisted that we wanted to go diving. The manager stopped at the dive shop but as I got out of the car to organise the dive he said,

“Um….. I think if you go diving…. You will have to stay somewhere else”.

“Sorry?”

“If you go diving with them, the owner will not like it and you will have to stay somewhere else.”

“Right,” I said slightly confused, “can we go diving with you then?”

“Um… no” I have shortened this answer as it was a rambling Tongan-esque answer and it took us a little while to decipher exactly what he meant.

“If you go diving with them, you cannot stay with us,” the manager finished.

After a slightly awkward silent period during which we all had no idea what was going on we decided to cut our losses. We were incredibly hung-over from the night before (in fact we were lucky to make the flight after leaving home at 715am for an 8am flight, Bruce managed to get us to the airport in 15 minutes, a trip that normally takes 40 minutes) and had no idea if we were able to find another place to stay considering all other accommodation options we had called were booked out for Easter. So we decided to book diving for Monday and then stay on the main island before flying home early on Tuesday. We later learnt that the management of Taiana’s and Fins n Fluke had fallen out with each other over a number of issues ranging from Taiana’s running whale watching tours without a license to Fins n Fluke taking people diving and then transferring the customers to Uoleva, thus ensuring Taiana’s missed out on the semi-lucrative boat transfer charge.

Uoleva from the air

In one word, it was ridiculous. Fins n Fluke were more than happy to take us diving but Taiana’s wouldn’t allow it. We even offered to pay the transfer for our luggage so Taiana’s still got paid the fee but the answer was no. The question is how can an accommodation provider ‘not allow’ a guest to use another service provider? The situation perfectly encapsulates the Tongan way of doing business; they have no sense of customer service and no idea about how service now can affect your long term business. That day they actually kicked out two other couples who went diving. Those couples had to find other accommodation - luckily for us this meant we were able to sleep in a fale and not a tent - where else in the world would this happen? I would confidently wager nowhere.

Our fale complete with coconut tree leaf and garbage bag roof

Despite this start we actually had a great time on Uoleva. We spent our days chilling on the beach, drinking beers and rum (while we didn’t bring any food on the trip we brought enough alcohol to get us through four days…. Good planning!!) before going spear fishing to catch dinner and retiring to the beach to drink more beer and rum (usually warm by this stage due to a lack of fridge, esky or ice) before starting up a fire on the beach for the night. It was a great way to spend three days and the marine life was stunning. There were countless fish, beautiful coral while we also saw a number of large reef sharks, a turtle, eels and stingrays.

There were also a few characters on the island, which kept things interesting. The resort is a family run resort and the head of the family is Kalafi, a one-armed Tongan who used to be the national boxing champion of Tonga, before he lost his arm obviously. Kalafi was telling us one night that while he was born and bred on Uoleva, he discovered that he just “loved to fight” and that as a youngster he would go across to the main island of Pangai to drink and basically look for fights. This led him to take up boxing where, according to Kalafi, he quickly beat opponents from all over Tonga regardless of their weight divisions to become champion of Tonga. This was all before losing his arm in a drunken fight where he was thrown through a glass door; his arm was shattered and had to be amputated.

Kalafi

Taiana’s also had a semi-permanent resident in the American, ‘Lefty’. Lefty (we thought he may have been nicknamed Lefty as he cut Kalafi's right arm off) is 62 and has spent the past four months living at Taiana’s, he has apparently travelled to Tonga each year for the past decade and spent two to six months living on Uoleva each trip. Lefty is a retired gardener/artist/dancer/musician who would like to turn Taiana’s into an “Artist’s Colony”. Personally I thought that was code for a hippy commune where Lefty could smoke all the green he likes and spend his days producing his “modern art”. During our stay Lefty treated us to such entertainment as producing a piece of modern art (it was like one of those paintings you see sometimes where the artist has just thrown different coloured paint at the canvas and called it art), some interpretative dance at breakfast (it was all we could do to keep a straight face after waking up with rum induced hangovers to watch a 62 year old bronzed, topless man, with hair the length of his back dance interpretively for us) and some soothing music which consisted of Lefty simultaneously playing the harmonica, maracas and finger symbols.

