Jaqua Pori-Makea-Simpson

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125 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 23 Jul

Jaqua Pori-Makea-Simpson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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The Documentary Podcast · The spirit of Tala: The rapid rise of Tonga's netball team · 23 Jul 2026 podcast

you know, do you want a world ranking and a world cup or do you want it to be locally based athletes?

Because you can't have both.

But I think that anyone that is born with Pacific Island heritage are deeply rooted and connected to their families.

So for our players that are living in Australia and they're living in New Zealand, they have a strong connection to their culture.

Very, very strong.

We did have a very small

minority within our team that had never been to Tonga before but there's a difference it doesn't mean that they're not connected it doesn't mean that they're not Tongan it doesn't mean that they're not practicing those cultural ways in the countries that they live in it just means that they had never been home to their villages so to me they were very separate conversations um

Taking them back to Tonga and watching them thrive and grow with their people has been amazing.

And I think that's why netball, or sport really, is so incredible, right?

When she lost the grand final by one goal, that was a little bit heartbreaking.

The last concern, in my opinion, is a national netball team playing a competition in another country when they're trying to help and serve their own people at that time of devastation.

I had no team.

I had no administration.

I didn't have uniforms.

I had no equipment.

I literally had zero.

I had me.

It was just so overwhelming and I was literally scouring social media trying to find Tongan netballers with some talent because I didn't have a team and I didn't even know where to look.

There were no netballers.

Tongan netball programs in other places around between Australia and New Zealand.

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