Newcastle RL | Wests Rosellas miss out on Kiwi and land Kangaroo instead

But if at first you don’t succeed, try again as the saying goes.

And that’s exactly what the Rosellas have done with the signing of Willie Tonga.

The former Kangaroos centre may not be the ex-international Wests initially targeted and believed they would get but the Rosellas are confident they have snared a player who can help them secure a premiership in 2018.

After telling the Newcastle Herald last week the club wasn’t in the market for outside backs and Tonga wasn’t being targeted despite losing representative stars Simon Williams and Callan Richardson to Central, coach Matt Lantry admitted he met with the 34-year-old for the first time last weekend.

“We were actually still waiting to potentially hear from Frank last week when news broke about him not going back to Wigan before obviously, he linked up again with the Roosters,”Lantry said.

“When that happened, I met with Willie for the first time last weekend and we were able to get something done pretty quick. Certainly quicker than usual.

“He’s 34 but still really looks after himself and just as importantly, he is a really good person who, I’m sure, is going to fit in well at our club.”

Tonga’s CV is certainly impressive enough.

He played 181 NRL games with Parramatta, the Bulldogs and North Queensland, winning a premiership with the Bulldogs in 2004 and made 12 appearances for the Kangaroos and played in eight Origin games for Queensland.

But after playing 15 games for Catalans in the English Super League in 2015, he has managed only 10 for Leigh and Bradford in the past two seasons because of injury.

Lantry is not concerned about his recent playing history.

“He had a knee issue that has been cleaned up and medically he is fine,”he said.

“He is living in Sydney at the moment but over the next few weeks we will transition him up here and get his job and house situation sorted.”

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