Andrew Johns by Neil Cadigan

Author:Neil Cadigan
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780730445104
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-03-16T04:59:56+00:00

CHAPTER 20

THE REAL STORY ABOUT GUS AND ME

Phil Gould is the best coach I had during my 14-season rugby league career. I also regard him as a good friend and a man I go to for advice when I need it.

Having said that, we are both strong personalities who haven’t always seen eye to eye. One of those times—the only ‘paparazzi’ type episode in my career, where newspaper cameras tapped into a private conversation outside a restaurant during the 2003 State of Origin campaign—led to all sorts of speculation. It created a string of headlines, with journalists coming up with their theories about what happened that day, and that week. I was supposedly going to walk away from Origin football; had refused to play under Gus; we had differences that couldn’t be resolved and the whole camp had been thrown into disarray.

Here is the correct story.

It was a period of my life when I was depressed and, as a result, on and off the field my attitude was terrible. I thought I was playing OK and the reports of the time said I had been too, but Phil wrote in his Sun-Herald column that I was out of form and that I looked distressed on the field because I was overweight and unfit. He’d said much the same on Channel Nine as well. I thought, ‘I don’t think there is a real need for this,’ even though I was a bit underdone after going into the season without doing a lot of running and needed to get my fitness level up in the gym and on the rowing machine.

In the round seven game against Wests Tigers I was put on report for a head slam, which typified my frustration about my life at the time, and I was subsequently suspended for two weeks. In that period I went up to Port Macquarie for a break with Cathrine and Samuel. I was looking at photos later and saw how chubby I looked, so I must have been carrying a bit of lack of condition. I came back against the Sydney Roosters and we went down 36–14 (the day after I’d scored the winning try for Country, late in the City v Country clash at Gosford in the rain). The Roosters pack, with Adrian Morley on fire, smashed us so I didn’t get much chance to be dominant. Gus, who was still coaching director at the Roosters although they were coached by Ricky Stuart, obviously watched me closely in those games and thought my attitude wasn’t right.

That year the selectors had picked a provisional New South Wales squad and had got us together earlier in the year. Gus arranged for a sort of pep talk and lunch at the Crowne Plaza at Coogee—which was the team’s base when we were in camp—the day after we played the Roosters (and three weeks before the first Origin match). Even though I was New South Wales and Australian captain, I thought getting the squad together was a wank.

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