As Tevita Pangai Junior prepares to open his season for Canterbury on Sunday against Parramatta, there are certain games that rush to mind — the Bulldogs prop has that affect.
The first is a match in 2018 against North Queensland, back when a Broncos-Cowboys match was little less than a Queensland civil war.
Pangai is a hunter and the most dangerous 'game' back then was Jason Taumalolo, who put the Cowboys on his shoulders the previous season and carried them to the grand final from eighth spot.
Pangai has said many times how much he respects and admires Taumalolo, a longtime Tongan teammate. But, on that night in 2018, he played like he wanted to destroy Taumalolo and the rest of the Cowboys, or die trying.
Nobody had done it before and few have done it since – except for Pangai, who did it again the very next season.
Then, in 2021, bound for Canterbury, Pangai stopped in at Penrith for six weeks that have vanished into the pandemic memory hole. The Panther's premiership win that year was a triumph of desperation that came somewhat against the odds; Penrith were underdogs against Melbourne for the preliminary final and were battered and bruised through the back half of the year.
To beat the Storm — sailing with 21 wins from their past 22 matches — Penrith needed a spark and Pangai provided it. He is a player who has always understood that on the field, nobody gives it to you; you have to take it.
Pangai only played six games for Penrith. In that prelim, the finest hour of the club's golden era, he only played 16 minutes and hurt his calf, to miss the grand final.
But in the opening exchange he took it to the Storm, hunted them down and knocked them around, and found a crack in the purple wall by getting up close and personal.
It changed the game from the typical run-and-gun footy of that time into trench warfare, which is a battle Penrith can always win and haven't stopped winning since.
Pangai didn't clog the stat sheet in either of these matches — that's never quite been his go. Instead, he makes big plays that you remember, and leaves no room for smaller ones. That's become Pangai's signature, for better and for worse — and we do mean, for worse.
He's a dream player, but dreams aren't perfect. The two games above were a showcase of everything Pangai can do when he wants to. There are other matches, or even parts of matches, like that in his career, but not as many as anybody would like. The moments where he touches greatness have been exceptions rather than the norm.
There were enough off-field incidents for Brisbane to decide he wasn't worth the trouble.
There were injuries, particularly to his enormous hamstrings.
There were the other games you remember, the ones where Pangai lost his way and made mistakes, or didn't find anybody to hunt and watched on as the result slipped away, or when he made foolish, hot-headed lapses of discipline.
Yet, there might still be time for Pangai to find the best of himself, to become one of the elite forwards in rugby league.
He is 27, the age when forwards used to hit their peak. His year with Canterbury last season was better than people think and he's said all the right things about the future.
But that's not a guarantee. Some guys, no matter how good they are or how hard they try, just never get it together. At some point, you are what your record says you are.
Pangai is at the age where clubs stop paying for what you might become and start paying for what you've been.
What can save Pangai is the same thrill of the hunt that's inspired his greatest performances. The Bulldogs are a team with lofty aspirations, despite the misery of recent seasons, but they've been ripped apart by injuries in the forwards and will be without Viliame Kikau for months after he tore his pectoral muscle during the week.
Pangai is a welcome reinforcement. The Bulldogs still have honest toilers in the middle, grinders who can do the tough stuff, but they need a killer. They need a wrecking machine. They need a hunter. Canterbury need him to be the player he has promised to be.
If he can't find the steel within himself, then it might not be there. If this isn't his time, he might never have one. Pangai has always been a player of unlimited potential, but the day of truth has come. It must be now.
Pangai could finish this season with more heads on his wall, or become the guy who used to be Tevita Pangai Junior.
That's why Canterbury's clash with Parramatta is important. Sound the horns and release the hounds, because the hunt is on.
