'I know he's with me': Tiana Penitani's heartbreaking journey to fulfil Origin dream

Tiana Penitani is the youngest ever Australian to play Rugby Sevens at a world series event and after switching codes she will represent New South Wales in State of Origin this week.

Penitani discusses how the heartbreaking loss of her father in 2008 has pushed her to achieve her Rugby League dreams.

Tiana Penitani for PlayersVoice

As the youngest-ever Australian to play at a rugby sevens world series event, people might see me as a rugby league convert. But that’s not right and nerves are nothing to do with that.

Rugby league has been with me from the start. Playing juniors for La Perouse, growing up in an extended family of diehard South Sydney fans, I got dragged along to Rabbitohs games and grew up as a massive Blues supporter cheering from the couch with my mum and dad and siblings.

My mum Renee, my No.1 supporter, will watch me run out against Queensland in my first Origin game. My dad Solomon, who was murdered in 2008, will be right there with me too.

I know he’s with me every day and the energy I feel from him, I know he’s happy and proud of where I am and the decisions I’ve made and what I’m achieving.

My dad was a massive fan of league and union. He played rugby for Tonga a long time ago and then league for Maroubra, and I remember being a little girl on the sidelines with my mum watching him play for the last team he would ever play for.

When I take the field I carry part of him with me. At the end of 2017, I got a band around my thigh. A special piece and the only tattoo I have, that honours my family and where we’ve had to come from.

The last day I saw Dad he was going to get his sleeve tattoo finished, with one of his close friends, who is a tattoo artist. We’d just arrived home from a family holiday in Fiji. He had the outline done and he was going to get the rest shaded in.

Dad went out that night and never came home.

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