Silhouette of Lefty

As Monday rolled around we asked for our bill before setting off to go diving and stay our final night at Matafonoa Lodge on the island of Foa. We only had 525 Pa’anga between the three of us and it turned out (partly due to the fact that Taiana’s seemed to be making up costs and inflating costs as they went along) that we didn’t have enough. At this stage we were unaware of the lack of ATMs in Pangai, the main town of Ha’apai, and asked if we could go to the bank to withdraw the extra money to pay our bill. After being transferred to the main island and visiting the bank of Pangai (which was shut due to it being Easter Monday) we learnt there was not a single ATM in the whole of Ha’apai. We were lucky that one Palangi (white person) owned business, Mariner’s Café, was open and the generous owner Magda, agreed to lend us the money. Again, the owners of Taiana’s seemed to have no idea what to do if customers didn’t have enough cash to pay their bill, however if they informed us at the time of booking that they only accepted cash (which you would think quite sensible), we would have made an effort to carry more money.

After lunch at Mariner’s Café we went diving with Brian and Sabina at Fins n Flukes. I have been living in Tonga for six months and these were my first dives and all I can say is that it was an amazing experience. The visibility was unbelievable and the marine life and coral formations were incredible. Brian and Sabina were great and I would love to travel to Ha’apai again and go diving with them once more when the whales arrive on their migration in June/July. Again we didn’t have any cash to pay our bill, however Brian and Sabina had no problem giving us their bank details to transfer the cash in at a later date.

Our final night on Ha’apai was spent at Matafonoa Lodge on Foa Island. Foa is connected to the main island of Pangai by a crudely constructed causeway and Matafonoa is located right on the tip of the island. It is a beautiful location and the accommodation is pretty decent too with a number of Tongan-style beach front fales scattered about their premises. Matafonoa is owned by an English couple, Darren and his wife (not sure we actually got her name!!), and Darren has previously worked as an underwater cameraman for all manner of documentary channels. We spent the night drinking COLD BEERS (an absolute luxury by that stage), eating a delicious home-cooked dinner and talking rubbish to Darren.

Didnt move far from these chairs most days

Ha’apai is a beautiful place and I would recommend anyone travelling to Tonga go there and spend a few nights relaxing in this beautifully isolated part of the South Pacific. The sad thing is, is that a little bit of service made all the difference in leaving a great impression. If I were to return to Ha’apai I would almost definitely stay at Matafonoa once more, this is despite Taiana’s being cheaper and arguably at a more aesthetically beautiful location. Unfortunately, the issues experienced at Taiana’s pervade elsewhere in Tonga. If Tonga is to become the truly popular tourist destination that its’ natural beauty deserves, Tongans need to learn the basic 101s’ of customer service.

Our pilot Callum ahead of our flight back - managed to get the co-pilot's seat on the flight!

Tonga from the air

A Day in the Life of a Football Coach

This blog is dedicated to those who think that being a full-time football coach in Tonga, is in some way, shape or form a bit of a bludge. While I admit that, at times, in fact on many occasions over the past six months here in Tonga, I have had little to do apart from sit at Keleti Beach with a beer, read my book and go for a few swims, now that the Tongan Major League has finished preparation for the National Team’s 2014 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers at the South Pacific Games in August/September has stepped up. We have been training for three weeks now and the below is an example of a typical day which I will experience 4-5 times per week over the next four months as National Team Coach of Tonga.

The view from 'my spot' at Keleti

6:30am – Wake-up and get ready for the day. I usually wake up naturally at this time now due to the cacophony of farm-yard noises created by various roosters, pigs and dogs outside my window every morning. I have breakfast and a bucket shower - our indoor showers don’t work that well so instead, we fill up a bucket outside and throw it over our heads every morning much to the delight of our neighbours.

6:55am – After a five minute bike ride I arrive at the national gym to meet our Strength Coach ahead of the morning’s session.

7:00am – Group one arrives at the gym and warm-up (we currently have a squad of 32 players so divide the team into two groups for the hour long gym sessions). We dedicate two gym sessions per week to building strength and one/two sessions to core strength and agility.

9:15am – Group two finish their gym session and are transported back home in the Tonga Football Association (TFA) bus.

