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Australian national rugby league captain

Tommy Raudonikis (born 1950 in Bathurst, New South Wales)is an Australian rugby league identity . He played over twenty-nine Tests and World Cup games as Australian test halfback and captained his country in two tests during the 1973 Kangarooo tour.

Raudonikis is the son of a Lithuanian father and a Swiss mother who emigrated to Australia after WWII. He played 204 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 to have ever played in the halves.

He 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 first captain of the New South Wales State of Origin team in the inaugural 1980 contest and also coached blues in the 1997 and 1998 series. He is also a part of State of Origin folklore after starting the infamous 'cattle dog' call, which caused some of the games most famous all-in-brawls.

Raudonikis coached the Western Suburbs Magpies from 1995 to 1999 up until the formation of the Wests Tigers joint venture with the Balmain Tigers. He had some initial coaching success making the finals in 1996, but the Wests were unable to build on this success, and only won six games in their final two seasons.

He is a long term friend of 2GB radio station owner John Singleton. Through this friendship, he also participates as a commentator for the Continuous Call Team with Ray Hadley, as heard on 2GB and network stations across Australia and streaming worldwide on the internet.

His hospitalisation 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.) He is known to have been a lifelong heavy smoker and drinker. He quit smoking over eight years ago and consumes only light alcoholic beverages.

Currently Raudonikis works as a part of the Channel 9 rugby league commentry team.

The general respect for him can be summed up in former coach Roy Masters' testimony to him. [1]