Talanoa Session - Oneata Schwalger

Jeremy Lardner (0:01)

I begin this episode by paying respect to the Ngunnawal and Nambri people, the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast is produced. I pay respect to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and I extend that same respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners of this podcast.

Welcome to the Dua Moana Pasifika Rugby Podcast, where we bring you Pacific Voices Talking, Pacific Rugby. I'm your host Jeremy, and I'm blessed to be joined in the Bure, but none other than Oneata Schwalger. She was a trailblazer in both rugby union and rugby league during her playing days. She's now turned her talents to coaching post her playing career, and has recently earned the role of head coach the Philippines National Women's Rugby Team. She's been good enough to take some time out of a very busy schedule to join me here on the podcast. Oneata, welcome to the podcast. It's an absolute honor to have you on.

Oneata Schwalger (1:27)

Awesome. Cool. Thanks, Jeremy.

Jeremy Lardner (1:29)

Now, for listeners who maybe haven't heard your story before, they're hearing it for the first time here today. Could you just give us a little bit of an introduction into, I guess, your early years, where you grew up and how you found the sport of rugby?

Oneata Schwalger (1:45)

Am I delayed? Yeah. I was born in Samoa, raised in Porirua. I was there for about 19 years, lived in Auckland for a couple of years, moved back. Then I moved to Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, and now Sunshine Coast. But my early years, I did everything at school sport-wise, and it wasn't just, I didn't start, rugby started as touch rugby at school.

You're just playing in the morning, at lunchtime with the guys. So I did summer, winter sports, I was always involved. It was just kind of like my outlet, and my parents just let me sign up for everything. I even did badminton. So it wasn't a thing for me just to do one. It was, I just got involved in anything that got me out of the house. I was just an active kid back then. Yeah, so rugby-wise, so like I said, I went through school. I was actually part of the under 55, Bishop now, but it was VR college back then.

So I think I just ended up just turning up to training because I wanted to train. And then coaches allowed me to play, which is cool. And I think it's been five games in. One of the colleges had, like I wore headgear back then, but I didn't do it to hide myself. It was just like I was playing against boys, so I just want to protect myself.

And yeah, so one of the college that we played against, they complained two hours and say girls shouldn't be playing. And that was it for me. But the coaches were really cool though. And even the players, they're like, look, just keep coming to training. So I just ended up being the water boy, a water girl, for the season, and just still kind of stayed involved. And my dad felt sorry for me that I wasn't able to play.

And then he said, oh, look, our local club, Norse, he saw women playing. So, and then just from there, that's how I got involved. I was about 15 and playing with women who were 10 years older than me, if not older. Yeah, so, and that was my introduction to rugby. But I'd, you know, even at school, I did basketball, netball, all the sports. And my parents just found that rugby was a good outlet because I had so much aggression.

Jeremy Lardner (4:00)

Yeah. You spoke there about, obviously, there was a bit of a setback early on with playing for a while and then not being able to play and staying in touch with your team through your water girl duties.

Was it fair to say, because I imagine that would have been slightly disheartening, at the very least. Was there a connection to the game that sort of kept you, that made you want to sort of stay in touch? Or was it the group itself? Yeah.

Oneata Schwalger (4:29)

Oh, the guys were good. We're all in the same form, maybe a year older than us. But I wasn't really, I can't remember being disheartened. I was like, I was always the person, well, how can I make this work?

If I at least can still train, if I can play, I can be useful in another way. And it's probably how I've always sort of thought, my thought process has always been, okay, it's a no, but there's another way to do things.