TAFA was founded on Australia Day (Jan 26) 2003 when Australian expatriates Tim Valente and Mark Korsten became involved in a vicious bragging competition. It was settled on 27 Jan 2003 at 7:00 AM with severe hangovers at Teufaiva (pronounced "TAFA FOREVER") Stadium.
A truce was called at approximately 7:12 AM, but not before a couple of hard case pipehittin' Tongan's had come out of the stands with back-to-front baseball caps, goofy grins and a mouthful of What gives man!" 10 minutes later Tim and Mark had them up to speed on drop punts. 20 minutes later they were slotting bananas from the boundary. By the 30 min mark they were finishing off with one of those Buddah Hocking finger waves to the empty stands.
The talent was obvious and still is. That was week one. In the subsequent weeks they came sometimes, gave it a miss sometimes, but had a good time always. Each time they came back they brought their mates and brothers and numbers grew steadily.
In Mar 2004 the first Tongan played in a National Team. Sila Va'enuku, also a reasonable Rugby Union player, was invited to play with the Tongan expatriate community in the Multicultural Cup in Melbourne, Australia. Tonga did reasonably well winning its first pool match comfortably, but losing the second match to traditional rival Samoa by a small margin. This was obviously a bit disappointing, but it was great to get the Tongan expat community on board and to give everyone a bit of a demonstration of Pacific Talent.
Participation numbers are encouraging after just a couple of solid years. They now have 5 high schools involved with primary schools active too, providing around 150 junior players. The main emphasis is on the 12 - 14 year olds, but players across the system range from 5 to 35. All in all TAFA appear to have a very solid base from which to grow.
http://www.tafa.to/