I was hoping that my first piece of writing for The Roar might be a bit witty, maybe a bit knowledgeable or maybe even a chance to reminisce about old times.
I never thought it would be this – a whinge, a complaint, a note of dissatisfaction. Why am I watching a woman put a goldfish in a toilet bowl on SBS – instead of our own national rugby team?
My involvement and passion for the sport may take a fair while to outline – but it is important to understand my background as I think it may be similar to many out there. A not very good lower grade player who simply loved the game and played it whenever and wherever he could.
I’m the guy who swapped from under 14/15s rugby league to 16B Grade Marist Brothers because I was told: “Marist is a rugby school and whilst there is nothing wrong with playing league for the local club, it will be hard to get the school marks that you are capable of if you continue on this particular pathway”.
The end result of that discussion was me finally stowing away my kit bag for the final time 25 years later.
In 1987, my path took me to Bunbury in WA where, as a 17-year-old still in school, I played for the Bunbury Barbarians who had teams in the third and fourth grade Perth Competition.
I played as an underweight lock forward for fourths and then would back up 20 minutes later as a slow winger who could not catch a high ball for thirds.
Once a fortnight Dad and I would put my L-Plates on his cherry red TF Cortina and drive to Perth to play. He thought the team bus trip was too wild for a 17-year-old private schoolboy.
In 1987, I also played my first WA Rugby Country Carnival. Four games in two days over the May long weekend against teams that consisted of shearers from Kojonup and Kirup, coal miners from Collie, farmers from Esperance, gold miners from Kalgoorlie as well as the students and alumni from the WA School of Mines.
It was all great fun and it was here that I met Dr Bruce Hartley, a WA rugby legend who would tour the state with his team of Hartley’s Horribles promoting the great game to anybody who would listen, watch and possibly play.
He invited me to play for the University Of Western Australia club if I ever made it to Perth. The following year I made it to the city and I duly started training for the University Colts team.
Len Ikitau and Ben Donaldson celebrate the try to defeat England. (Photo by Andrew Kearns – CameraSport via Getty Images)
I didn’t have much luck with them. They had gone through the previous year undefeated and had, from memory, at least 10 under-21 state players, a few of which ended up playing for the senior WA team, one played under 21’s for Australia. If my memory serves me correctly, a young John Welborn packed down in the scrum.
Needless to say, I was a bit despondent when the team was read out for the first game and I was not even on the bench. The waterboy even played for WA a few years later.
In true rugby style, as I was getting changed on the well-worn limestone steps of the Arts building, a bloke by the name of Steve tapped me on the shoulder and said that they always needed players for fourth grade and he would introduce me to them on Saturday if I was keen on having a run with them. My first stint for Uni had begun.
After a few years, I ended up back in Bunbury. Four years later I had been well and truly indoctrinated into the game.
Bus trips, beer, bawdy songs, more beer, pulling up at a Telstra phone box 50 km out of town and phoning the radio station to ask for a shout-out.
A round of applause would go through the bus when the announcer said: “this is for the boys from the Bunbury Barbarians who are on their way back home after defeating Associates”.
Standing on stools and singing “Climb, Climb Up Sunshine Mountain” at the Harvey Hotel was another highlight. I lie, it actually took me until Round 12 1997 to be on a team that beat Associates.
Once we arrived at two in the morning after driving eight hours to Kalgoorlie to play another Country Carnival in 1995.
Another four games in two days and the truck drivers who we met in the hostel laughed when they saw the amount of strapping tape holding us together as well as a multitude of ice bags resting on ankles, elbows and hamstrings.
They laughed even more when we informed them that we would play in the final the next day.
After my country stint, I ended up back at University. I never scaled great heights and most of the next 15 years were spent in thirds and fourths.
Whenever I made it to seconds I would soon come a cropper as the reality of bigger players took their toll.
One week, after playing seconds, I ended up on the bench for firsts. It was raining at Cottesloe that afternoon and as the squalls came in from the Indian Ocean I sat on the pine boards shivering my backside off and praying that my services would not be called upon. Fortunately, they weren’t.
The highlight of my time at Uni, apart from the four tries that I scored over 20 years – five if you count the time I picked the ball up from the back of the scrum and dived over the 22-yard line thinking that I had scored the winning meat pie – was playing three grades in one day down at the Nedlands foreshore.
Liam Wright of the Wallabies. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
I played thirds and traditionally we would hang around in case we were needed for fourths. On this sunny afternoon after the game, I decided to run past the main oval to fill up the water pail.
One of our second-grade loosies was late and seeing that I still had my jersey on I got called over. When the half finished I grabbed my pail and got back in time to run on for the start of the second half of fourth grade.
Later that afternoon my flatmate left me sitting on the floor of my carport, when he returned a few hours later I was still there asleep against the wheel of the VK.
Which brings me back to now… It is 11.32pm on Saturday night in Perth and I have just arrived home from the pub.
I wasn’t there long. I am lucky enough to live about 500 metres from a hotel that advertises itself as a sports pub. You know the type – lots of wood, plenty of big-screen TVs and Swan Lager on tap.
As I don’t have the streaming service that has the rugby on I decided to go to the pub and watch the Wallabies versus England.
I was dying to see how young Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii would go and watch the green and gold give it to the Poms.
Upon entering the venue the three screens above the bar greeted me. My choices were a replay of the WBBL or a repeat of a Roosters vs Dolphins NRL game from earlier in the year. Not really what I wanted.
Out the back on the big screen, all I could see was the same WBBL. None of the other patrons were particularly interested in any of these options, either.
Why am I listening to this woman on SBS telling her friend that she does not want to be like the fisherman?
I approached the bar and asked the barman if the Wallabies game was going to be put on the big screen. The blank look he gave me suggested that he did not know who the Wallabies were.
This, mind you, was a sports bar that, only five years ago, would be packed to the rafters whenever the rugby internationals were on.
A number of years ago I desperately wanted my kids to play rugby or at least be able to watch a game and that is not possible anymore.
I’ve read many comments on The Roar about the death of Australian rugby and in many cases, I think that the obituaries have already been written by those in the know.
I always resisted this idea, after all, I had been brought up on a diet of “the game they play in Heaven”, “nothing equalises people like chasing an inflated pig’s bladder in the mud” and the University Club song:
“We don’t play for adoration,
We don’t play for victory,
We just play for recreation,
Merry gentlemen are we.”
Perhaps the doomsdayers are right.
Without eyes on the game, nobody knows it is on, if nobody knows that it is on then nobody cares and if nobody cares then nobody will play.
My son wants to play another sport. Will he do a 600km bus trip to play a game and have a hāngī after the game with the opposition? Will he sing bawdy songs with his teammates?
Will he be able to rock up to a pub in his team dress polo and develop an instant camaraderie with another man clad in a polo shirt from Harlequins, Squires or Mount Moffat Rugby clubs?
These are all important questions.
Now you know why I am watching the lady on SBS putting a fish in a toilet bowl and telling her friend about the fisherman she does not want to be like.
It’s midnight and the Wallabies are not on TV. Thanks, Roar for the live updates.
