Tommy Raudonikis

Tommy Raudonikis OAM (born 13 April 1950) is an Australian former rugby league footballer and coach. He played over 29 Tests and World Cup games as Australia representative  and captained his country in two Tests of the 1973 Kangaroo tour.

Background
Raudonikis was born Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. He is the son of a Lithuanian immigrant father and a Swiss immigrant mother.

He joined the RAAF as an Engineering Apprentice in 1967 and spent three years under training at RAAF Wagga.

Club playing career
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. He played under two famous coaches, Roy Masters at Wests and Warren Ryan at Newtown. Some rate him the toughest player ever to have played in the halves and in September 2004 he was named in the Western Suburbs Magpies team of the century.

Raudonikis was Western Suburbs Club Captain from 1971 to 1979, and was Newtown Club Captain from 1980 to 1982.

240+ senior game for Western Suburbs Magpies and Newtown Jets
Won the 1972 Rothmans Medal

Representative playing career
Raudonikis 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.

NSW and Australian halfback throughout the 1970s
First NSW state of origin captain in 1980
Coached NSW Blues in 1997 and 1998 Origin Series
NSW Sporting Hall of Fame
Kangaroos captain in 1973 for the deciding Ashes test against Great Britain (won 15–5) and the opening test against France (won 21–9)
29 Test and World Cup caps

Awards

Awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in 1982
Team of the Century with Wests Tigers and Western Suburbs
Wests Magpies # 1 club man in 100 years and Magpie Immortal
Voted Newtown’s Greatest Import in 100 years
Men of Leagues’ Toughest 12 in last 50 years
ARL’s greatest 100 in past 100 years

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 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.

In the media
Raudonikis is a long term friend of 2GB radio station owner John Singleton.  Through this friendship, he also participated as a commentator for the Continuous Call Team with Ray Hadley on 2GB.

Raudonikis' hospitalization 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).

Raudonikis made an appearance in the 2007 rugby league drama film The Final Winter.

Raudonikis at one stage worked 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. Also in 2008 the Western Suburbs Magpies celebrated their centenary by inducting six inaugural members, including Raudonikis, into the club's Hall of Fame.

In 2017, Raudonikis was a weekly guest on The Footy Show and had his own segment, "The Raudonikis Report".

Footnotes

External links
Tom Raudonikis' website
Tommy Raudonikis, Wests Rugby League Team and the Working Class of Campbelltown, New South Wales - article in Football Studies 1998 Vol 1
Era of the biff profile

Sources
 

Category:1950 births
Category:Rugby league players from New South Wales
Category:Western Suburbs Magpies players
Category:Australia national rugby league team players
Category:Newtown Jets players
Category:Australia national rugby league team captains
Category:New South Wales Rugby League State of Origin players
Category:City New South Wales rugby league team players
Category:New South Wales Rugby League State of Origin captains
Category:Western Suburbs Magpies coaches
Category:New South Wales Rugby League State of Origin coaches
Category:Living people
Category:Australian rugby league coaches
Category:Australian rugby league players
Category:Australian rugby league commentators
Category:Australian people of Lithuanian descent
Category:Australian people of Swiss descent
Category:Recipients of the Medal of the Order of Australia
Category:Rugby league halfbacks
Category:Norths Devils coaches
Category:Ipswich Jets coaches