We played rugby in the shadow of Long Bay jail. From Matraville High you just had to cross Anzac Parade and a patch of scrubland to reach the most notorious high-security prison in Australia. There was a disproportionately high percentage rate of young Indigenous Australians both at our school and in the Long Bay Correctional Centre. And so the bigots and racists, as well as those rugby teams who envied or lost to us, made a cheap jibe. They told us that once we’d finished our schooling, we just needed to make a short walk to start our new lives behind the Long Bay bars. But the Matraville boys had the last laugh, when the Ella brothers, and Lloyd Walker, went on to light up Australian rugby and change it for good.
I remember how the jail seemed to be staring at us when we went out for training. You could just about see the big wall surrounding it in the distance. Being close to the jail, however, was the least of our concerns. We had more problems clearing the rubbish often dumped on the Matraville Oval before we could start practice. It was a shame that they had settled on this location for Long Bay, because the adjoining areas of Malabar and La Perouse had Indigenous settlements stretching back 20,000 years.
Chifley was a real working-class area back then, but these days it’s been completely gentrified. Houses that would have been worth $30,000 in the 1970s now cost over $1.5 million. I guess it helps that, located on the southern coast of Sydney’s metropolitan area, Chifley boasts stunning sheer sandstone cliffs. They sparkle in the morning sun and offer some of the city’s most spectacular sea views. I liked it more back then than I do now, but that’s because I loved my childhood and the memories it holds.
I was about to turn 12 when, alongside Glen and Mark, I started at Matraville High in January 1972. We had grown up in a rugby league-dominated area and union was our second winter sport. Rugby was mostly a game for upper-class white boys rather than for Indigenous or mixed-blood kids like us. League was the working man’s game and a professional sport. Unlike union, it offered the best young Indigenous athletes a chance to make a dollar from their talents. The Ellas’ uncle, Bruce ‘Larpa’ Stewart, had made a splash in league with South Sydney and Eastern Suburbs in the 1960s. I remembered him mostly as a fantastic goal-kicker who would toe-punt penalties from all over the park.
Glen’s favourite sportsman was Arthur Beetson, a legendary Indigenous prop from Queensland who came to the big smoke to play for the Balmain Tigers and then Eastern Suburbs’ Roosters. Arthur, or Big Artie as he was known, was a mercurial footballer. He had the body of a front-row forward with the hands of a fly half. He could set off on a bullocking 30-metre run and then make a deft little offload with beautiful timing. I always razz Glen about putting on weight in middle age – saying it must be out of respect for Big Artie. Glen also loved another tough Indigenous prop, John Sattler, captain of the South Sydney Rabbitohs, who is remembered for playing on and winning the 1970 Grand Final with a broken jaw.
We are still mad-keen rugby league fans today. I can’t get enough of it. I also think that the fact we played so much league as kids gave us a head start in rugby by developing our core skills of tackling, catching and passing. We were also lucky that, at Matraville, we were exposed to some special teachers. Allan Glenn was our young and charismatic maths teacher who coached us at rugby for three years, from the under-13s to under-15s.
Mr Glenn was schooled in the art of the flat backline and the bold counter-attacking style of rugby which Geoff Mould, our favourite teacher, had learnt from Cyril Towers. Most of all, they just encouraged us to play with freedom. We won most matches by 50 or 60 points. There was no need for any tactical team-talk while we tucked into our oranges at half-time. Looking at the scoreboard Glenn would say: ‘Can we double it?’ We usually did.
He entered us for the Buchan Shield, which was contested by most of the best under-15 teams in New South Wales – apart from a few like St Joeys. It was the junior version of the premier schoolboy competition, the Waratah Shield, and Glen Ella was convinced we would win it. When our coach pointed out Arthur Buchan, after whom the under-15 shield was named, Glen went up to him. ‘Hey Mister,’ he said casually to Buchan, a retired referee who looked at him in surprise, ‘we’re going to win your cup.’
I didn’t play in that game but we beat St Ives comfortably in the 1974 final – which was held at the Sydney Cricket Ground. A year later we retained the shield and I was at hooker as we won the final at Coogee Oval. I had grown in confidence. The shy boy who kept his head down had given way to a leader of the pack with a mouth ready for action. I had seen how, when playing cricket, saying a couple of pointed words could unsettle an opposition batsman. As captain of the cricket team it was my job to keep my teammates upbeat and enthused. I found it easy to make them laugh. Usually, I just let slip an in-joke, but occasionally I would take down an opponent in a way that had my teammates roaring.
