analysis: The last hunt of Carol Manga, rugby league's indomitable lion of Cameroon
Trying to introduce the sport to a country on rugby league's further frontiers isn't easy.
For the game to survive, let alone grow, it takes uncommon dedication and zeal, a willingness to keep plugging away again and again, no matter what.
And just like a Clint Eastwood western, life on the frontier can be rough. For proof of that, look no further than when Cameroon made their international debut in 2019, where they had to travel eight days by bus to Lagos, Nigeria, for a match.
Like most Cameroonian national teams, the league team are called the Indomitable Lions and they had to live up to that name on that long journey — various times through the trek they were arrested, robbed and held at gunpoint, and after making it all that way they lost both their games.
Carol Manga was there for all of it, as he has been since the day he brought rugby league to his home country, because he is a believer in Cameroon, in his sport and in what they can do for one another.
"Cameroon is a bit fragile. We only have sport to express ourselves, to show how much we are proud, to show how much we love our country," Manga says.
"We only have sport to bridge gaps between generations and social status. This is an important thing to me.
"We are a poor country, but rugby league gives so many young men and young women hope."
Manga believes in fate. After everything that's happened to him, how could he not?
How else does a boy from Biyem-Assi in Yaounde come to love rugby league in a way only the truest of believers really do?
"My calling to Australia was rugby league and straight away I started looking back to Cameroon. To give them what I did not have," Manga says.
"If there is some player who is starting young, they can be better than me because they will have the opportunity.
"I want Cameroon to put their name on the rugby league map across the world."
It's a dream that might sound far-fetched to some, but Manga refuses to back down in the face of those long odds.
That's why Manga will return to Africa for one last ride, one more chance to represent the two countries that mean so much to him and to play the game that has become his life. One last hunt for Cameroon's most indomitable lion.
The boy from Yaounde
It began, as so many football journeys do, with a jersey. Manga was 14 and like so many children growing up in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, he loved soccer.
"My mum bought me a rugby jersey, she just liked the colour because it was yellow with a green colour, and it was an Australian jersey," Manga says.
"My mum says she thinks it was fate. She knew there was something in my future, in my life, with Australia.
"That's all I can say, it was fate. She believes that this is something I was born to do, because it was so easy for me to play and understand."
So at 14, Manga took up a new sport and was immediately thrown to the fire, but he took on his new game quickly.
"It was hard, because I was so young. Even as a junior, you do not have a choice. A boy must play with the men, and people believed I was talented so I had to step up," Manga says.
"I started playing rugby at 14, then when I was 16 I was the baby in the Cameroon national team. My first game was against Zambia.
"My mum had to sign a paper so I would be allowed to play, and they had to have a doctor asses me to see if I was capable of playing with adults. But that was how we grew up."
"You just have to be a man."
In 2008 at age 21, after securing a sporting visa, Manga landed in Canberra and was keen to continue playing, perhaps even professionally one day, but struggled to acclimatise so far from home.
He'd never heard of rugby league before he watched the Canberra Raiders on TV soon after arriving, and shortly thereafter he decided to give it a go with the Cooma Stallions.
It's difficult to imagine a more different place than Manga's home. Yaounde is a bustling metropolis of almost three million people where the temperature rarely dips below 25C.
Cooma's population is about 7000 strong and it's as cold as you'd expect for a town that's the gateway to the Snowy Mountains.
Apart from it's role in the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric scheme, it's an easy place to miss on a map.
But Manga loves Cooma, because the people there wrapped their arms around him the way country towns can do. It became a second home, he started playing first grade and reserve grade every week for the Stallions, and the team, the town and the game he found there changed his life forever.
"I struggled a lot and had a very hard time settling in Australia. Looking back, it was really bad but the club, the town, Cooma, I don't know if I would be the person I am today if they were not there for me," Manga says.
"I am so grateful for the town and for the club, because they were amazing people who cared about me and showed me love and accepted me for who I am. That's why I stayed in Australia.
"I devote myself to the game, to the club, I would play first grade and reserve grade every weekend. I played the grand final against Bega with reserve grade and we won."
From there, Manga landed a deal with the Ipswich Jets in Queensland and went on to further stints with Gungahlin and Belconnen.
For the most part, local football was enough for Manga. Playing professionally was never his dream. All he wanted was to take this new sport he loved so much back to his home, which he did in 2012 when he helped form the Cameroon Rugby League XIII.
One last time
Manga has helped rugby league come a long way in Cameroon in a short time. Where once there was nothing, there are now eight men's teams, with names like Yaounde Pandas, Air Garuoua and Douala Gorillas.
There's a women's competition as well, which is five teams strong, as well as four youth teams. They've been promoted from observer status to affiliate member status by the RLIF.
It's enough to be a start, and Manga has big dreams for the game in Cameroon, who are currently ranked 36th in the world.
Manga's passion is infectious, with the likes of New South Wales Origin coach Brad Fittler and former international Michael Hancock helping out along the way with donations of playing equipment, advice or inspiration.
And as the world opened up following the pandemic, there were more games for the Indomitable Lions, once again in the Middle East-Africa championship, which will be held next month in Accra.
They're to face Nigeria first and if they win they'll play either Ghana or Kenya. It's the first round of qualifiers for the World Cup, so the stakes are even higher, and Manga was hard at work with preparation when he received a call from a friend back home.
What if Manga, who had not played a game in eight years, made a comeback? What if he pulled on the colours of Cameroon one more time as a debutant at 34?
He could be the first man anywhere in the world to captain his country in rugby league, rugby union and rugby sevens. He could make that history, and it would be for Cameroon.
"At the moment, Cameroon is missing someone with experience. We have very athletic, strong, fast, enthusiastic players who just miss some experience," Manga says.
"They asked me to come because they said my experience would help the team, but I was overweight. I had put my focus onto the admin side of the game, and living in Australia had allowed me to do that.
"I said I would think about it, because I would have to drop 20kg in four months."
It would be a lot of work, because Manga would not play if he could not do his country proud.
But in the end, Manga said he would do it. It was an honour he could not pass up, for himself or his family, especially after the passing of his mother, Francoise Bikie Aboe, who started him on this path with that jersey all those years ago.
"She had been my friend, my confidant, my inspiration my rock. She has been there every single step of my life," Manga said.
"So I thought I will do this for her as well. It might be important for me, my children and for Cameroon. I decided to do it, and then I will hang up the boots forever."
The final journey
Manga changed jobs, taking a gig as a delivery driver so he could be more physically active, and started training with North Canberra Bears to get his ball skills back.
The days were long and the nights were hard, but he's now dropped 18kg since he started, and is fixed firmly on the last games he will ever play, the end of the long journey that started when he got that jersey all those years ago.
"You have to be brave to get out of your comfort zone and change what is around you," Manga says.
"People might want to judge you with the job you do, or the person you are or the money you have in your bank account.
"But none of that defines who you are. Your life defines who you are. What I am doing is important to me. If I have a chance to do it, I will do whatever it takes.
"Being in Australia has never changed my love for Cameroon, and the love Australia has given me is something I want to take back to Cameroon.
"I can connect the countries, I can say thank you to Cameroon and to Australia.
"This is the only way I can say thank you."
Manga's life as a player might end when he steps on the field in Ghana next month, but the dream will continue.
Even if he's retired for good, he'll never stop believing in Cameroon, or Australia or rugby league.
His work will be off the field and for his people. He wants to give them something, the gift he found so far from home, and he wants them to find the things he found there.
That work can never end. It is his cause. It is his fate.