Craig Fitzgibbon hit Addin Fonua-Blake right between the eyes with the question while sitting on a sponsor’s boat, working out why he should sign one of the game’s best and most destructive front-rowers.
In a roundabout way, the answer came several months later while Fonua-Blake sat on the Warriors team bus in the bowels of Suncorp Stadium, staring a hole through the seat in front of him.
“What would you bring to my team?” was Fitzgibbon’s enquiry when he first met Fonua-Blake as Sharks management took their rendezvous to the high seas to ensure no one spotted them trying to recruit one of the NRL’s most in-demand players.
The Tongan star had already met with Canterbury general manager Phil Gould, Wests Tigers officials and Dragons coach Shane Flanagan.
But after “a bit of lunch on this real nice boat; no tinnie, I promise you”, Fitzgibbon put it on Fonua-Blake, effectively turning the pitch around and winning the big man over in the process.
“It took me back a bit honestly when Fitzy asked that,” Fonua-Blake said.
Addin Fonua-Blake likes the fact Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon is “all in, all effort”. Much like himself.Credit: NRL Imagery
“I thought about it and told him, ‘I’ll be bringing 100 per cent, effort every day’. I know what I can produce, and I’ll put that effort in as long as I can. That meeting with Fitzy and the Cronulla guys, you could just see that he coaches the same way he played: all in, all effort.”
Which is why Fonua-Blake skipped out on the Warriors team song last year in one of the stranger reasons for a player to be dropped by his club.
Fonua-Blake quietly removed himself from the Warriors dressing room as they celebrated an upset win over Penrith, one of the gutsiest in their history considering the injuries they sustained before and during the Magic Round clash.
But the reigning Dally M prop of the year was quietly filthy. His seven runs for 62 metres with a couple of errors against the Panthers made for his smallest statistical impact on a game since his first two seasons in the NRL.
Addin Fonua-Blake trains with the Sharks.Credit: Cronulla Sharks
“So instead of hanging around the team and bringing the team’s mood down, my thinking was I’ll go and sit on the bus, so I’m not hanging around like a bad smell,” Fonua-Blake said.
“I wasn’t dirty on my teammates; I was dirty on myself and how I’d played. I didn’t lead in that game and didn’t lead my team. It was the wrong decision at the time and I put my hand up for it, that’s all I can do. I took my one-week stand down for it. I think I came back into the team playing well and that was a point I wanted to make from it.”
Fonua-Blake returned to the Warriors line-up after a week out and finished 2024 as a Dally M prop again.
He is grateful to the Kiwi club for understanding his request to move back to Sydney to be closer to his parents.
Dally M prop of the year Addin Fonua-Blake.Credit: NRL Photos
Now 29, Fonua-Blake has ex-Warriors coach Nathan Brown to thank for “helping me grow up off the field”. Current Warriors coach Andrew Webster then challenged him to lift his effort areas, such as support and decoy plays, and Fonua-Blake became one of the game’s truly elite props in the process.
Cronulla’s forwards have been constantly moving around the ball since Fitzgibbon took charge three years ago. And looking at his new coach, Fonua-Blake can spot the same “hard marker” he sees in himself.
“I know what I can do in this game,” he said.
“And when I don’t do that, I’m filthy. I feel like I’m letting myself down, letting my team down and letting my family down when I go out and I don’t perform to my best.
“Some days when it’s like that, it’s a failure for me. It might be a pass in someone else’s books, but not for me. And if I’m not hard on myself then, who’s going to be?
“I can see that in Fitz, too. Accountability is massive for him, and if your coach is that way, then your team ends up playing that way, too. There’s a lot of talent here at the Sharks and I think I’m joining one of the strongest forward packs in the NRL.
“So I want to leave a legacy and perform at my best. If I’m not, that’s when I’m not happy.”