Rugby soon became more serious. Under Allan Glenn we were unbeaten in our three seasons at junior level. We scored over 1,000 points and conceded less than 50. But as we got older, our opponents were bigger and better, and we started competing against many more private schools. We were lucky that Geoff Mould, or Mouldy as we called him, opened our minds as first-team players. We would sit in a classroom at lunchtime and he would go through some set plays and strategic moves on the blackboard. One of the plays he taught us was called the Baffler and it did totally baffle many opposing backlines.
Mouldy also expanded our education by showing us Five Nations games from the 1970s. He had recorded them at home, as ABC broadcast the matches early on Sunday mornings. Mouldy brought the old Betamax tapes to school so that we could watch the great Welsh team starring Gareth Edwards and Phil Bennett or thrilling French forwards like Jean-Pierre Rives. We would watch Willie John McBride and his gnarled old Irish pack take on the English forwards at Twickenham or Lansdowne Road. The Scots had Ian ‘Mighty Mouse’ McLauchlan and Gordon Brown. Bill McLaren’s unforgettable voice filled the room.
British and Irish rugby was exceptionally strong, as the 1974 Lions had proved on their unbeaten tour of South Africa. But it was also very foreign. The games we saw were often played on the kind of muddy fields we had never seen before. But the passion and intensity of the Five Nations crowds poured out of the screen. The singing, cheering crowds were smiling and the atmosphere was buzzing.
The Welsh loved to run the ball and Edwards, Bennett and J. P. R. Williams had played for the Barbarians against the All Blacks at Twickenham in 1973. We watched the try that Edwards scored – a move started by Phil Bennett near the Barbarians’ own line and brilliantly completed at the other end by Edwards after a breathtaking display of skill, agility and speed – over and over again. We reckoned that he would have slotted in perfectly into our style of running rugby at Matraville.
Wales scored another legendary try against Scotland at Murrayfield in 1977. J. P. R. Williams, with his socks around his ankles, scooped up a kick from the great Scottish full back Andy Irvine. Near his own 22, and despite being nailed by Sandy Carmichael, Williams fed the ball to Steve Fenwick who moved it on to Gerald Davies. Stepping a couple of defenders, Davies found Phil Bennett, who swapped passes with Fenwick and David Burcher before Bennett went over beneath the posts. That brilliant try electrified Matraville High and inspired us to play this style of rugby. At the same time we knew that you needed the ball to be won by your forwards. So we came to love the rigour and the structure of the Five Nations.
The freedom with which all our Matraville teams played was built on a series of non-negotiable factors, like our lines of running and support, our accuracy of passing and catching. We understood that a mastery of the basics led to a mastery of the game. Geoff Mould drilled those essentials into us. He was a highly educated and captivating speaker who loved sport, books, classical music and opera. He had only begun to play rugby late in life, but his instinctive feel for the game was sharpened by the intellectual debates he would have about rugby with the great Cyril Towers. At Matraville he and Towers realized that they were sitting on a goldmine of natural talent; and they liberated us to play with even more flair.
Discipline was key and, as a PE teacher, Mouldy was very strict. I often found myself in trouble when he caught me acting the goat, giving a running commentary as we tossed boots and towels around the gym. He wouldn’t stand for it, and gave us two whacks of the cane on each hand. Mouldy was a big man and so it hurt. But he was fair. We respected him and swallowed our medicine.
Even when we were playing softball with the girls in PE, he made sure we paid attention to the catch-and-pass basics. He also honed our natural game by insisting we play a lot of touch. The more we played, the better we performed. He was a very clever coach who taught us so much without our even realizing it.
We won the Waratah Shield in my last two years of school, in 1976 and 1977, and played such an exciting brand of rugby that we became national news. The idea that an underprivileged school, packed with Indigenous kids, could dominate a traditionally elitist sport caught the media’s eye and the public imagination. Of course part of our mystique stemmed from the fact that Matraville was found on the reclaimed sandhills and scrubland of southeastern Sydney, in the shadow of Long Bay jail.
When I reflect on those Matraville years now, it seems remarkable that a third of our schoolboy XV went on to feature in international rugby. The Ella trio and Lloyd Walker obviously played for Australia, while Glen and I have coached Test teams for many years.
Modern rugby is almost unrecognizable compared to the game we played in the 1970s, but I have encouraged all my teams to play with the courage and desire of the Ellas. As long as I can see those attributes in my teams, and we win games, I’m happy.
In rugby, as in life, there are always bitter disappointments. Nine of our Matraville team, including me, were picked for two New South Wales selections who played in the annual Australian schoolboys’ championships in 1977. NSW and Queensland always had two teams because they were the biggest states. But there was an even more important prize on offer that year. Following the final matches, an Australian schools side would be selected to tour Japan, Holland, the UK and Ireland in 1977–8. Both NSW teams made the final and I was on the winning side with Mark and Glen.
