NRL 2020: Eels star Reagan Campbell-Gillard opens up on road to rock bottom
Until now, Reagan Campbell-Gillard has said only that he “hated” rugby league in 2019. But the truth? The Eels star opens up to NICK WALSHAW.
NRL
Don't miss out on the headlines from NRL. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Reagan Campbell-Gillard arrived at Parramatta so heavy, he refuses even now to say what he weighed.
“But it was ridiculous,” he concedes.
Which is also how best to describe his first Eels training session. A fitness run where this chunky Penrith discard wound up, by his own admission, “almost dead”.
Which was a problem. But not the worst of it. No, the real issue is how the bloody hell a NSW Origin enforcer gets to be this way?
Not only out of shape, and form — but answers. Which seems unthinkable, right?
Especially now, with RCG not only resurrected in every sense — fit, playing big minutes and owning more metres than any forward not named Dave Klemmer — but starring in the guts of Parramatta side which loves playing nowhere else.
Buy of the year?
Undoubtedly, this Mt Druitt tough is in the conversation.
Yet to understand how Campbell-Gillard really got himself here — back, in every sense — you must first know where he went.
Kayo is your ticket to the 2020 NRL Telstra Premiership. Every game of every round Live & On-Demand with no-ad breaks during play. New to Kayo? Get your 14-day free trial & start streaming instantly >
Specifically, his trip down a rugby league rabbit hole that is, within seven months, twice breaking your jaw before losing Origin, then Test jerseys, gaining weight and, finally, struggling from the bench of a Panthers side unable to even make the playoffs.
Until now, Campbell-Gillard has said only that he “hated” rugby league in 2019. But the truth?
“I was trapped in a hole last year,” he concedes.
“Didn’t know how to get out, either. Before games, I’d try to knuckle down. Would tell myself ‘c’mon, you can do this’. But nothing worked. I was letting myself down, my teammates — and I could feel them getting frustrated with me. But I just couldn’t get out of that hole.
“People were saying it was the broken jaws taking a toll. But it wasn’t. It was me.”
Worse was how Campbell-Gillard took his benching.
“I’m not a bench player,” he says.
“So every game there, it was like another kick in the guts.”
But as for rock bottom? This 2017 Kangaroo cannot say exactly.
“But a dark cloud hung over me,” he says. “And when you’re feeling … I won’t say depressed … but when you’re not happy with how anything is going, you’ll often start doing things you wouldn’t normally do.”
Like what?
“Eating shit,” he says. “KFC, Maccas, just little things.”
Which soon enough, though, become big things.
“Eventually it was like ‘I don’t give a shit, I don’t care’,” Campbell-Gillard concedes of a season that finished so terribly, Penrith is now paying $250,000 for him to be anywhere else.
“Come game day I would knuckle down — tell myself let’s go — but for the rest of the week I’d be kicking stones,” he says. “And that wrecked my year. For a while, looked like it had even wrecked my career.”
Which is why nobody quite believed it when Brad Arthur (pictured left) reached out. Yet still, the Eels coach did.
Just as he had previously signed Nathan Brown, back when the South Sydney reject was considered rugby league’s biggest thug — or was it grub? — and then Junior Paulo, whose
history includes being cut by the Eels, caught with criminals, cursed by Ricky Stuart and accused, more than once, of looking like he consumed Senior Paulo.
Yet incredibly, and together, these “Reject Props” have become the bedrock for Arthur’s 2020 playbook.
With RCG, the final puzzle piece.
Currently, Big Reg is earning PBs for run metres, tackle busts, everything, while Paulo and Brown — the later of whom runs like Kamikaze pilots fly — are providing the X-factor that is Parramatta having more offloads than any NRL rival.
Or as Brown puts it: “Brad likes to play through the middle … and he likes to let us middles play.”
Which is good news for this Fairfield tearaway who, raised a five-eighth, still attacks exactly like you’d expect a fella whose childhood heroes were Brad Fittler and Adrian Morley. Not so long ago, Brown was tagged rugby league’s biggest lunatic.
“And I hated the way he played,” Campbell-Gillard laughs. “Hated him.”
But now?
“Absolutely, love Browny,” he cackles. “Incredible competitor.”
Asked to describe his own transformation, Brown credits not only Arthur, but Joe Wehbe, that famed “Player Whisperer” whose clients include reigning Dally M Medallist James Tedesco.
“Joe is the bloke I always go to,” Brown explains. “Sometimes, my emotions can get the better of me.
“So Joe helps me simplify things.”
As for shedding that madman tag?
“Honestly? I never cared about it,” Brown insists. “Despite some of the headlines, I never played to intentionally hurt anyone.
“In my entire career, I’ve only ever been suspended two or three times. So I certainly wasn’t going to change my game on people’s perceptions.”
But change, he has. Same deal Paulo. With Campbell-Gillard revealing how, after almost being rendered a corpse at that first training session, the pair agreed to start arriving every morning for what would become regular 4.30am walks.
“So we weren’t only doing extras before training,” the Eels recruit says. “But extras before extras.”
