Tevita Pangai Junior has been tipped to return to the Brisbane Broncos’ top 30 squad if he can “put it all together on the field” after debuting for feeder side Souths Logan Magpies on the weekend.
Pangai Jnr retired from rugby league in August, walking out on a $750,000 Bulldogs contract for this season to chase a boxing dream.
But in January he sent the rumour mill into overdrive when he was spotted on the sidelines of a Broncos session at Red Hill.
He subsequently signed on for their Queensland Cup feeder team the Magpies – where he previously played when sidelined by the Broncos – where former cross-code star Karmichael Hunt coaches alongside another boxing convert Justin Hodges.
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Pangai Junior said he was eyeing a return to the field only after his next scheduled bout against Raphael Sa’u on March 23.
But he was a late addition to the round one team and played 26 minutes off the bench in a 28-16 loss to Redcliffe, notching 11 runs for 88 metres with three offloads.
Speaking on NRL 360, Braith Anasta said: “Tevita Pangai [Jnr] is back. I thought he quit! He went off to boxing. I swear I said on this show last year he’d be back.”
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James Hooper said: “God love him, Braith. He was texting us straight away after that program when we said that he’d back playing rugby: ‘I will not. I’ve got a dream, I want to be like Muhammed Ali, I want to be like Mike Tyson. I want to be the heavyweight champion of the world’. Lo and behold.”
But Hooper believes that – despite the 28-year-old attempting to balance his boxing commitments with league – the former Bulldog could prove an excellent mid-season signing for the Broncos.
“Look, I really like Tevita, I think he’s got a lot of good in him,” Hooper said.
“He’s still got a lot to offer the game [“he does”, Anasta agreed]. He’s an untapped, raw talent, and if he ever does put it all together on the field, he’ll end up prior to the Brisbane Broncos prior to June 30. What a pick-up at that stage of the season!”
“You didn’t have to be Nostradamus to predict this one,” Anasta joked.
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While Pangai Jnr believes he can balance boxing with competing in the QLD Cup and potentially the NRL, News Corp journalist Dean Ritchie criticised Pangai’s cross-code juggling act.
Ritchie said: “What’s he doing, seriously? He was on $750k at the Bulldogs. He walks out, on the way out he gives Sydney a good swift kick in the backside. You know what’s going to happen? He’s going to end up retiring having excelled at rugby league or boxing.”
“He’ll get to 33 and he’ll go: ‘you know what – I’m a master of nothing’.
Hooper explained Pangai Jnr’s exit from Belmore, saying: “He reckons he didn’t like Sydney. He did that big interview recently where he said ‘I hated Sydney, I didn’t like having to go to training out at Belmore. It just didn’t gel with me’.
But Ritchie replied: “But don’t you know that before you sign the contract Hoops? You know where training is.”
Pangai Jnr has repeatedly stated that he has no regrets from walking away from the $750,000 he was set to pocket at the Bulldogs this season, insisting that money was not a priority.
He has since promised that all of his match payments from the Magpies will be donated to local organisations working to prevent youth crime in the region.
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