9:30am – After chatting with our Strength Coach and reviewing the morning’s session I usually spend 30-45 minutes in the gym doing/pretending to do my own work.

10:00am – It’s either off to Friends Café for Bombay Eggs or to Café Escape for breakfast and the luxury of air-conditioning. I use the internet here to respond to/delete the various banter emails I get from home (which can total 70+ in a day) and check the latest football news.

11:30am – Arrive at work after a 30 minute (11km) bike ride from Nuku ‘Alofa to the TFA. If it is raining or has just rained, this journey is a pain in the arse as I don’t have a mud guard on my one-gear bike and my back can be covered in mud (as it was this morning) when I arrive at work. While there are supposed to be 15 full-time workers at TFA I usually arrive to a near deserted office. Tongans are clearly not fans of work in general and we are lucky if the majority of employees turn up for more than an hour or two of work each day.

1:00pm – After a couple of hours mucking about on Facebook, email, Skype and SMH.com.au, I map out the coming week’s training sessions.

2:00pm – Sit down with my support coaches (I currently have three Tongan Assistants, including my “boss”, a Fijian Assistant, an American Strength Coach and a Swedish Physio…. Unfortunately the Swedish Physio is not a female) and explain the afternoon’s training session, their roles and the drills we will be running.

This can take some time as even if Tongans don’t understand something they will say they do anyway. It can usually take a verbal explanation accompanied with diagrams and giving a physical example out on the pitch for my Assistants to understand these drills. It does feel good however that the guys are learning and that I am building their capacity to run future training sessions by themselves. I would love to get to a point here in Tonga where I can allocate the training drills to different coaches and then ‘manage’ the session and only step in at key points… I doubt this can or will happen though.

2:45pm – Head outside into the consistently humid 25-30 degree heat to set-up the fields. I quite like this part of the day as it’s quiet and our fields are surrounded by palm trees so I find it relaxing to be wandering about my ‘office’ and when I compare my office to that of most of my friends and family back home, I realise, that for the next four-five months I am very lucky to be working in this environment.

The Office

3:15pm – Try and have a late lunch, chill out and muck about on the internet before training starts.

4:00pm – All the boys should have arrived if they have slight injuries now is the time to speak to our Swedish physio. It is much to the disappointment of the boys as well that the physio is not a Swedish female. This opinion was formed after our physio’s girlfriends, also Swedish, turned up at training last week.

4:15pm – Head out to the training fields, make sure all the boys have arrived and begin training. Training here is slightly different to anything that I have experience in the past as:

• Before and after each training session it is customary to pray.

• The boys, even the most experienced players, have never really been trained properly and each drill we do, even the most basic, is new to them. So it takes time to explain and give demonstrations of each drill and requires a bit of patience to wait for the boys to understand exactly what they should be doing before correcting technical aspects of their play.

• I don’t speak fluent Tongan but try to speak as much of it as possible. I feel I have learned the important words so far – leilei Oma (lay-lay oma) = sprint; ngaue malohi (na-u-he ma-lo-he) = work hard; fakacau’cau’ (Fa-ka-Cow-Cow – my favourite) = think; faka piko’piko (as spelt and another favourite) = lazy. I have learnt more football-specific words but those, especially the last two are my favourites.

6:15pm – As it does take a little bit of time to explain each drill and wait for translations we normally finish after close to 120 minutes. Being honest, the boys are technically not great but you would come to expect that from a bunch of amateurs who have never been trained before. However, they work incredibly hard, have a great team spirit and, most importantly, are doing their best.

6:30pm - After letting the boys cool down I usually summarise the training back in the office and take note of who has performed well and who has not. It is then my job to drive half the team back home. My job description really should be – National Team Coach/Bus Driver. Most of the boys don’t work let alone own cars so after making their way to training through a combination of running, hitch-hiking or jumping on one of the infrequent public buses, I make sure they get home as quickly as possible.

7:30-8:30pm-ish – Tonga is bigger than I expected. It takes ages to drop everyone home and I only cover half the island, my Fijian Assistant takes the boys who live out east back home and I cover the west and central parts of the island. I get home and if it’s Thursday or a Friday it is time for a beer or two and dinner in Nuku ‘Alofa and potentially some grinding at The Billfish, if not then hopefully one of my housemates has cooked dinner!

