On episode 11 of Behind The Roar we talk to Wests Tigers captain Api Koroisau following the team’s first win of the season, against his former club.
Behind The Roar drops every Wednesday afternoon and is available on Apple, Spotify and YouTube.
Api talks about the team’s brilliant win over the Panthers in Bathurst, what the team learnt after suffering seven straight losses, why captaincy is so important to him, the influence his mother has had on him as a player and a person, his penchant for reading books, his desire to play in this year’s Origin series, and a whole lot more.
A born leader, a game-controller, and one of the best dummy halves the game has ever seen.
Api has taken to the captaincy at Wests Tigers liked a duck to water, and he loves it. Was it one of the reasons he joined Wests Tigers from the back-to-back premiers, Penrith? He explains.
He also explains how much Saturday night’s win over the Panthers meant to him, but says it was more about what it meant to his teammates.
“For me it was more that we won for the first time this year, more than beating my old club,” he explains.
It was more about the way we won.
Api Koroisau
“Sometimes you can play some shoddy footy and still come away with the win, but it was the way we really stuck to our guns and grinded it out.
"We completed really high, kicked long and played for the full eighty minutes.”
There’s a lot more to Api than meets the eye.
A deep thinker, and not overly fond of watching television, he loves to sink his teeth into ‘self-help’ and motivational books.
He says there are a few others in his team who also like to turn the pages of a good book, including his newest young teammate, Jahream Bula.
Did you know that Api was a Wests Tigers fan as a youngster? And did you know that he once tore a stomach muscle trying to emulate a couple of his childhood heroes?
True. He wanted to be able to throw dummies just like them, so much so he literally ‘busted a gut’.
Both of those heroes by the way played in Wests Tigers’ premiership-winning team in 2005.
His father said he was too small to play rugby league game but he is now one of Api’s biggest supporters.
He says his mother has had the greatest influence on him as a footballer and as a person. He speaks so fondly of the lady who juggled multiple jobs to provide for her family.
Api also talks about playing ‘the long game’, like they did in Bathurst, and how important it is for the team going forward.
And about how he’s honed his craft around the ruck over many years. It’s about repetition. Repetition. Repetition.
All that and more in this week’s episode of Behind The Roar.
