The spirit of Tala: The rapid rise of Tonga's netball team

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1:21Salote Sisifa:Tadala is a rare bird that comes out to give hope.

1:28Salote Sisifa:The Tukaheibard was believed to be extinct until it was rediscovered in 1948 in the New Zealand mountains. It's widely considered a symbol of resilience among Pacific Island culture, and that's where our story starts. Tonga, a small island located in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean. It's up to 5 ,200 kilometres away from Melbourne, Australia, with a population that could almost entirely fit into the famous Melbourne cricket ground. It might be one of the smallest nations in the world. Geographically isolated, this Pacific island is home to one of the most remarkable rises in sport history.

2:12Salote Sisifa:Our country is known for the friendly islands, very warm-hearted people. We love our dance, we love our music, we love our culture. So I think that's one of the things that we take with us everywhere. We're always a loud team. Tonga is a fiercely independent, culturally rich and deeply spiritual place. A philosophy that has propelled this netball team to the top. From the BBC World Service, welcome to the documentary. I'm Sophia Hartley with the story of the spirit of Tala, the rapid rise of Tonga's netball team.

2:49Jaqua Pori-Makea-Simpson:There is no other way to explain it. Because when you watch them play in the early days, even now, there's a magic that happens with them. And that can never be taught.

3:03Salote Sisifa:Renowned for its passion and success in rugby in recent years, is actually Tonga's netball team that has captured the world's attention. But rewind to 2014 and Tonga didn't even have a professional netball team. They didn't even have a coach. Just a dream to compete with the best in the world. I remember at the time, I think I said to the meeting that, please give me five years. We're going to make some dramatic changes for Tonga. And if it doesn't work within the five years, I would happily resign. This was their chance to build a better future for girls and women in Tonga. Tonga is small but we are also mighty We are strong, we are mighty And we will take on any challenge with two hands Just like the Takahe birds fight for survival This is a story of hope, community and resilience A netball team from one of the smallest countries in the world Competing with the best on the international stage A netball team that still trains in a bank car park Told by the people at the heart of the journey This is the spirit of Tala, the rapid rise of Tonga's netball team.

4:14Thank you.

4:44Salote Sisifa:Salote Sassifa took on the role as CEO in 2014. Before that, her career had taken a very different path. Salote will be familiar to most Tongans as the nation's TV news anchor. So how does she go from reading the 10 o 'clock news to managing elite performance sport? If I could say, I got into netball kind of like by accident in terms of I was working with media and I was just taking some time out of media, more like a leave. And my friend who was working with netball at the time, the former CEO, she was migrating and kind of like asked me to, would you like to, you know, during your leave time, do some time with netball.

5:26Salote Sisifa:and having this in mind there was no thought at all that I would go past six months. It was just like okay it's a job while I'm on leave and during those six months netball grew on me. But it wasn't long before Celote realised this job would be far more than a career break. Thinking back of 2014, back then netball was kind of like a social game here in Tonga. On the ground here, there was more attraction to netball, but there was never any idea of going high performance or having a national team, which at the time, there had been national teams before. But when we came on, there was no longer, I think more than a few years, no longer any national team.

6:12Salote Sisifa:Come 2015 was our first international tour. And that was the Pacific Games of 2015, which was held in Papua New Guinea. and you can imagine at the level where we were at at the time, we were just trying new things. Very fortunate, one of my staff was a former national player and she had a bit of knowledge towards going with the national team and everything. So we put our hands up, yes, we're going to take a netball team to the Pacific Games of 2015. I was the manager then of that team. My staff was the head coach. My other staff was the assistant head coach. And you could imagine these were people, we were just learning on the job how to run a team and how to take a team on tour.

7:00Salote Sisifa:So when we went out to that Pacific Games in 2015, I remember well, we were literally trying to find our feet as management, let alone seeing our players, get out nervously to the international scene. So we played those games with our Pacific sisters. We came last and the scores really did reflect where we were in terms of netball. And one of the things that I noticed about our country, and I think because of our size in terms of population, we tend to, what's the word, shall I say? We have a tendency to just easy talk results. And when I say this, you know, we were being beaten with scores of 100 plus.

7:52Salote Sisifa:And our people were up on social media saying, oh, you know, you guys did your best. That was great. I kind of like sat back and I was like, are they watching our game? Or, you know, like, I'm, you know, grateful that they're just trying to make us feel good. But I know this is not good. You know, this is not good. we can't do this again you know we can't go out the part about standing there having our national anthem and being beaten like a cricket match you know we need improvement and we've got to be realistic with where we are so upon the 2015 trip we returned and it was evident that we needed to make some changes some raw overhaul changes for Tonga if we needed to grow.

8:38Salote Sisifa:Salote went to the Tongan Netball Association, the national governing body for netball in Tonga, and said, Please give me five years. We're going to make some dramatic changes for Tonga. And if it doesn't work within the five years, I would happily resign.