After spending their first hour on neighbouring treadmills — “wearing three jumpers, tracksuits, anything to sweat,” RCG says — the two would switch straight into the Eels’ “Fat Club” for rower and bike sessions.
Elsewhere, Campbell-Gillard also talks of being more suited to Arthur’s coaching style — “most of our learning comes on the field, not staring at video” — while also making major dietary changes like avoiding red meat and coffee. The night before opposed training sessions, Campbell-Gillard also rotates through different meal plans to see which has him most energised the next day.
“Last year, I ate terrible,” he says. “But now two days before a game, I switch purely to white meats. Then the night before a game, it’s fish. Previously, I always had spaghetti bolognaise. But not anymore. I’m also forcing myself to eat foods now I would never eat.”
Like what?
MORE NRL NEWS
Rival’s bizarre lifeline for injured Knight
How SBW plans to defy the odds with staggering injury toll
“I used to hate broccoli and cauliflower,” he laughs. “Growing up, mum would boil the shit out of them and leave a smell right through the house. Same with brussels sprouts.
So I couldn’t eat any of it. But now, love it all.”
Just as three days out from a game, RCG also weans off coffee. One more little change for a fella playing exactly where his side wants to go most. So as for how it feels to again be lumped with such responsibility?
“Ah, dunno,” he shrugs. “That’s my job.”
But it must feel different to last year, right?
“Oh, chalk and cheese,” the 27-year-old says. “And rewarding. I know the outcome of games, they depend on us in the middle. So you can’t afford to have a quiet one.”
Which is why Campbell-Gillard still goes on those early walks. Why he avoids caffeine, throws himself into learning and even consumes beetroot — the one vegetable he can’t stomach — in chilled juices. “Because last year, it was shit,” he says simply. “And while I can’t change what happened, I won’t ever be going back.”
Eels star blasts dive claims after ‘blatant’ crusher
Parramatta enforcer Nathan Brown has hit back against claims of being a serial NRL diver, revealing in detail the “scary pain” he felt during a “blatant” Melbourne crusher tackle.
Among rugby league’s fiercest competitors, Brown, 27, has made headlines in recent weeks after being accused of milking penalties by NRL coaches Craig Bellamy and Michael Maguire.
However the rugged No.13, who faces South Sydney on Thursday night, has hit back at the suggestion while fellow Eel Reagan Campbell-Gillard also backed his teammate, saying “we don’t dive”.
Against Melbourne last round, Brown stayed down after an awkward tackle from Storm forward Albert Vete, in which he appeared to receive pressure on his neck.
Kayo is your ticket to the 2020 NRL Telstra Premiership. Every game of every round Live & On-Demand with no-ad breaks during play. New to Kayo? Get your 14-day free trial & start streaming instantly >
After the game, Eels coach Brad Arthur denied a reporter’s suggestion that Brown and winger Maika Sivo tried to milk penalties during the match – “nobody is deliberately staying down, mate” — although Bellamy later added: “I disagree with Brad on that one”.
Quizzed about accusations of playing possum in the Vete tackle, for which no charge was laid, Brown said: “I’ve no idea what they’re talking about — that was a blatant crusher.
“So whatever they’re saying, I don’t care. That tackle was a crusher. And I’m not sure if (the people commenting) have been caught in one before, but it doesn’t feel good.”
Asked to describe how the Vete tackle went, Brown continued: “I got a sharp pain down my neck. And when you get something so severe, and in such an important area of your body – it’s scary.
MORE NRL NEWS
The ‘final straw’ moment that broke Seibold
NRL’s ferocious battle to avoid finals oblivion
“As soon as you get that really sharp pain, it’s a shock. It isn’t good.
“And it doesn’t always go away either. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.”
Despite suggestions Brown has been deliberately staying down, a quick Google search reveals that in 2018, against Melbourne again, the Eels forward rose to his feet immediately after being the victim of a similar tackle by Will Chambers.
That incident occurred in the same game Chambers was also placed on report, and then suspended three weeks, for a crusher tackle on Eels fullback Jarryd Hayne.
“And I remember that one too,” Brown said of a tackle in which commentators suggested Chambers was fortunate to escape sanction.
“But every crusher tackle feels different. Some are worse than others.”
Brown also refused to bite at suggestions by Maguire, back in Round 11, that he also stayed down after being heavily tackled by Wests Tigers debutant Shawn Blore.
On that occasion, Brown eventually bounced back to his feet and took the first hit-up straight at Blore, prompting Maguire to say afterwards how “we don’t want that sort of stuff in our game”.
Yet Brown said he “paid no attention” to Maguire’s comments.
“I don’t care what opposition coaches say,” he said.
“It doesn’t affect me. My job is to play my best week in, week out for Parramatta.”
Meanwhile, Campbell-Gillard revealed the Eels had this week addressed the comments by made during Bellamy’s press conference.
“We spoke about how there was some banter back and forth between the coaches,” he said. “But we don’t lay down. That’s it.
“When it comes to a crusher tackle, everyone is different with how they feel it.
“Personally I’ve felt it. And it’s a penalty every day of the week.”
Originally published as NRL 2020: Eels star Reagan Campbell-Gillard opens up on road to rock bottom