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Tommy Raudonikis
Raudonikis in 2008
Personal information
Full name	Tom Raudonikis
Nickname	Tom Terrific[1]
Born	1950
	Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia,
Playing information
Height	5 ft 7 in (170 cm)[2]
Weight	11 st 7 lb (73 kg)[2]
Position	Halfback
Club
Years	Team	Pld	T	G	FG	P
1969	Wagga Kangaroos
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 1950 in Bathurst, 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.)^[3]

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.^[4][5] 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.^[6]

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] External links

• Tom Raudonikis OAM
• Tom Raudonikis' Website
• Tommy Raudonikis at stateoforigin.com.au
• Tom Raudonikis at eraofthebiff.com
• Australian Rugby League Nicknames