Dene Halatau

Dene Halatau (born 27 January 1983) is a New Zealand professional rugby league footballer who currently plays for the Wests Tigers of the National Rugby League. A New Zealand national representative forward, he previously played for the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs after having started his career at Wests, with whom he won the 2005 NRL Premiership. Halatau was also part of the New Zealand team that won the 2008 World Cup.

Early years

Born in Invercargill, New Zealand, Halatau moved to Australia as a 4-year-old and played his junior rugby league for the Merrylands Rams and North Ryde Hawks before being signed by the Wests Tigers. Halatau was educated at Westfields Sports High School. He is of Niuean descent.

Playing career

2003

In Round 13 of the 2003 NRL season, Halatau made his NRL debut for the Wests Tigers against the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles at Leichhardt Oval off the interchange bench in the Tigers 38–30 loss. In Halatau's third match in Round 18 against the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks at Leichhardt Oval, He scored his first and second tries in the Tigers 44–12 win. He finished his debut year in the NRL with him playing in 9 matches and scoring 3 tries.

Dene

The Dene people (/ˈdɛneɪ/ DEN-ay) (Dené) are an aboriginal group of First Nations who inhabit the northern boreal and Arctic regions of Canada. The Dené speak Northern Athabaskan languages. Dene is the common Athabaskan word for "people" (Sapir 1915, p. 558). The term "Dene" has two usages. More commonly, it is used narrowly to refer to the Athabaskan speakers of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut in Canada, especially including the Chipewyan (Denesuline), Tlicho (Dogrib), Yellowknives (T'atsaot'ine), Slavey (Deh Gah Got'ine or Deh Cho), and Sahtu (the Eastern group in Jeff Leer's classification; part of the Northwestern Canada group in Keren Rice's classification). But it is sometimes also used to refer to all Northern Athabaskan speakers, who are spread in a wide range all across Alaska and northern Canada. Note that Dene never includes the Pacific Coast Athabaskan or Southern Athabaskan speakers in the continental U.S., despite the fact that the term is used to denote the Athabaskan languages as a whole (the Na-Dene language family). The Southern Athabaskan speakers do, however, refer to themselves with similar words: Diné (Navajo) and Indé (Apache).

Rugby league

Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, or simply league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 as a split from the Rugby Football Union over the issue of payments to players. Its rules gradually changed with the purpose of producing a faster, more entertaining game for spectators. It has been cited as the toughest, most physically demanding of team sports.

In rugby league, points are scored by carrying the ball and touching it to the ground beyond the opposing team's goal line; this is called a try, and is the primary method of scoring. The opposing team attempts to stop the attacking side scoring points by tackling the player carrying the ball. In addition to tries, points can be scored by kicking goals. After each try, the scoring team gains a free kick to try at goal with a conversion for further points. Kicks at goal may also be awarded for penalties, and field goals can be attempted at any time.

Rugby League Week

Rugby League Week (frequently abbreviated to RLW) is the highest selling Australian rugby league magazine, ahead of major competitor Big League. It is published weekly (on Wednesdays) during the Australian rugby league season, which runs from March to late September (roughly corresponding to the southern hemisphere autumn and winter) and has been published continuously since 1970. In 2001 the magazine's name was changed to League Week, to avoid confusion with "that other game for lovers of forward passes, knock-ons, and penalty goals". It reverted to Rugby League Week in 2003. It is currently owned by Bauer Media Group.

Content

The magazine contains news coverage of Australian rugby league, focused primarily on the first-grade NRL competition (previously the NSWRL) but with coverage also devoted to lower-level competitions. There are usually also several profiles of rugby league players in each edition. A number of league personalities, including Mark Geyer, Stacey Jones and Wally Lewis, have regular columns; unconfirmed rumours and miscellaneous gossip are reported in a column written by 'The Mole'.

Wests Tigers

The Wests Tigers are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Sydney's Inner West. They have competed in the National Rugby League since they were formed at the end of the 1999 NRL season as a joint-venture club between the Balmain Tigers and the Western Suburbs Magpies.

The Wests Tigers started playing in the 2000 NRL season and won their maiden premiership in 2005. The club also won the World Sevens in 2004.

The Wests Tigers have three home grounds: Leichhardt Oval (the home ground of Balmain), Campbelltown Stadium (the home ground of Western Suburbs) and ANZ Stadium as of 2014. They are currently coached by Jason Taylor and captained by Aaron Woods. The club CEO is Justin Pascoe and the general manager is Phil Moss.

History

Background

In Australia, the game of rugby league began in 1908, the New South Wales Rugby League premiership (NSWRL) had nine teams from the Sydney, Australia area. Two of those teams were clubs based in Balmain and the Western Suburbs who happen to meet each other in the in round 1 of 1908 Balmain went on to win 24 to 0. The Balmain club, who later adopted a Tiger as their emblem, in their tenure in the NSWRL won eleven premierships in twenty grand finals and was one of the forces in the NSWRL competition. However their last premiership success was in 1969 and in the 1990s with many new clubs being established, there was pressure on clubs to perform to survive in the first grade competition in Australia. The Wests Tigers got their name from their suburb and from their logo.