But, as we gathered at the after-match function to hear the squad being read out, my name was missing. I was devastated. I thought I had done enough. I stood there trying to compose myself and not let on that I was crushed. It was just the first serious selection disappointment in my playing career.
Five of our Matraville team – the three Ellas, Darryl Lester and Warwick Melrose – were picked but four of us were left out. Wally Lewis, the future Australian League great, had the good grace to say he had only been picked ahead of Lloyd Walker because Geoff Mould, who was the national schools coach, and the other selectors didn’t want the squad to be dominated by Matraville players.
I thought I was good enough to play on that tour, so it burnt to be left out. But in the end, looking back, it was a learning experience. When you endure those tough, bruising moments in life, you never think they’re going to help you learn and get better. It’s the same when you lose a big game. First the pain, then the experience.
Along with the rest of Australia I followed the tour from a distance. The Australian and British media went into raptures about the brilliance of a schools team they dubbed ‘The Invincibles’. Sparked by the Ellas, Australia won all 19 matches on tour. They scored 110 tries and conceded only six. It felt like a turning point in Australian rugby. All of a sudden, our sport was big news, and people were interested in and excited by the game. The flair of the Ellas dominated the headlines and people could not get enough of their ‘rags to riches’ story – or the genius of their rugby. Up to that point, apart from the occasional team in the 1960s, Australian rugby had been dull and pedestrian.
The Ellas’ commitment to rugby union was sealed on that tour. They knew that, while they could make money out of league, rugby union could make them legendary. Their experience with The Invincibles gave them a taste of everything that union could offer. All three boys set their hearts on touring the world with the Wallabies.
After a few months of kicking stones, I resolved to work even harder. For the last two years at Matraville, I had run for three miles every morning at 6 a.m. with our Dalmatian. I intensified my efforts and, besides running, began to lift weights on my own in the evening. I knew that, to play senior rugby at a high level, I needed to become bigger and stronger.
I already had a good understanding of the game, but I studied it even more intently. I loved the fact that rugby was such a technical game you could win in numerous ways. Matraville had given me a good grounding in rugby and the resilience to deal with the knocks and bumps of real life.
I had not become an Invincible, but I was one of only three kids from Matraville High who qualified for university that year. My mother had drilled it into me that I needed to reach that goal. Disappointing her would have been a bigger failure. More than anything I accomplished on the sporting field, my university entrance made her happy.
I owe every moment of success I’ve had as a coach to Randwick. At Coogee Oval, a five-minute walk down Dolphin Street to the beach, Randwick Rugby Club provided the foundation to a coaching career that stretches across a quarter of a century. Randwick has supplied four Wallaby coaches over the last 30 years in Bob Dwyer, myself, Ewen McKenzie and Michael Cheika. Bob is my mentor and former Randwick coach, while I played alongside Ewen and Michael.
During my dozen years at Randwick, I learnt everything I know about winning, while having more fun than might be legal, as well as enduring another shattering disappointment which helped shape me as a coach of ambition and ruthless high standards. Randwick was the source of my rugby education and the reason why I have such respect for the game.
But for six months I refused to play for them. On the night we won our second Waratah Shield, in my final year at Matraville in 1977, we were meant to have our party at the Randwick clubhouse. The club cancelled our celebrations at the last minute, which I thought was poor form. Even though my best mates, Glen and Mark, were on their way to Randwick, I thought, ‘Bugger it, if they’re treating us like this, I’m not playing for them.’ My belligerence meter was dialled all the way up to ten.
I began my Bachelor of Education degree, majoring in geography and physical education, at the University of Sydney. I decided to play for the University of New South Wales in the Sydney Rugby Union’s second division. It was social rugby; and it was a disaster. I was used to playing with supremely talented and highly motivated sportsmen who were consumed by winning. The university boys just wanted to play a little rugby before getting back to the clubhouse to sing songs, chase girls and drink beers. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, and I have some fond memories of my time there. But, with my ambition to play at the highest level, I was in the wrong place with the wrong attitude. Most of the players didn’t bother turning up for training. After six months I got off my high horse and went back to Randwick.
The Ella brothers were already kicking up a storm in Coogee. Ever since he had seen Matraville beat St Joseph’s 18 months earlier, Bob Dwyer had been hell-bent on bringing my three friends to Randwick. The twins were 18 and Gary was still only 17 when Bob went to see them and their parents in La Perouse. Apart from persuading them to join Randwick, he was most intent on explaining that they should forget about playing colts (under-20s) rugby. He wanted them to play for Randwick’s first team in the new 1978 season. It was a huge leap from schoolboy games to senior first-grade rugby, but Bob made a compelling case.