8:55Salote Sisifa:I remember saying that, I don't know, I think when I said it at the time, I'm not sure if I really understood it, but I did mean the part for them because I knew these changes that we would make would have a lot of backlash. And sure enough, it did. We'll get back to that in a bit. The board backed Salote's vision and she got to work with making it a reality. But how does someone with no previous experience go about building a national netball team from scratch?

9:29Salote Sisifa:And just looking at the time, I was looking up to the big sisters of Fiji and Samoa, who were the leading teams of the Pacific, you know, just looking at them and talking to my colleagues. How did you do this? How did you do that? This is coming off the cuffs of someone who had no idea how to do all this, right? And I was very grateful because my colleagues, CEOs of Samoa and Fiji at the time, they didn't hesitate to share their experiences and how they did this. And then pretty much just taking that on and using it in our own context and what worked for us. So I reached out to New Zealand and Australia and I said, help us find a national coach, but living in your countries at that level of high performance.

10:13Salote Sisifa:And I got feedback from Netball Australia, Netball New Zealand. They said, you know, it's a national team and this has to be done by time. What they could do is recommend me some names. They could give me some names of people for me to approach. I started writing to, New Zealand gave me four, Australia gave me four coaches. And I started writing, emailing these four people, four New Zealanders, four Australians. One person came back to me and then I kind of felt like, is this true? Is this a prank? Or it was our head coach today. Who would be brave enough to take on such a challenge?

10:54Jaqua Pori-Makea-Simpson:My name is Jaakwa Purimakia Simpson and I'm the head coach of Tonga Tala. So I was born and raised in New Zealand but lived in Australia for 30 years and when I relocated back to New Zealand eight years ago I contacted Netball New Zealand to transfer my Netball Australia coaching qualifications into the New Zealand system. I think what that did inadvertently was kind of put me in somebody's in-tray and Tonga contacted them about needing a head coach. So it was a bit of fate really because I think I was at the forefront of being a potential auction.

11:31Salote Sisifa:Salote contacted eight coaches. Seven didn't even bother to reply. What was it about Salote's email then that left Jackua wanting to know more?

11:40Jaqua Pori-Makea-Simpson:I'm a Pacific Island Tahitian Maori so I have a Pacific Island background and that was probably the first thing that made me go, yeah, you know what, I think there might be something in this. I'm really curious to find out more. So it was actually them being a Pacific nation was the first thing. And that they were bold enough to reach out to somebody they didn't know.

12:03Salote Sisifa:Here's Tongan's Netball CEO, Salote Sofista again. I approached Zha Kwa and we spoke. It was a very, I would say, raw and honest discussion with Zha Kwa in terms of just telling her where Tonga was. we just barely made world netball membership we have no dollar sign to our name if that's what you're looking for uh team Tonga is not the place but then I gave her my word that um if you help Tonga you know we will not sell you short of your value um we will we will do our part here and I'm just very grateful to this, just this very decent, humbling coach that she came through for us. And it was funny at the time, she said in our early discussions, what do you want?

12:58Salote Sisifa:And I remember at the time, 2018, this was 2018, and I said to her, I said, by 2025 for Tonga to make top 10 in the world, And this is coming from a country that has not even ranked. And I saw her eyes were like, you know, like, do you understand what you're saying?

13:18Jaqua Pori-Makea-Simpson:I actually went, OK, you're mad. Like, that is obscene. And I'm not sure you understand what the netball world looks like. But I thought it was brave. I definitely thought it was a bit nuts. So she was brave. I'll give her that much. I was definitely concerned and thought, yeah, no, I think you're reaching for the stars here. That's a lot to ask. But you know what? I saw it through and here we are. Sometimes destiny just puts you in the path of the right people.

13:58Salote Sisifa:With a head coach in place, Tonga's netball team was taking the first steps towards professionalism. However, not everyone was supportive. Some people argued that Tongan netball shouldn't open up opportunities to the Tongan diaspora. That's athletes with Tongan heritage living in different countries, which leads us nicely to the second step in establishing an elite performance team. Recruit world-class players.

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15:35Salote Sisifa:I'm Sophia Hartley with the story of the spirit of Tala, the rapid rise of Tonga's netball team.

15:41Jaqua Pori-Makea-Simpson:I was given a group of players and it looked very different and we actually didn't play any world-ranked matches. We played like a community netball event in Auckland. And that was probably more informal because it wasn't world ranked and we didn't play against world ranked teams. We slept on the floor of a community centre and we did the best we could with what we had. And it was a very short process because we were only together for like a week. and then following that event was Pacific Games later that year. So then we started formalising the process a little bit more.

