Life in league: Ron Leapai talks family, France, and country footy

However, the bulk of the names announced have been either returning locals or re-signings and there has been only one new player to the club: Ron Leapai.

At 24 years old, Leapai already has a long and storied career in the sport. At the club's final pre-Christmas training session, he sat down with the Post to discuss his career, his family, and life in Goulburn.

Goulburn Post: You played for the premiership-winning Woden Rams side in 2018, were out injured for most of 2019, then went to play in France in 2020. What took you over there?

Ron Leapai: It was just an opportunity that came up over 2018. I went away for Country in Papua New Guinea, and I got an offer to go [to France], but then I got injured in 2019, so I didn't take the contract then.

But in 2020 I decided to go over there. At the end of 2019 I went over, I took the opportunity that was there for me to go there, play their footy, and see what it was like, and I loved it. It was one of the toughest competitions I've played in.

GP: So what did you find were the biggest differences between rugby league in France and rugby league in Australia?

RL: I think there it's a lot quicker, and there's a lot more ex-Super League players in it. You'd find a team with six or seven of them, where you'd never find that in Canberra, where there might be the odd one or two.

[But in France] you'd have one team that's fully stacked, because it's the grade below First Grade. It's the equivalent to something like the NSW Cup.

GP: And your goal there was to make the Catalan Dragons side?

RL: I wanted to have a crack and hopefully make their training squad or something. I was working on that, but with COVID I only got to play 11 games, and I still had half a season to go.

GP: So everything is going well, you're playing good footy in France, and then COVID brings everything to a halt and you have to come back to Australia early. That must have been tough.

RL: It was tough, it was a big decision to come back because COVID was spreading pretty quickly. I had my partner there, we were both there and we thought it was better to come back home rather than get stuck there.

We got on the planes straight away once they opened up to Australia, it took us 52 hours to get back.

GP: So then you signed with the Tumut Blues for the 2021 season. How did that happen?

RL: One of my good mates, Zac Masters, is the coach there. I played 20s with him and got to know him off the field, we built a bit of a bond.

He wanted to win the comp and asked me if I wanted to come out there. The CRRL was umming and ahhing on how many teams they were going to have in the comp, but [Group Nine] said they were going to have a full competition, so I decided I'd rather play a full competition than three or four games.

So I made the move to play there, traveled every Friday and trained once a week and played on the weekends. I was still based in Canberra but travelled with a couple of local boys.

GP: How did you find it compared to the Canberra competition?

RL: It was good footy, I've always heard that Group 9 was tough, so I wanted to played there and see how I went.

It's real slow, it's not as quick as the Canberra competition where everyone's up on their feet, running. In Group 9, they're like 'I'll bash you and you bash me'. It's still good footy, but they're real country kids. You hit them, they just stand back up. They don't care.

GP: How do you think your playing style will fit in with the Bulldogs?

RL: I think I'll just have to try and work around how they play, try to work the way I play into how they run themselves around the field. I reckon it'll work well, because I don't like playing around size too much.

I like being around guys who play with their mates and have their heart on their sleeves, rather than guys who use their size as a threat. I've always played a tough game against Goulburn, so I think it'll be good to be around them.

GP: Things obviously didn't work out the way you'd hoped in Europe, but going forward do you have a plan to get back there?

RL: I've still got the opportunity to go back, I'm still in contact with them. It's just about when they want me to come back, I can't really do it at the moment because I'm putting my son first and I want him to grow up a little bit first.

It'll be easier for him to see things and it would be good to travel with him, so for now it's just my family, and once I get that sorted I'll go back overseas again. For now I'd rather stay home and have a family.

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