He is a deep thinker and a very eloquent man. He can charm birds from the trees. But, most of all, Bob exudes clarity and passion in an irresistible combination. Sometimes the most passionate people are muddled, as too much emotion gets in the way. But Bob’s insights into the game are generated by the sharpest rugby brain I know. It allows him to talk about complex plays or situations with simplicity and precision. As a coach and a leader this is a critical skill. Whether in sport, business or as the principal of a school, the people you need to direct, motivate and educate have to understand with complete clarity what they are expected to do and how they are meant to behave. There should be no room for doubt or confusion.
Bob was ambitious for himself, for the club and for the boys. So he was compelled to state the obvious. Mark, Glen and Gary were too good to play for the colts. He wanted them to take on the challenge of playing the best.
The brothers were so laid-back that they pointed out that their Matraville mates, apart from me staging my one-man protest against the club, planned on playing for Randwick Colts. They were still boys and their spindly frames looked fragile and breakable when set against the big men of grade rugby, the club competition which is just below state level. They certainly didn’t look as if they could withstand the kind of beating they were sure to cop if anyone ever got hold of them. They also knew they would have more fun in the colts.
‘But you need to test your ability against the best,’ Bob told them, ‘and you need to do it now. Not next year.’
Bob was cunning and so he dialled his request back to a suggestion that perhaps they should play grade trials. If they liked it, they would be part of the senior squad and, if the trial left them with any doubts, they could enjoy a season with the colts.
‘Fair enough,’ Glen said. ‘I reckon we’ll give it a crack. What do you think, bro?’
Mark, the most gifted of them all, nodded. ‘Sounds good.’
All three Ella boys lit up the Randwick trial. Bob said he had never seen anything like it. They found gaps at will. Their running lines, support and linking play meant that no one laid a hand on them. It looked as if they were playing against poor old Joeys again rather than a team of high-quality grade footballers. The Ellas were sold on playing grade rugby.
Despite still being a relatively young coach at 36, Bob knew how important it was to handle the transition of his gifted prodigies to senior rugby with real care. He initially played them in the reserves and then he surprised everyone by picking Gary first. An injury at outside centre opened up a space and Bob didn’t hesitate when choosing a 17-year-old for his debut. If you’re good enough, you’re old enough.
While Mark and Glen had the more outrageous talent, Bob appreciated Gary’s subtlety. Outside centre doesn’t offer the same scope for flamboyance that Glen could enjoy at full back – nor the multiple touches Mark had at fly half. An outside centre has to think more about the support lines he offers to his inside centre and the space he makes for the wide players on his right. Gary understood the art of linking play. He moved beautifully and could find a gap himself or create opportunities for his outside men. Like a well-driven Formula One car, he could switch direction with no drop in either velocity or control.
In later years Bob said only two outside centres, Conrad Smith for the All Blacks and Gary Ella at Randwick, could create a try for someone else purely through the accuracy and speed of their realignment. Gary would create gaps by dragging defenders away with his movement and create a hole that another of his teammates would burst through to score. It was instinctive to Gary – but he had also been schooled expertly by Geoff Mould and Cyril Towers.
On his Randwick debut, against our local rivals Eastern Suburbs, Gary set up a try and scored one himself. A week later Mark joined him in the side when Randwick’s regular number 10, the Wallaby Ken Wright, played for New South Wales. Mark slotted in so perfectly that the experienced Wright was shifted to inside centre on his return. Glen was called up as a last-minute replacement at full back and he did well in a 36–10 win over Parramatta. But his brothers stole the show by scoring four tries between them, with a hat-trick for Gary.
Building on the interest generated by their performances with The Invincibles, the media went ballistic. Sydney club rugby gained a profile that it had never experienced before. All anyone could talk about was ‘Ella! Ella! Ella!’ Watching from a distance, I was more excited than they were as the righteousness of my one-man exile had waned. I was desperate to join them. My best mates were having the time of their lives and I was missing all the fun.
The next big challenge for the Ella Brothers was away against the unbeaten Northern Suburbs – who had been the best team in Sydney grade rugby for most of the 1970s. They had giant forwards like the Wallabies Garrick Fay, Reg Smith and Andy Stewart. When Bob announced the team, all three brothers were in the side. Expectations and excitement went through the roof. The interest was so great that ABC television took the unprecedented step of televising the match live across Australia. The Ellas did not disappoint. Northern Suburbs were drilled 63–0.
The hysteria jumped to another level. Even rugby league coaches were watching and talking feverishly about the mercurial Ella brothers. The main Sydney tabloid, the Daily Telegraph, fuelled speculation of a possible switch to the professional code with a headline that screamed: ‘$100,000 for Ellas!’ The boys loved playing league but it was obvious rugby union was the game for them. I knew that – no matter how much money they were offered – they would never leave.
It was pretty funny watching them cope with the adulation. They couldn’t work out what all the fuss was about, as they were just playing a game they had loved for the past ten years. The attention never went to their heads.
