Catalans Dragons have just landed Super League’s most interesting signing of 2025
‘May you live in interesting times’ is usually a backhanded compliment, an invocation that trouble is on the way rather than anything that might actually be of interest.
With the news that Tevita Pangai Jr is set to join the Catalans as of next year, it might be assumed that the backhandedness is to the fore: the hulking prop is a complicated character, a divisive figure and, largely, unloved among NRL fans.
Well, except for one.
Your columnist has watched him for his entire first grade career and, for his sins, the intermittent parts where he wasn’t even in first grade, and counts TPJ among his favourite players.
Pangai is very, very unusual as an NRL player in a way that might make him absolutely perfect for Super League.
Alternatively, he’s unusual enough that he could be a total bust in the south of France and return with his tail between his legs within a month having done the square root of rien.
Here’s the lowdown on one of the most iconoclastic players in the world, a genuine outlier in just about every capacity. It could be great. It could be terrible. That’s why it’s interesting.
Who is Tevita Pangai Jr?
The short answer is that TPJ, as he universally known, is a 6’3, 120kg (19 stones in old money) Tongan international prop forward.
Off the bat, that does make him unusual: in the 2024 edition of the NRL, nobody wants or needs a prop forward that big unless they’re really, really good. TPJ is good, but he’s not that level.
The game is too quick, the line speed too important, to carry a bloke of his size with a relative lack of mobility.
Yet it’s that frame that makes Pangai so impressive, because he does what few else can and has a genuine, basically unstoppable super strength. He’s got the best offload in the game.
Love Rugby League pulled the stats on literally every game he’s ever played, going back to his junior career, and Pangai averages 3.7 offloads per 80 minutes.
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For context, the highest in the NRL this season is Taane Milne, on 2.7 and the best in the Super League is Herman Ese’ese on 2.5. TPJ is a whole offload clear, over almost a decade’s worth of sample size. The word freak is thrown about in rugby league a lot, but Pangai is a genuine freakish player in this particular area.
He also does this while making very, very few errors for what is inherently quite a high risk play. It’s impressive.
On top of that, TPJ is ultra-aggressive.
The first time I saw him in the flesh, a preseason match for the Bulldogs at Cronulla, he got put on report twice in the first half after playing with what looked like a desire to get himself sent off.
Remember: this was a preseason hit out. He got suspended and missed the start of the year. In 2022, Pangai was picked for New South Wales as recently as last year in one of the most batshit, leftfield selections of all time, precisely because Blues coach Brad Fittler wanted someone a bit nuts.
Freddie himself said it was a massive gamble. It completely backfired, because of course it did, but it spoke to the lure that a player like Pangai has to coaches.
Where has he played?
TPJ has cycled through multiple clubs in his career, usually ending in tears, but always able to find another coach willing to believe that they’ll be the one who unlocks the obvious talent.
There were six seasons at the Broncos, before he fell out with them after breaching Covid protocols to hang out with an outlaw motorbike gang as they opened a new barber shop. No, that’s real and it happened.
At that point, he’d missed 14 of Brisbane’s previous 38 games through suspension.
The Broncos had had enough, but amazingly, major suitors appeared. The rumours were of a move to the Roosters, but instead, Penrith swooped on a short-term deal.
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After winning the 2021 Premiership – though TPJ didn’t play the Grand Final – he landed a ridiculous $750,000 (£385,000) contract at the Bulldogs.
His 2022 started with that Sharkies disaster and ended with him playing reserve grade.
In 2023, Pangai eventually called time on rugby league altogether, declaring that he wanted to take up boxing and, in fairness to him, handing back that healthy contract to do so.
He also went public on how much he hated living in Sydney, which didn’t exactly go down well with local media, and admitted that he wasn’t that fussed about rugby league in general, declaring that he’d only ever played it because his parents wanted him to.
Football fans will remember the likes of Benoit Assou-Ekotto, the Spurs defender who also admitted he only saw playing in the Premier League as a job.
It’s strange to hear athletes speak so publicly on these things, but hard not to respect the candour. The boxing career ended up as a busted flush. TPJ had five fights, winning four, but in May was spectacularly knocked out in a minute by a previously winless journeyman, which put paid to his aspirations as a fighter.
He will finish this year reunited with his old Broncos coach, Wayne Bennett, at the Dolphins, where he has looked decent in limited appearances so far, before moving to France.
What can he do at Catalans?
The gamble that Steve McNamara is making is that he can change the environment around Pangai and get the best out of him.
Super League is filled with tales of Australian stars who didn’t quite fit in the NRL but flourished elsewhere: Albert Kelly, Brodie Croft, Jai Field, Bevan French.. you get the drift.
TPJ is as talented as any of those players, for sure, and might be among the most talented front rowers in the world. It’s just that he’s so rarely strung that talent into repeated performances. Everyone has taken the bet on what he might be, rather than what he is.
McNamara is as smart as they come and has previously loved Pangai’s type of player. Sam Kasiano is a good example of the big man prop with good hands that was able to excel in Perpignan. TPJ is every bit as good as Kasiano.
If the Dragons can get him happy, build a support network around him and facilitate his style of play, they’ll have a player few in Super League can deal with. Not that many in the NRL could on the rare occasions that the best version of Pangai turned up.
It’s ironic that, if he was a half, the maverick streak would be encouraged. The part of his game that infuriates coaches would probably be Pangai’s USP.
In a front rower, however, a hot head and a ready offload can either be seen as a benefit or a massive drawback. Steve Mac will know what he is signing – and he’ll believe he can get the best out of him. If he manages it, watch out.
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