Manoa Thompson (born 11 June 1968) is a Fijian former professional

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

footballer. Primarily playing as a , he played his first grade career with the

South Sydney Rabbitohs The South Sydney Rabbitohs are a professional Australian rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen pla ...

Western Suburbs Magpies The Western Suburbs Magpies (legal name: Western Suburbs District Rugby League Football Club Ltd) are an Australian rugby league football club based in the western suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales. Formed in 1908, Wests, as they are commonly r ...

, and the

Auckland Warriors The New Zealand Warriors are a professional rugby league football club based in Auckland, New Zealand that competes in the National Rugby League (NRL) premiership and is the League's only team from outside Australia. They were formed in 1995 as ...

in the

NSWRL The New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL) is the governing body of rugby league in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory and is a member of the Australian Rugby League Commission. It was formed in Sydney on 8 August 1907 and was ...

ARL ARL may refer to: Military * US Navy hull classification symbol for repair ship * Admiralty Research Laboratory, UK * United States Army Research Laboratory * ARL 44, a WWII French tank Organizations * Aero Research Limited, a UK adhesives comp ...

competition, as well as playing in the

Super League The Super League (officially known as the Betfred Super League due to sponsorship from Betfred and legally known as Super League Europe), is the top-level of the British rugby league system. At present the league consists of twelve teams, of wh ...

for the

Warrington Wolves The Warrington Wolves are a professional rugby league club based in Warrington, England, that competes in the Super League. They play rugby at the Halliwell Jones Stadium, having moved there from Wilderspool in 2004. Founded as Warrington Z ...

. He represented the Fijian national team. Thompson is the father of former professional

NRL The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...

, NFL, and rugby sevens player,

Jarryd Hayne Jarryd Lee Hayne (born 15 February 1988) is a former professional rugby league footballer who also briefly played American football and rugby union sevens. Hayne began his career in 2006 as a er for the Parramatta Eels, winning the NRL's Da ...

Early years

Thompson was born in Fiji to a Fijian mother, Elenoa Tokalautawa, and an Australian father, and moved to Australia when he was 11. He was adopted by his mother's younger sister, Ana Waqanibaravi Thompson. He played his junior football with the

Alexandria Rovers The Alexandria Rovers are an Australian rugby league football team based in Alexandria, New South Wales, a suburb of south-central Sydney. They play in the South Sydney District Junior Rugby Football League. Notable Juniors Notable First Grade P ...

.''Rugby League Week'', 10 September 2015, p.45 Thompson also played

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

and toured Japan with a New South Wales schoolboys side that included

Graham Mackay Graham Mackay (born 12 October 1968) is a former international and state representative rugby league footballer whose club career spanned Ten Australian and English clubs, including Western Suburbs, Penrith, Gold Coast Chargers, Hull FC and ...

and

Scott Gourley Scott Robert Gourley (born 18 July 1968) is an Australian former rugby league and rugby union footballer who played from 1986-1998 and achieved the status of a dual-code international representing his country in both sports. He made five Test ...

Playing career

Thompson joined the

, where he played in their champion under-21 side before playing in their under-23 side. He made his first grade début for Souths in round 11 of the 1989 season. Thompson went on to play 61 first grade games for Souths between 1989 and 1993. He spent

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

with the

, playing in only seven matches after having knee and ankle surgery during the off season. In

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

he was part of the inaugural squad for the new

franchise and played in the centres for the Warriors in their first ever competition game, a 25-22 loss to the

Brisbane Broncos The Brisbane Broncos Rugby League Football Club Ltd., commonly referred to as the Broncos, is an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Brisbane, Queensland. Founded in April 1987, the Broncos play in Australia's elite com ...

in front of 29,220 fans at the Ericsson Stadium in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

. However, he again only played in seven matches and was not retained for the 1996 season. In November 1995 Thompson signed with English club

Warrington Warrington () is a town and unparished area in the borough of the same name in the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England, on the banks of the River Mersey. It is east of Liverpool, and west of Manchester. The population in 2019 was estimat ...

and played for the club during 1996's inaugural

Super League I The year 1996's Stones Bitter Super League I was the official name for the 102nd season of top-level rugby league football, and the first year of Europe's new championship: Super League. It is also the first season of rugby league to be played i ...

. He left Warrington in February 1996 after failing to settle in Britain. Thompson represented

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...

in 1996. His only appearance saw a 72-4 loss to

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

at the

Prince Charles Park Prince Charles Park is a stadium in Nadi, Fiji. The stadium has a nominal capacity of 18,000 people. It currently hosts rugby union matches, football (soccer) matches, and special events. The venue hosted the final of the football Oceania ...

Nadi Nadi (pronounced ) is the third-largest conurbation in Fiji. It is located on the western side of the main island of Viti Levu, and had a population of 42,284 at the most recent census, in 2007. A 2012 estimate showed that the population had ...

, the score being the record for the largest test win by the Lions. After returning from England, Thompson trialed with the

Canberra Raiders The Canberra Raiders are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the national capital city of Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. They have competed in Australasia's elite rugby league competition, the National Rugby ...

before signing with the

Penrith Panthers The Penrith Panthers are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the western Sydney suburb of Penrith that competes in the NRL. The team is based west of the centre of Sydney, at the foot of the Blue Mountains. Penrith ...

. However he spent the season in reserve grade and returned to South Sydney during the off season. After not securing a contract, Thompson moved to France and played for

AS Saint Estève As, AS, A. S., A/S or similar may refer to: Art, entertainment, and media * A. S. Byatt (born 1936), English critic, novelist, poet and short story writer * "As" (song), by Stevie Wonder * , a Spanish sports newspaper * , an academic male voic ...

before spending a year in rugby union, playing for

RC Narbonne R&C, RC, R/C, Rc, or rc may refer to: Science and technology Computing * rc, the default Command line interface in Version 10 Unix and Plan 9 from Bell Labs * .rc (for "run commands"), a filename extension for configuration files in UNIX-like ...

alongside David Knox. Thompson then returned to league, spending a season with

AS Carcassonne Association Sportive of Carcassonne are a semi-professional rugby league football club based in Carcassonne in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitanie in the south of France. They play in the French Elite One Championship and a ...

before retiring.

Later years

In 2007 he was working as a delivery driver. He is still involved in rugby league, sitting on the Australian Fiji rugby league board and helping to coach that organisation's youth sides.

References

External links

South Sydney Profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thompson, Manoa 1968 births Living people AS Carcassonne players AS Saint Estève players Fijian emigrants to Australia Fijian people of Australian descent Fijian rugby league players Australian people of I-Taukei Fijian descent Fiji national rugby league team players New Zealand Warriors players Rugby league centres South Sydney Rabbitohs players Warrington Wolves players Western Suburbs Magpies players