It was around this time that I decided to end my strike against the club and join Randwick. I had achieved precisely nothing – but, unfortunately, this wouldn’t be the last time my railing against perceived unfairness would get me into trouble.
You shouldn’t be surprised that Bob made no attempt to talk me into playing grade rugby. I would never make headlines similar to the Ellas as a player, nor would I be picked for the first team as soon as I joined Randwick. I needed a few seasons of colts and lower-grade rugby to prepare me for the big step-up. So at the start of the 1979 season, I played in the colts with my old school pals Lloyd Walker, Warwick Melrose, Darryl Lester and Greg Stores. It was great fun.
I made steady progress and, after two years with the colts, I began playing regular lower-grade senior rugby. In 1982, in my second year of men’s rugby, I won the club’s ‘most improved player’. A year later I was hooker when we won the reserve-grade championship. Jeff Sayle, Randwick’s new first-grade coach, encouraged me to aim higher.
Jeff had replaced Bob who, in 1982, had become the Wallabies coach. After coaching Randwick to four wins in five successive grand finals, that first stint as national coach did not work out for Bob. He was in charge of the Wallabies for just two seasons before he was replaced by Alan Jones, from Manly, our bitterest opponents.
It began badly for Bob when, before his debut Test in Brisbane as Australia’s coach, he copped a hammering from the press for picking Mark and Glen in place of two Queensland and Wallabies stalwarts in Paul McLean at 10 and Roger Gould at 15. The Queenslanders, and many other Australian rugby fans, called for his head. But Bob wanted Australia to play like Randwick. He was convinced that Australia could become a dominant force in world rugby if they played with the ball in hand and relied on pace, space and guile. Queensland had traditionally dominated Australian selection with a game that depended on kicking for field position and forward power. Bob knew there was a better way.
The Brisbane locals were outraged, and they cheered when Glen dropped a high ball early on in the Test against Scotland. They seemed just as delighted after Mark threw a wayward pass when Glen looked certain to score. The crowd chanted Gould’s name throughout as Scotland shocked Australia by winning 12–7. Bob recalled Gould and McLean for the second Test, which Australia won decisively. But this early experience of the white-hot pressure of international rugby had shaken him.
Glen’s confidence took a big knock and his international career never recovered from being booed in Brisbane. He won only three more caps. Gary played six times for Australia, while Mark had by far the most successful career. He played 25 Tests, at a time when international matches were less frequent and amateurs balanced rugby commitments with making a living. Mark was a revelation and, after captaining Australia ten times, he masterminded the Wallabies’ Grand Slam-winning tour of Britain in 1984. David Campese, another Randwick star, described Mark as the greatest rugby player he ever saw. I thought he retired far too early after that tour. But the game wasn’t professional at that time, and Mark needed to build a career outside rugby.
Even after Australia’s comprehensive 33–9 victory over Scotland in his second match as national coach, with McLean scoring 21 points, Bob faced controversy. Nine leading players, most of them from Queensland, announced that they were unavailable for the tour of New Zealand. The official line was that they could not take time off work but, privately, they confirmed they were unhappy with the more expansive style of play Bob was trying to impose. Bob could be abrasive and impatient, and steps were taken to oust him at the end of 1983 after he had lost eight of 16 Tests.
Bob was a better coach when he returned to Randwick. And then, from 1988 to 1995, when back with the Wallabies, his genius as a national coach became evident. Australia won the 1991 World Cup, beating England at Twickenham in the final. His record in that second stint as national coach was 39 wins, two draws and 17 defeats.
I was lucky to have played under Bob for four years at Randwick. He transformed my thinking and understanding of the game. The two most influential coaches in my career were Bob Dwyer and Jeff Sayle. They couldn’t have been more different, but they taught me so much about coaching. Unlike Bob, who was highly motivated and tactically astute, Jeff just loved the game, loved the laughter and loved the beer. His warm and friendly character gelled his teams together. He was not a great coach, technically or in training, but he cared about his players and showed such pride in the club. I obviously turned to Bob for his wisdom, his strategic insights and his unbreakable hardness and precision, but Jeff showed me the sheer joy of the game. He loved Randwick – so much so that he was the bar manager as well as the head coach for a few years. Jeff was the loveliest man, with an iron constitution.
He had been a decent player, who earned one Test cap against New Zealand in 1967, and he remained a fitness fanatic for years. Jeff was the type of bloke who loved running laps around Coogee Oval while pushing the heavy roller used in the cricket season. At the same time he was a drinker and so, as the years passed, his weight ballooned. In my first year of senior football down the grades, Jeff sometimes played flanker for the third team. I remember him sinking a schooner of sherry in the dressing room before we ran out. He still played a full game.