The Billy

As you can see days can be quite long; however this is balanced by the one or two days each week where we only have the afternoon session or the boys play an inter-team trial in the afternoon. On these days I generally sit at Keleti Beach with a beer, some of the freshest fish ‘n’ chips for lunch, snooze in the sun, read my book and swim in the balmy South Pacific until it is time to get back on the bike for a five minute ride back to work for training.

Not a bad way to spend a year!!

Keleti Beach

N.B. - Its Friday here which invariably means the internet is rubbish so I have only been able to upload two photos. I will try and upload more as the afternoon goes on.

Five Months In Tonga

After a hard earned 10 day break I have returned to life as a football coach and realised I am now sitting a few days short of five months in The Kingdom of Tonga. I thought I’d do a quick ‘state of play’ blog on the frustrations, and all of the good things, to do with living in Tonga.

The Frustrations

The People – I want to be quick to point out that The People also make my ‘Good things’ list however ‘frustrating’ is certainly the word to describe dealing with some Tongans. Tongans have a carefree, stress-free outlook on life, which I adore, however if you want to get something done at work, are in a hurry (for whatever reason, usually you are not in a hurry here) then Tongans are not who you want to be dealing with. It recently took my accountant here four months to pay one invoice to a supplier I sourced in Australia, you can spend most of your day (as I can never be bothered to do it myself I rely on friends’ stories here) trying to get a driver’s licence at the Ministry of Transport or trying to pay a power/water bill. Efficiency is not what Tongans do best.

It is also hard to get a definitive answer out of Tongans, especially if they have not done as you have requested at work, don’t want to do any work or don’t know the answer to a question. If Tongans don’t know the answer to something, do not understand something or just can’t be bothered to do any work they will often just lie and say they have done what has been requested, or do understand your point in order to get out of having to answer that question or to get out of having to do work associated with your request/question. Tongans are lazy, and if you want something done or you don’t want to spoon feed answers to Tongans at work, i.e. promote free thinking, then it can be quite frustrating having to continually repeat yourself or ask questions over and over again.

What they are good at is looking after and caring for their family and friends. However this can become blatant nepotism in the workplace. It almost must be stated that Tongans, in general, HATE change. Recently, 150 police men and women signed a petition calling for the sacking of the New Zealand Police Commissioner here in Tonga. The reason behind the petition? The Kiwi had the gall to introduce reforms in promotion procedures which seek to reward those that perform well and have the merit and experience to justify higher levels of authority. The 150 officers who signed the petition want to return to the ‘old ways’ (circa 1968) wherein the Chief of Police could simply promote people how he wished, which normally relied upon family connections, if they were friends of family, or if they went to the same church as him.

Tonga is good at sunsets - credit Alice Bowen for this shot from Eua

Hierarchical Society – Tonga is very much a hierarchical society. On top of the societal pyramid you have The King, followed by The Nobles (who tend to hold most positions of power within institutions here in Tonga) and then the plebs. This hierarchical society can most obviously manifest itself in work situations. I am quite lucky to work in an open workplace where everyone can speak freely, however my mate Tom has told stories of going into meetings for the Ministry of Environment where workers refuse to offer opinions in case they may differ from the opinion of the Minister, a Noble. This phenomenon also manifests itself in other situations here in Tonga, and I hate it, mainly because I think people should be able to say what they want whether they are speaking to a noble, princess or pleb.

Mosquitos and wasps – Every day I am attacked by one or the other. I cannot sit at home in my hammock without being assaulted by mozzies and even now as I sit at my desk here at work there are what seems like hundreds of wasps circling me like sharks ready to pounce and sting me. My fear of wasps in now well founded after being attacked by a swarm (of four) wasps in ‘Eua.

