Tommy Raudonikis

Tommy Raudonikis

Raudonikis in 2008
Personal information
Full name	Tom Raudonikis
Nickname	Tom Terrific[1]
Born	13 April 1950 Cowra, New South Wales, Australia
Playing information
Height	170 cm (5 ft 7 in)[2]
Weight	11 st 7 lb (73 kg)[2]
Position	Halfback
Club
Years	Team	Pld	T	G	FG	P
1969–79	Western Suburbs	202	29	0	0	87
1980–82	Newtown Jets	37	4	0	0	12
1983	Brothers (Brisbane)
	Total	239	33	0	0	99
Representative
Years	Team	Pld	T	G	FG	P
1971–80	New South Wales	24	11	0	0	33
1971–80	Australia	20	2	0	0	6
Coaching information
Club
Years	Team	Gms	W	D	L	W%
1983	Brothers (Brisbane)
	Norths (Brisbane)
	Ipswich Jets
1995–99	Western Suburbs Magpies
	Total	0	0	0	0
Representative
Years	Team	Gms	W	D	L	W%
1997–98	New South Wales	6	3	0	3	50
Source: RL stats RLP

Tommy Raudonikis OAM (born 13 April 1950^[3] in Cowra, New South Wales) is an Australian former rugby league footballer and coach. He played over twenty-nine Tests and World Cup games as Australia representative halfback and captained his country in two Tests of the 1973 Kangarooo tour.

Early life and club playing career

Raudonikis is the son of a Lithuanian father and a Swiss mother who emigrated to Australia after WWII. He played 202 games for the Western Suburbs Magpies between 1969 and 1979 before moving to the Newtown Jets for 37 games in three seasons between 1980 and 1982. Raudonikis played under two famous coaches, Roy Masters at Wests and Warren Ryan at Newtown. Some rate him the toughest player to have ever played in the halves and in September 2004 he was named in the Western Suburbs Magpies team of the century.

• 240+ senior game for Western Suburbs Magpies and Newtown Jets
• Won the 1972 Rothmans Medal

Representative playing career

He was first selected in an Australian squad in 1971 behind Souths halfback Bob Grant and made his run on debut in 1972 against the Kiwis (the same year he won the Rothmans Medal for best club player for the season). He was the regular Test halfback for the next six years. He made Test appearances up until 1980 by which time he was being challenged by Greg Oliphant and Steve Mortimer. He was the captain of the New South Wales State of Origin team in the inaugural 1980 contest.

• NSW and Australian halfback throughout the 1970s
• First NSW State of Origin captain in 1980
• Coached NSW Blues in 1997 and 1998 Origin Series
• NSW Sporting Hall of Fame
• Kangaroos captain in 1973 for 2 tests
• 29 Test and World Cup caps

Awards

• Awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in 1982
• Team of the Century with Wests Tigers and Western Suburbs
• Wests Magpies # 1 club man in 100 years and Magpie Immortal
• Voted Newtown’s Greatest Import in 100 years
• Men of Leagues’ Toughest 12 in last 50 years
• ARL’s greatest 100 in past 100 years

Coaching career

Raudonikis' final playing year was in a captain coach role at Brisbane Brothers in 1983. He later coached Brisbane Norths and the Ipswich Jets in the Brisbane Rugby League premiership. Returning to Sydney, he was coach of the Western Suburbs Magpies from 1995 up until the formation of the Wests Tigers joint venture with the Balmain Tigers at the end of 1999. He had some initial coaching success making the finals in 1996, but Wests were ultimately unable to build on this and only won six games in their final two seasons.

Raudonikis coached the Blues in the 1997 and 1998 series. In those series he entered State of Origin folklore when he introduced the Cattledog call to which NSW players responded by breaking from the scrum with fists flying, resulting in two infamous all-in-brawls.

In the media

He is a long term friend of 2GB radio station owner John Singleton. Through this friendship, he also participates as a commentator for the Continuous Call Team with Ray Hadley on 2GB.