In 1984, after Bruce Malouf retired as hooker, Jeff promoted me to the first team. I had served my time in a high-quality reserve-grade team and was ready. We had been coached in the reserves by Ian ‘Speed’ Kennedy. We called him ‘Speed’ because he had been the slowest forward on the field when he was club captain. He was a policeman and a very good coach who, in 1982, worked us hard. We trained three times a week, rather than twice, and ended up with a great team which produced seven future Wallabies. We finished the season 15 points clear at the top of the table and should have taken the grand final at a canter. But Speed made the mistake of working us far too hard and the team were filthy with him on the day of the grand final. We had lost our spark and were well beaten.
The next season Speed listened to the players a lot more. I often acted as de facto coach as we ran away with the competition and won the reserve grand final in style. By the time I broke into the first team, I was confident. I was playing alongside my best mates, the Ellas, and Jeff Sayle let us run the show. Happy days.
We had a team full of bright blokes and many of them held down pretty big jobs during the day while we trained two evenings a week. Simon Poidevin, our Wallaby flanker, was a stockbroker, while Mark worked for Rothmans, Glen for TNT and Gary for the Department of Aboriginal Affairs in New South Wales. I had a demanding job as a geography and PE teacher. But when it came to training we poured everything into it. We wanted to improve as rugby players and we wanted to win. We were all ruthlessly competitive. Rugby was our passion.
At the same time, we knew how to have fun. Bob Dwyer always liked Randwick’s teams to warm up with a 30-minute game of touch football. We had played touch all our lives and we loved it. It often got competitive, but I was the loudest voice and made sure everyone enjoyed themselves before the serious stuff began. I had always loved radio commentary – so during our games of touch, I acted as a commentator and always got the boys laughing.
I gave everyone a nickname. Poidevin was Venus de Milo because he had a great body and no hands. Ewen McKenzie was Link. Despite being an extremely intelligent man, he was a prop forward who looked like a wrestler with the same nickname. Glen chipped in with a quip that Ewen was probably also the evolutionary link between the Neanderthals and man today. It was knockabout stuff because Link was such an analytical thinker. Mark Ella, meanwhile, was God. He was that good.
Everyone called me Beaver. In later years people thought it was because, despite being small, I beavered my way to the bottom of the ruck to get the ball. But my nickname had nothing to do with rugby. I was called Beaver the first time at university when I went waterskiing with my great mate Mick Aldous on the Shoalhaven River on the NSW south coast. On one occasion I came off the skis and, as they turned the boat around to pick me up, they reckoned I was a dead ringer for a beaver. The name just stuck. My oldest and closest friends still call me Beaver.
It was during those games of touch that I honed my skills of straightening people up with a verbal jab. It’s common in Australian sport but frowned upon in the UK. British people are more courteous and polite. George Gregan tells an amusing story about Matt Dawson on the 2001 Lions tour. Matt was second choice behind Rob Howley at scrum half, but he finally made it into the Test team. Once the game started George started chipping away at him:
‘Dawse, what are you doing here, mate? It’s Saturday. You only play on Wednesdays.’ (That was when the ‘B’ team matches were held.) ‘You should check the date, mate, because you’re a Wednesday player.’ It was all good fun and pretty harmless. But then Dawson’s dad, whom George knew, asked if he had a problem with Matt. But there was no problem at all. It was just a bit of niggle.
George tells another story which happened after the 2003 Rugby World Cup. George, like me, struggled after we lost to England. He carried the disappointment with him and it was difficult. At Christmas he visited his friend Pat Rafter up on the Sunshine Coast, where he’d been invited to play in the Australia PGA Golf Pro-Am. After his round he was heading to the bar to find Rafter and a few of the other Davis Cup players. The golf pros had gathered. As he approached the bar, they started singing. ‘Georgie Gregan lost the Cup, do dah, do dah. Georgie Gregan lost the Cup, oh the do-dah day. Georgie lost the Cup, Georgie lost the Cup, Georgie Gregan lost the Cup oh the do-dah day . . .’ And these blokes were his mates. It’s a hard school but 99 per cent of the time, when you are ‘sledging’, it’s humorous.
Someone told me the Australian cricket team can’t wait to see the latest lyrics of the Barmy Army before they tour so they can rub it into their teammates. Another of my favourite ‘sledges’ was in a game in 2000 when the Brumbies played the Natal Sharks in Durban. Ollie le Roux, the portly and popular Springbok prop, came charging on to a ball close to our line and dropped it cold. Our number 8, Gordon Falcon, a hard-as-nails Kiwi from Hawkes Bay who didn’t often say much, walked over to Ollie and said: ‘Hey bro, you wouldn’t have dropped it if it was a doughnut.’ Both packs of forwards cracked up laughing. In Australian sport everyone does it and, most of the time, it’s not with any malice or intent. It’s just an accepted way of trying to unsettle your opponent.