Tongan Drivers – Tongan drivers are without doubt the worst I have come across in the world. To put this into context, there are pretty much only three or four main roads here in Tonga and you can only go up to 40km per hour on 95% of the roads here yet Tongans still drive like it is their first time behind the wheel every time they get in a car. The only time people here are ever in a rush is when they are trying to merge into traffic after stopping at an intersection. Either people have no sense of depth perception in judging gaps in traffic or it simply doesn’t register that one car could potentially hit another. Tongan drivers always seemed shocked when they have to stop at an intersection before merging into traffic and will do all they can to ensure their car does not stop. More often than not this involves accelerating into traffic so, when I have been driving, I quite literally have to stop in the middle of the road to make sure there isn’t a collision.

I am sure that if you spoke to other people who have lived here for five months they would have different frustrations such as: petty crime (the latest robbery of one of Tomasi’s bikes is worth a mention here but when we get to the bottom of what happened I will report it in a blog), the food, the police, their work, the church etc. But I have been quite lucky in that I have not been directly affected by most of these aspects of society, or can get on fine for example, without have a $10 steak every week from my local pub. So I will now move onto the things I love about living in Tonga.

An overly friendly local, he/she was getting a bit too close!

The Good things in life

The Lifestyle – My lifestyle here is amazing. I have come from sitting in an office for 9+hours each day and having to sit on a bus for an hour or more each day in peak hour traffic, to spending most of my time at work outdoors, riding my bike to and from work each day and, on most days, being able to spend my lunch breaks at the beach rather than in an air conditioned office. Tonga is not the place to live if you don’t like being active or being outdoors or if you are so desperately ambitious you cannot take a ‘gap year’. I am lucky in that my work place is effectively a football field, each morning my housemates and I are either in the harbour swimming, going for a jog, or if you really can’t be bothered with strenuous exercise you can simply take a snorkel down to the harbour and snorkel for an hour before going to work.

Weekends are also consumed with activities (Erin hope you enjoyed that!) as on Saturday if I am not playing or coaching football I will soon be playing cricket in the local Twenty20 competition or take part in the weekly bi/triathlon (I made my debut last week and was beaten by Tomasi by 66 seconds…. I’ll beat him one week!). Sundays are then filled with getting out on a boat to Sunday Club Island or getting a mate’s boat out to go fishing, snorkelling, wakeboarding around the harbour. I am about as fit and healthy as I have been in quite a few years.

If you like the sun, being outdoors and exercising then Tonga is the perfect place to live for a year.

Snorkelling at the shipwreck off Sunday Club Island

On the boat before a few beers and wakeboarding

My job – As I have touched on this in previous blogs I won’t go into it in too much detail here but for as long as I can remember I have wanted to coach football full-time. I have now been given the chance and plan on enjoying it! Every day we are at a school or in a community coaching young kids and as of Monday I will officially be the national team coach here when training for our World Cup Qualifiers in August/September kicks off.

The Food – If you like fresh, cheap seafood (and you would be made not to), then Tonga is your heaven. Last week I bought two kilos of fresh tuna from the fish market for 18 Pa’anga, or 10 Australian Dollars. Ten Dollars for two kilos of the freshest tuna you can get anywhere! We also bought seven crayfish for 40 Pa’anga, about 25 Aussie! The quality is amazing and it’s just too cheap not to buy it! There are plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables about too and if you can deal with a few vegetarian meals each week among a mainly seafood-based diet, like I can, then you will love the food in Tonga.

Underwater at a shipwreck

The People – In general Tongans are relaxed, easy-going, super-friendly people. As with any country on this Earth there are the bad eggs that can tarnish a country’s reputation (look at a lot of Aussie backpackers or Kiwis in general ;)) but there are not many places I have been where people will wave to you as you walk or ride your bike down the street. This became apparent when I went to New Zealand and started smiling and lifting my head (as people here do to say hi) at people and no-one was returning my gesture, and in fact most people looked the other way and quickened their pace away from me. People here are genuinely friendly and once you get to know a Tongan they will be loyal and welcome you into their home as they would an old friend or a family member.

There is also a lot to learn from Tongans in relation to the ‘important things in life’. People here are not rich, most houses are home to more than one family and people do not have a lot of commercial possessions, but they are happy. They are happy because there is not enough time in life to stress or to worry about the little things in life that can get you down and as long as they are in good health, have their family and friends around them, a Tongan is content. There is a lot Western societies could learn from this approach to life.