FIRSTLY CHRIS, CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT ONE TRAINING, WHICH YOU CO-FOUNDED WAY BACK IN 2012?
We’re an education company – a registered training organisation, or a private college or private TAFE, so we work across a number of different cohorts from professional to school-based trainees, trainees in the workplace, and then also helping disadvantaged jobseekers upskill to get back into the workforce, delivering job readiness and digital literacy programmes.
It’s exciting seeing the impact we’ve made, especially over the last four or five years as we’ve built and scaled, and now we’re officially nationally across Australia. The team’s growing and we’re finalising some strategic partnerships this year, which we’ll be announcing very shortly.
YOUR DEBUT IN 2006 WAS ONE OF THE MORE MEMORABLE OF THE NRL ERA, SCORING A RUNAWAY TRY AT SUNCORP STADIUM TO HELP UPSET THE BRONCOS AS A 17-YEAR-OLD SCHOOLBOY…
Obviously everyone’s debut is always a really special time – for me it was quite a unique one, I was not originally supposed to be playing, I was there as 18th or 19th man. Paul Whatuira went down with a hamstring injury a few days out and Tim SheenS just walked casually past at training and said, ‘Looks like you’re playing’. They had to rush to get an NRL contract organised for me, and I wasn’t 18, so I couldn’t sign it myself, I needed my dad to leave work and come and sign it. Next thing you know you’re flying to Brisbane and then you’re running out on the field, so it was a bit of a whirlwind. I didn’t have a chance to overthink or play the game too early in my head, I was fortunate enough to get a try and the win, which is really special.
DID THAT IMMEDIATE ATTENTION MAKE IT HARDER TO ESTABLISH YOURSELF IN FIRST GRADE?
I was brought back down to earth the next week, which was probably the best thing for me … I went down to Melbourne, and a team like the Storm who are very meticulous in their preparation, I still remember they were shouting out what I was going to do, the foot I was going to step off, the ball I was carrying my hand in. It was a really good lesson to understand where the best in the game were at.
THE TIGERS FINISHED IN THE TOP FOUR IN 2010 AND ’11 – DID YOU LEAVE A PREMIERSHIP ON THE TABLE IN THOSE YEARS?
Yeah, I think so. But you need a lot of luck to go your way for a premiership, unless you’re the Panthers and win four in a row and you make it look easy. But like the Broncos last year, you have a player just go on a run of form, and everything in those games has to go your way. In 2010, Todd Payten rolled an ankle the day before our prelim – losing him obviously had an impact. Then the next year when we lost [to the Warriors] we had both Bryce Gibbs and Gareth Ellis get injured in the game. There’s probably chances we didn’t take as well.
THOSE SEASONS WERE VERY SUCCESSFUL FOR YOU PERSONALLY THOUGH – SIX TESTS FOR AUSTRALIA AND A FOUR NATIONS FINAL WIN IN 2011?
As a kid, you dream of just playing first grade, first and foremost. Then once you play a game of first grade, your dream is to have a long career and then you start to think about playing representative footy. To be able to pull on the green and gold was really special. The 2011 Four Nations final and winning was probably the highlight of my career, more because of what had happened that previous year with my hip injury, and everything physically and mentally I had to overcome to get over that. If you said to me a week after the injury that that was going to happen, whilst I had set some goals, that probably would have been a bit unrealistic.
YOU’RE ONE OF THE VERY FEW PLAYERS TO REPRESENT AUSTRALIA AS MANY TIMES AS YOU DID BUT NOT PLAY ORIGIN. A BIT OF AN UNTICKED BOX?
Every player wants to play Origin and for your country. You’ve just got to take your opportunities. In 2010, I think I was playing good enough football to get picked – I was 18th man – but they wanted to go with more of a defensive style. Then obviously 2011 I was injured and 2012 was just a matter of not playing good enough – it was down to Michael Jennings, Josh Morris and myself, a bit of a change of the guard for centres, and I just wasn’t playing good enough, simple as that. But if you had presented what my career was to a 17-year-old me, I would have jumped at it every single time.
YOU CERTAINLY HAD YOUR SHARE OF NOTABLE INJURIES. ASIDE FROM THE DISLOCATED HIP, THERE WAS THE INFAMOUS HEAD CLASH WITH BEN MATULINO…
Yes, two injuries in my career likened to a car accident. That was just at training, one of those freak accidents where the wrong part of my face just came into contact with the wrong part of his head – and shattered every single bone in my face. I needed 10 or 11 plates in my face, which are still in there now. I think the hip was probably worse from a pain point of view. But this was challenging because of the unknown: what the recovery was, when I would get surgery, complications that might arise from it and then whether I’d even come back at all because it was later on in my career. Many people asked why I came back. I just had that burning desire to finish on my terms.
AFTER PLAYING THE FIRST SEVEN SEASONS OF YOUR NRL CAREER UNDER TIM SHEENS, YOU SAW PLENTY OF COACHES COME AND GO AT THE TIGERS. DOES IVAN CLEARY’S EXIT STAND OUT AS A CROSSROADS FOR THE CLUB?
It was definitely the right decision in getting Ivan there and unfortunate he made the decision to leave. But you could see why he went on to win four premierships in a row – just the type of coach he was, he really got the best out of a [Tigers] side that had underperformed. Just being able to get the best out of players and really simplify the game to make it really clear what their roles were, he was really good at that. Whilst we didn’t make the finals that year, we won as many games as we lost. Every time you get a new coach, it’s difficult because it’s a new way of doing things. There’s obviously a new style, you have to re-earn the respect of the coach. That takes time and there’s always that rebuilding phase.
I’M SURE IT PAINS YOU TO SEE THE TIGERS MIRED IN CONTROVERSY YET AGAIN AND NEAR THE BOTTOM OF THE LADDER, ESPECIALLY AFTER SUCH A PROMISING START…
It’s always disappointing. The hard thing is, all these off-field distractions – whether it’s big or small – because now the Tigers have had quite a number of these different issues, it becomes a talking point. People probably don’t understand just how much of a toll it takes on the playing group. It’s easy to say block out the noise … but these guys are human. They’ll leave training, then you’re thinking about what you need to do internally, then it’s everywhere in the media, on social media, you have your family and friends asking what’s going on. You can’t escape. It’s about trying to create an environment where players can play their best footy and trying to eliminate those external distractions. I hope they can turn it around.
DATE OF BIRTH
19 October, 1988
CURRENT AGE
37
BIRTHPLACE
Sydney, NSW
POSITIONS
Centre, lock, second-row
PLAYING HISTORY
2006-20: Wests Tigers
REP FOOTBALL
2007-08, 2012: Australian Prime Minister’s XIII
2010, 2012, 2016: City Origin
2010-11: Australia
JUNIOR CLUB
Eagle Vale St Andrews
TOTAL NRL MATCHES
253
TRIES | POINTS
84 | 342