David Knox, who also went to Matraville High, was said to be the next best sledger after me. We both learnt our craft as cricketers. Of course I was guilty of misjudging some sledges. No question. But you live and learn. I used to give it out, so I had to learn to take it. Even when they would occasionally go low, I tried to maintain some respect. I remember only one racial slur, playing for New South Wales against Queensland, when their hooker called me a ‘Chink’ and a ‘Chinese bastard’.
‘Mate,’ I said with a smile, ‘you’re too stupid to know the difference between the Chinese and the Japanese.’
I usually preferred the more subtle quip or something totally unexpected. Years later, when my career was almost over, I had one last crack playing for Southern Districts. We came up against Randwick whose tight-head prop, Joe Picone, was a good mate of mine. We had played a lot of games together and I knew how good he was in the tight. I thought, ‘Shit, Joe’s going to give us some in the scrum. I have to distract him.’ So, at the first scrum, I kissed him on the cheek. I said: ‘Joe, I love you.’ He did not know where to look or what to do. He was freaked out the whole game. I said to him later, ‘It was just a bit of fun, mate,’ and he laughed. He knew I had stitched him up.
Laughter was the soundtrack of my time at Randwick. After games we would end up in the clubhouse and, on winter nights, start a fire in a 44-gallon drum in the car park and sit around it having plenty to drink. We would then go out to the local bars until three or four in the morning. Glen often said he didn’t know how we won any matches – but we did pretty well.
Between 1977 and 1992, Randwick reached 16 consecutive grand finals and won 12 of them. Bob Dwyer was the architect of our domination of Sydney club rugby. Over his two spells as head coach, we played in nine grand finals and won six of them.
Bob made me understand that determination and emotional courage had to be at the heart of every endeavour. Any achievement of note would take hard work and application. We had to be prepared to face defeat and come back from it. Mistakes would be made and games would be lost – but as long as we remained brave and determined, we would prevail.
Bob introduced me to the value of sports science in training. His sessions were incredibly well organized and thorough. He was demanding and could be aggressive. He either backed you to the hilt or he burnt you. I was fortunate that Bob liked me. I loved him because he was a great coach. I was not a great player, but he appreciated my efforts and the way I constantly tried to improve. We were also alike in examining the game very deeply.
He could be very hard. I always remember how, after we were beaten by Manly in a first-grade game, Bob tore into us. I probably had about 20 caps for Randwick then and Pat Slyney, our tight-head prop, had played over 200 times for the first team. It was one of those games where they did something a bit different. We didn’t react and so Manly beat us. The defeat stung and down at Latham Park, where we trained, Bob growled when he asked why we had not worked out what was happening on the field: ‘How in the fuck didn’t anybody say anything?’
The players were quiet. Bob pointed at Pat. ‘How many Randwick caps have you got, mate?’
‘Two hundred,’ the prop muttered.
‘You’ve played 200 fucking games for us, Pat, and what did you say in the second half?’
The prop shook his head. ‘Nothing.’
Bob nodded in return but, then, he broke down what happened on the field with such clear vision that none of us has ever forgotten that electrifying speech.
I learnt from Bob that it is far better to talk to your players after you’ve had some distance from the game. Instead of getting caught up in the emotion of the moment, you need to draw breath and step back. Once you have done your analysis you can leave players with a vivid picture in their heads of what they should have done differently. Of course it took me time to understand the value of detachment. As a young coach I sometimes allowed my emotion to get the better of me. I could launch easily into a blistering address. But I soon learnt that, apart from the initial shock of the blast, there is not much point in raving at a team.
These days I always give the players time to work through a defeat, or a bad performance, before I offer my view. The modern player is also much softer and more sensitive than the blokes I played with in the 1980s. Another approach is needed. But Bob Dwyer’s clarity, using the simplicity of truth, remains my touchstone. You have to tell it as it is.
In the hardness of my character I also echo Bob. The clichéd view of me in the media is that I’m a tyrant who reduces players to tears or quivering wrecks. Most of those articles rehash the same old stories from my earliest years of coaching and suggest that I am a careless bully or a constant firebrand. Once you get a reputation it’s hard to shake, but I’ve never bothered to try and change these perceptions. It’s lazy journalism because all stories need a villain. But I’d rather spend time being productive. I have become more rounded and nuanced in my coaching through experience and maturing as a person and as a teacher. Don’t get me wrong. If players or staff deserve a pull-through they will get one. But I’m a bit more diplomatic than I was in my earliest days. I will always remain honest with my players and demand their best effort every single day.
Toughness, candour and straight-talking are the foundation of high performance.
