By Will Evans
Mark Geyer carved out a sensational and stormy 15-year career in rugby league’s top flight, becoming a Penrith legend, an Origin icon and a Kangaroo. ‘MG’ remains one of our game’s best-loved characters.
IT’S BEEN A CHANGE OF PACE FOR YOU THIS YEAR, OFF THE BREAKFAST RADIO SCENE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MORE THAN 20 YEARS. HOW ARE YOU FINDING IT?
I’ve never been busier to be honest. The new gig at 2GB (weekdays on the Drive-time program, Sydney Now, and weekly with the Continuous Call team) is fantastic.
I just got back from Origin in Perth, I went to Origin up in Queensland, I went to Magic Round – I never did that when I was doing brekky radio. I really love radio, I think it’s a great medium. [This role] is very similar, I just don’t have to get up at 3.30 in the morning anymore!
YOU’VE HAD TEN GUESTS ALREADY ON YOUR NEW PODCAST, LIFE IN 5IVE. WHAT’S THE INSPIRATION BEHIND IT?
I thought about doing a little book on everyone I’ve met, then I thought I could translate it into a podcast [format] – getting people from entertainment, media, sport, and ask them to give us their five photos that have defined their lives.
What I’ve learned is every person I’ve interviewed has a great story to tell. It’s a chance for them to bring the content … the raw nature of it has been great, the emotion, the laughs. I’m a grandad now, I’m not getting any younger, but it’s good to be in that little realm and having people respond and say they’d love to be on the podcast.
YOU’VE TALKED A LOT ABOUT YOUR UPBRINGING AND WANTING TO USE RUGBY LEAGUE TO CREATE A BETTER LIFE FOR YOUR FAMILY. IT’S A COMMON THREAD YOU SEE IN THE CURRENT PENRITH DYNASTY MORE THAN 30 YEARS LATER…
I wanted to do as much as I could, when I could, to make sure that my family was looked after. We come from a pretty humble background, a housing commission house in Mount Druitt. Mum and dad were there for every sporting event I had and they’d travel all around the country, take me and my siblings to different places.
When I could, the first thing I did was buy them a house. The act of giving is the best act there is. I think you get more pleasure out of giving to someone than receiving – it’s something that stays with me today and hopefully my five kids will see that.
Along with my wife (Megan), who’s ‘Brandy’ Alexander’s sister, there’s a lot of rugby league talk in our house. I love being a dad who can give them some advice and be there when they need me.
YOU WERE A BIG PART OF PENRITH’S FIRST GOLDEN ERA AND HELPED GET THE CLUB TO ITS FIRST GRAND FINAL IN 1990. BUT IT’S OFTEN FORGOTTEN YOU WERE SOMETHING OF A KANGAROO TOUR BOLTER AFTER AN INJURY-INTERRUPTED YEAR…
That was one of the things that was on my checklist – I used to get up early watch the midweek games and Test matches over in England about two or three in the morning. I had a disrupted year through a groin injury that just wouldn’t go away, I ended up getting an operation.
I came back with a few rounds to go and when we made the grand final, I was told by one of the selectors that if Penrith win I’m on the plane and if Canberra win Gary Coyne’s on the plane. So when we got beat, I obviously thought there go my chances.
But we went back to Panthers [Leagues Club] that night and our CEO read out the names of the four Penrith players that were about to head over to the Northern Hemisphere for three months of the footy. And my name was the last one called out. Yeah, it was enormous.
THEN PREMIERSHIP GLORY TWELVE MONTHS LATER…
We got the same team, exactly the same time, exactly the same place. And the halftime score was exactly the same as well: 12-6 [to the Raiders]. There was one difference – it was Royce Simmons’ last game ever. And I think that was the motivating fact in our quest that got us over the line.
It was a rollercoaster because that’s the pinnacle, I think, of our sport when you can win a grand final with your best mates.
YOUR STRUGGLES OVER THE NEXT FEW YEARS – LEAVING PENRITH AND BALMAIN IN ACROMONIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES – ARE WELL DOCUMENTED. DID YOU EVER FEEL LIKE YOU WOULDN’T MAKE IT BACK TO YOUR BEST?
I was in the wilderness for three years, but in that time I’d signed with the Western Reds. I’d almost forgot about that, I was playing with Umina on the Central Coast [in 1994) and [Reds coach] Peter Mullholland rang to say your flight’s ready.
So me and my wife, who was eight months pregnant, made the trip west and we had three fantastic years out there. We had two kids while we were there and got back on the horse, so to speak. And as we started to enjoy ourselves the Reds’ carpet got pulled from under them.
I didn’t know what I was going to do – most of our team went to Melbourne and they didn’t want me – so I rang Royce. The bloke I played in the grand final with six years earlier was now the coach of the Panthers. He said, ‘We’d love to have you, but you’ve got to mend a few bridges you burnt when you left. I said, ‘Yeah, I’m up for that’, and came back and had three of the most enjoyable years of my career because I was now a mentor to some of the young blokes like the Puletua brothers, Rhys Wesser, Ned Catic and Jody Gall – I relished that role.
I had a fantastic career and loved every second of it. If someone asked me whether I wanted to take the red pill or the blue pill – and the blue pill gives you exactly [the same again] – I’d take the blue pill every day of the week, because the stuff that grounded me was also the stuff that made me get back up and strive to achieve. It’s the most intense sport you can play and some amazing friendships were made in my 15 years in the top grade.
YOUR 1991 SKIRMISH WITH WALLY LEWIS IS SO INGRAINED IN STATE OF ORIGIN FOLKLORE – DOES THAT INCIDENT EVER BECOME A BIT TIRESOME FOR YOU?
I wouldn’t be speaking to you now if that didn’t happen. I’m a realist, and there’s things that happen in your life that make or break you. The Wally Lewis incident in Origin was one of the things that, especially in the early years, people never stopped talking about.
And now, 34 years later, even over in Perth, people are talking about it. It’s like when you watch your favourite artist sing and they don’t play their biggest song – that’d be like you interviewing me and not talking about Wally Lewis.
If I said, ‘No comment’, you’d go, ‘That’s the only thing you famous for!’ But yeah, I loved it. As I said, I wouldn’t change a thing.
SEEING YOUR SON, MAVRIK, MAKING HIS OWN NRL PATH WITH YOUR FORMER TEAM MUST BE A WONDERFUL FEELING?
The first emotion is just pride, that someone in your family is following in your footsteps and trying to carve out their own little niche in our game. He’s just come back from a medial ligament but he loves being in the system at Penrith. He knows he can learn a lot from all these players around him. I can’t wait to see how he develops over the next couple of years.
DATE OF BIRTH
7 December, 1967
CURRENT AGE
57
BIRTHPLACE
Granville, NSW
POSITION
Second-row, prop
PLAYING HISTORY
1986-92, 1998-2000: Penrith Panthers
1988-89: Sheffield Eagles
1993: Balmain Tigers
1995-97: Western Reds
REP FOOTBALL
1987: NSW City Seconds
1987-89: NSW City Firsts
1989, 1991: NSW
1990-91: Australia
1991: NSW City Origin
JUNIOR CLUB
St Mary’s
TOTAL MATCHES
209
TRIES | POINTS
21 | 84
