“For me to come here after being not allowed to play in the NRL, and be allowed to travel to the other side of the world to play, was a blessing for myself.”
AMID Leigh Leopard’s stirring return to Super League, alongside the speculator tries of Josh Charnley, the class of Lachlan Lam and power of Edwin Ipape, has been a rock on which much of their success has been built.
In John Asiata, the Leopards have a natural captain who leads through his actions, and whose consistency in the side’s pack has been outstanding.
It is Asiata’s second season at the club having made the switch from Down Under last year, when he was a key member of Leigh’s promotion-winning squad. He arrived with a higher profile than most, as an NRL Grand Final winner who came off the bench in North Queensland’s historic 2015 win over Brisbane Broncos.
It came after Asiata found himself without a club – or any prospect of playing at the top level in Australia again – after a personal choice not to have a Covid vaccine. It cost him his 2022 contract at the Bulldogs, who he had only recently joined from the Broncos.
“It has not been an easy time or decision but it is one I have full peace with,” Asiata said shortly after the decision in late 2021.
“If you know me you know I will always stay true to my convictions and values. One of those values is freedom of choice and bodily autonomy for my family and I.
“I love and respect anyone who has decided to take it out of their own free will, and I sympathise with anyone who has felt coerced and pressured to do it to keep food on the table for their families.
“I love Rugby League and everything it has afforded me and if it’s in God’s will for me to continue that in future, he will open that door. God bless.”
Asiata took a new path, and one that led to Leigh and a Championship debut against Whitehaven rather than lining up in the NRL against Penrith Panthers and South Sydney Rabbitohs.
“I lost my contract at the Bulldogs because of the Covid vaccine,” Asiata explains now. “I didn’t know whether I was going to play again or not.
“But God had other plans for me and I trusted what He wanted. For me to come here after being not allowed to play in the NRL, and be allowed to travel to the other side of the world to play, was a blessing for myself.
“It’s a different journey that I would have liked, but my plan isn’t always the right plan, and it’s about having trust in Him and what He had planned for me and my family.
“It was always in my mind whether whether I’d be able to play again in Australia, and then not knowing if I’d be able to travel and come here to play. At the time my decision was what was best for us as a family, and we had to leave it at that.
“Whatever God had planned for me and my family was where we were going to end up. The journey made sense and off I went.
“So far the journey has been good. I spoke to Lammy about coming over and he sold me a vision of how he wanted to build the club. The way it went last year was awesome and put us in good stead for this season.
“It gave us a foundation for what the 2023 season could look like. So far the journey has been awesome and I’ve had nothing but enjoyment from the way we play footy. I’ve found my love for the game again.
“Rugby wise I’m probably playing my best rugby in a long time – coming here has allowed me to play my free game and I love the style of play that Lammy has. It’s given me the opportunity to show who I am on the rugby field. But I’m still growing and I’ve still got a few gears left in me to continue to help this team.”
That – and similar sentiments recently made on the team’s potential by May Coach of the Month Lam – should act as an ominous warning for the rest of Super League given Leigh’s performances so far this season.
They have shocked the vast majority of observers by mounting a genuine top six challenge – but it hasn’t surprised Asiata and his team-mates.
“Coming into Super League from the Championship is never an easy task and every game is tough,” he says.
“As a team we set a goal of where we wanted to be at the end of the season and then broke down our year into a set of blocks.
“There were some targets to meet and at the moment we’re on target, though we still do understand that we’re far from our best.
“We know that we’re heading in the right direction and we’re very proud of how we’ve been going.
“The boys have really bought into what Lammy wanted to achieve and have believed in each other.”
They have also ignored the pre-season skeptics.
“There will always be outside noise and people doubting us, thinking that it will be the same old teams coming up from the Championship and going straight back down,” Asiata adds.
“But it’s the group itself that writes the script of our journey, and if anything those people fuelled the fire and motivated us more to prove people wrong.
“That’s what we’re aiming to do.
“I was looking at it last year and with the recruitment that we did then and before the start of the season, I thought we’d be good enough to get into the top six as long as we believed in the group.
“Players have come in and bought into our plan, and it’s credit to the staff for the recruitment that was done, and credit to those boys that they’ve been willing to buy into the team.
“For us, every game we need to make sure we turn up with the right attitude and on song to perform.”
First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 486 (July 2023)
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