My formative days with Randwick taught me this truth. Away from the hothouse of the training field or a dressing room, Bob is charming and very likeable. He helped me understand that his demands were actually markers of his respect for us. If he expected something of the highest order, then he must have thought we were capable of reaching those high standards. It was a compliment rather than an insult.
Bob never held a grudge. He could tear into you because you had botched something but, once he had said it, and you showed that you heard him, his anger ended. Words that might have sounded accusatory became valuable pointers to change future outcomes. The best coaching, even amid the post-match sound and fury, is forward-looking. If we rake over the errors or mishaps it is not just to rue the agony of defeat. It is more a lesson in how to make our future games better experiences – and, most of all, to help improve the individual and the team.
Straight-talking can be mistaken for aggression. Both Bob and I believe in straightforward language. We don’t have time to waste. We’re not here to make friends or ingratiate ourselves with anyone. We’re here to improve our squads. So we talk straight but, at the same time, we want to listen to alternative views.
At Matraville and Randwick we were continually taught how to play the game and how to respect it. Respect for the game comes from respecting your opponent. Before Matraville High shocked St Joseph’s way back in 1976, our coach Geoff Mould said: ‘Look, boys, we’re a pretty good team. But we’re up against other blokes that can play as well.’ So while Matraville and Randwick had what might be perceived as arrogance, we were also taught to be respectful and humble. Sometimes that respect and humility doesn’t come across publicly with me. But I’m massively respectful of the game, and the people who play and support the game. Rugby has given me a lot and I will always be grateful.
My enduring love of rugby was sealed by the Randwick Way. Bob Dwyer, having been taught by Cyril Towers, said it consisted of four key principles – straight running, short passing, quick ball movement and constant support. These basics were welded onto consistent physicality and commitment, speed of thought, flexibility, and the moral courage to play so close to the opposition defence that, when it clicked, we got the beautifully flat-attack run which the Ellas played so instinctively at Matraville and perfected at Randwick.
Clive Woodward, who played for Manly from 1985 to 1990, wrote about Randwick and what it was like to face the Galloping Greens in his book. His abiding memory made me smile. He said it seemed as if, every minute or two, he had another mass of players in myrtle green jerseys running at him, and he was never sure which of them had the ball.
That echoed a story Bob told about Mike Gibson, the great old Irish and Lions centre, who asked if he could attend a Wallabies training session. Gibson, who had retired years before, in 1979, turned up in his full kit – which surprised Bob and the Wallabies.
‘So you want to take part in the practice?’ Bob asked.
‘Sure,’ Gibson said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
‘OK,’ Bob said. ‘You can defend at inside centre.’
‘No, no, I want to play in the attack,’ Gibson protested, as he had been a sublime playmaker who played 69 times for Ireland and won 12 Lions caps. He was one of those players that the Ellas and I had loved to watch on old Five Nations videos in our Matraville High classroom.
Bob would not budge. ‘No, Mike, you can play in attack later. Play in defence at inside centre. I want you to get a feel for what we’re doing.’
They practised for 20 minutes and Gibson looked exhausted when they stopped for some water.
‘How’s it going, Mike?’ Bob asked.
Gibson looked up and shook his head. ‘I have no idea who I’m supposed to tackle.’
Bob smiled. ‘Now why don’t you have a go and see how you replicate that in attack.’
Gibson was in his early forties but, still as smart as paint, he picked it up quickly. He absolutely loved it and he was an immediate convert to the Randwick Way.
Professional rugby is now a very pragmatic and structured sport. Teams spend so much time analysing each other on tape, and defences are so organized, that the kind of rugby we played at Randwick seems anachronistic. It would be nostalgia of the worst kind if I were to hark back to Randwick and suggest that my teams should try and play that brand of rugby in the modern Test arena. It just wouldn’t work.
But there were times when the Randwick Way helped me as an international coach – especially when I worked with Japan. I took a Randwick mantra that you should always try to pass or run with the ball, rather than kick it. We eventually turned it into a rule. There were occasions when Japan, under my coaching, were forbidden to ever kick the ball. I knew that our smaller, slighter and more nimble players were so much more suited to a running game.
England are different. England are at their best when they stick to their core principles of a forward and set-piece-dominated game, aided by a committed defence and excellent kicking. That’s one of the reasons why I love rugby. There are so many different ways to win a game. Having worked with Australia, South Africa, Japan and England, it has been stimulating to utilize the best features of each country. But each time I have relied on the fundamentals passed down to me at Randwick.
Bob likes to say that great leaders produce great leaders. None of us is going to claim greatness for ourselves, but it is striking that three of the seven Wallaby coaches who followed him in the role were coached by Bob Dwyer at Randwick. It is no coincidence.