His hospitalisation in August 2006, for a heart bypass operation, made Australian sports news and drew messages of support from a spectrum of famous former players including Wests icons Arthur Summons (the subject of the NRL trophy with Norm Provan.)^[4]

Raudonikis made an appearance in the 2007 rugby league drama film, The Final Winter.^[5]

Currently Raudonikis works as a part of the Channel 9 rugby league commentary team.

In February 2008, Raudonikis was named in the list of Australia's 100 Greatest Players (1908–2007) which was commissioned by the NRL and ARL to celebrate the code's centenary year in Australia.^[6][7] Also in 2008 the Western Suburbs Magpies celebrated their centenary by inducting six inaugural members into the club's Hall of Fame. These six included Raudonikis.^[8]

Footnotes

External links

• Tom Raudonikis' Website
• Tommy Raudonikis, Wests Rugby League Team and the Working Class of Campbelltown, New South Wales - article in Football Studies 1998 Vol 1

Sources

• Alan Whiticker & Glen Hudson (2007). The Encyclopedia of Rugby League Players. Wetherill Park, New South Wales: Gary Allen Pty Ltd. ISBN 978-1-877082-93-1. 

Preceded by Wayne Ellis (caretaker) 1994	Coach Western Suburbs Magpies 1995–1999	Succeeded by Club merged

Preceded by Phil Gould 1992–1996	Coach New South Wales 1997–1998	Succeeded by Wayne Pearce 1999–2001

v t e Australia squad – 1975 Rugby League World Championship winners (4th title)  Graeme Langlands (Capt./Coach)  Chris Anderson  Arthur Beetson  Ray Branighan  John Brass  Ron Coote  Mick Cronin  John Donnelly  Graham Eadie  Terry Fahey  Denis Fitzgerald  Bob Fulton  Mark Harris  Ray Higgs  John Lang  Ian Mackay  Allan McMahon  John Mayes  John O'Neill  John Peard  Tim Pickup  Greg Pierce  George Piggins  Lew Platz  Jim Porter  John Quayle  Terry Randall  Tom Raudonikis  Johnny Rhodes  Steve Rogers  Paul Sait  Ian Schubert  Gary Stevens  Ross Strudwick  Greg Veivers  David Wright

v t e New South Wales State of Origin coaches Ted Glossop Frank Stanton Terry Fearnley Ron Willey John Peard Jack Gibson Tim Sheens Phil Gould Tommy Raudonikis Wayne Pearce Ricky Stuart Graham Murray Craig Bellamy Laurie Daley

v t e Western Suburbs Magpies Team of the 20th Century 1. Frank McMillan 2. Peter Dimond 3. Harry Wells 4. Cliff Pearce 5. Alan Ridley 6. Vic Hey 7. Keith Holman 8. John Donnelly 9. Noel Kelly (c) 10. Ed "Tedda" Courtney 11. Kel O'Shea 12. Arthur Clues 13. Les Boyd 14. Tom Raudonikis 15. John Dorahy 16. Neville Charlton 17. Bill Carson Coach: Roy Masters

v t e Rothmans Medallists 1968 Terry Hughes 1969 Denis Pittard 1970 Kevin Junee 1971 Denis Pittard 1972 Tommy Raudonikis 1973 Ken Maddison 1974 Graham Eadie 1975 Steve Rogers 1976 Ray Higgs 1977 Mick Cronin 1978 Mick Cronin 1979 Ray Price 1980 Geoff Bugden 1981 Kevin Hastings 1982 Greg Brentnall 1983 Mike Eden 1984 Terry Lamb 1985 Wayne Pearce 1986 Mal Cochrane 1987 Peter Sterling 1988 Barry Russell 1989 Gavin Miller & Mark Sargent 1990 Peter Sterling 1991 Ewan McGrady 1992 Allan Langer 1993 Ricky Stuart 1994 David Fairleigh 1995 Paul Green 1996 Jason Taylor 1997 Brad Fittler

Persondata
Name	Raudonikis, Tommy
Alternative names
Short description	Australian rugby league player
Date of birth	13 April 1950
Place of birth	Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia
Date of death
Place of death