16:27Salote Sisifa:With a population of around 100 ,000, Tonga's talent pool is small. Salote was aware she would have to go beyond the island. With help from the Australia Pacific Sports Programme, Salote was able to travel to Melbourne and Sydney and scout the best talent out there. Unique Pallavi was born in Melbourne, Australia to a Samoan mother and a Tongan father. Fondly known as PAV, Pallavi rose through the ranks of Australian netball and has just finished her first full Suncourt Super Netball contract ahead of the 2026 season. She has always been a commanding presence on court, particularly in the goal shooter position.

17:04Salote Sisifa:Pallavi initially ignored Netball Tonga's calls. She was worried that she wasn't ready for the international stage. So Netball Tonga reached out to her grandma. The CEO of Netball Tonga does know my grandma. I think it was her that called my grandma because pretty much everyone in Tonga knows my grandma. If you know the last name, you know my grandma. I used to think she was the queen of Tonga, but I think it's just because Tonga is such a small country. Everyone knows everyone. Whoever knows my grandma, they obviously know me. She cared enough to have called my grandma to get a hold of me and really slap me in the face and say, this is an opportunity, so take it.

17:40Salote Sisifa:Here's Tonga's head coach, Jack Warrigan.

18:10Jaqua Pori-Makea-Simpson:World Cup. It's about finding the best players available to us that meet the world netball criteria. Asking that they live in Tonga is a whole nother separate criteria. And the athletes in Tonga and the netballers that are there, Tonga netball are doing an amazing job at developing local talent, but they're not world stage ready. So you can't ask for one thing, but tie both hands behind our backs. So, and that's, and that's where it became a decision around, well, you know, do you want a world ranking and a world cup or do you want it to be locally based athletes? Because you can't have both. But I think that anyone that is born with Pacific Island heritage are deeply rooted and connected to their families.

18:57Jaqua Pori-Makea-Simpson:So for our players that are living in Australia and they're living in New Zealand, they have a strong connection to their culture. Very, very strong. We did have a very small minority within our team that had never been to Tonga before. But there's a difference. It doesn't mean that they're not connected. It doesn't mean that they're not Tongan. It doesn't mean that they're not practicing those cultural ways in the countries that they live in. It just means that they had never been home to their villages. so to me they were very separate conversations um taking them back to Tonga and watching them thrive and grow with their people um has been amazing and I think that's why netball or sport

19:44Salote Sisifa:really is so incredible right with athletes based in Tonga New Zealand and Australia Jackua and the team came together for a three-day camp before heading to the Pacific Games in 2019 where Unique Pahlavi represented Tonga for the first time.

20:06Salote Sisifa:Honestly, even getting to hold the dress in my hands at the time, I was a bit taken back because I think at that moment I really realised my last name is on this dress. I'm going to wear this dress with pride and passion and really play for not only myself, but also the last name that I carry on my back and for the nation that will always support us. Remarkably, Tonga returned from the Pacific Oz Games with a silver medal.

20:39Jaqua Pori-Makea-Simpson:When she lost the grand final by one goal, that was a little bit heartbreaking.

20:42Salote Sisifa:By July 2019, Tonga had climbed from 42nd to 19th in the world rankings. Salote's and Jackwood's plan was working. Things were looking up.

20:57Salote Sisifa:And then...

21:05Salote Sisifa:In 2020, there was a worldwide outbreak of the coronavirus that spread rapidly, causing millions of illnesses and deaths. The pandemic disrupted daily life and economies across the globe. Tonga effectively closed its borders to international travel. and because of that, coupled with a vaccination programme, they had managed to remain COVID-free. That was until a seismic event in January 2022 that shook the nation. Yesterday evening, the Hanga Tonga Hanga Haapai volcano exploded. It's just 70 kilometres north of Tonga's capital, Nuku 'alofa.

21:48Salote Sisifa:The eruption was so powerful it sent ash up to 15 kilometres into the air with shockwaves heard in Fiji. It caused a tsunami that has flooded the northern side of Tonga's main island, Tongatapu, including Nuku 'alofa. As night fell, volcanic ash rained down and residents raced inland. And then for the first time in two years, COVID cases started to rise in Tonga. The immediate suspicion has fallen, perhaps understandably, on the flotilla, almost of ships that have come in from a number of countries, including Australia, New Zealand, China, France, the UK, Japan, to provide very welcome aid to Tonga in the wake of that terrible volcanic eruption and tsunami in January.

22:40Salote Sisifa:that aid of course was really badly needed but Tonga has always been anxious about the chance of those supply ships bringing in aid also bringing in Covid. This was always the great fear for a nation which despite the fact it's quite highly vaccinated was really worried about the impact that the disease in particular the Omicron strain could have on its health system. Two years after the rest of the world Tonga entered its first ever lockdown in February 2022. Here's Tonga's head coach, Jack Quiriger.