How Wallabies great David Campese atoned for horror ‘Mickey Mouse’ mistake against the Lions
David Campese is undoubtedly an all-time Wallabies great, but one horror moment against the Lions in 1989 remains a sticking point. This is how he atoned for the error and became a legend of Australian rugby.
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One of the greatest players ever to lace up a boot, David Campese’s legacy to Australian rugby is beyond reproach.
A free spirit or and off the field, ‘Campo’ might have ruffled a few feathers and made a few mistakes along the way but the game ‘played in heaven’ was blessed to witness his magic
Unanimously voted player of the tournament when the Wallabies won the Rugby World Cup for the first time in 1991, Campese was the game’s ultimate entertainer, a natural showman who scored tries for fun and dazzled crowds all over the planet with his skill and flair.
But he was also a fearless risk-taker and occasionally his gambles backfired, never more so than in the third and deciding Test of the 1989 British and Irish Lions tour of Australia.
The Wallabies were leading 12-9 early in the second half at the old Sydney Football Stadium when the Lions’ five-eighth Rob Andrew attempted a field goal that would have levelled the scores.
Andrew’s kick went wide of the posts and was caught in goal by David Campese, who only had to dot the ball down to force a 22-metre drop out or kick out on the full for a lineout.
But Campese, who was playing on the left wing, took an unorthodox option, deciding to run the ball out from behind his own tryline.
Confronted by a defender, Campese tried to offload the ball to the Australian fullback Greg Martin, but his misdirected pass ended up on the turf, gifting a try to the Lions’ winger Ieuan Evans.
Gordon Bray, who was calling the match on live television, described it as a ‘mortal blow’ for the Australian team.
“The less said about that, the better,” Bray said. ‘David Campese knows he’s made a horrible mistake.”
Bray’s co-commentator Chris “buddha” Handy was less restrained in roasting Campese.
“This is the classic shocker,” Handy said. “You don’t do this on your own line.
“You don’t wear a green and gold jersey to pull out that sort of Mickey Mouse rugby.”
Although there was plenty of time left on the clock, the Wallabies went on to lose the match 19-18 and with it the series and so Campese copped the brunt.
“In hindsight, I really feel for Campo because he’s obviously copped it ever since that one mistake and he put a lot more in the bank than he took out,” Wallabies prop Dan Crowley, who made his Test debut in the series, told this masthead.
“After that game, there was just an unbelievable deadly silence in the shed and a lot of it was directed at Campo and how many years have gone past, it still keeps getting brought back up.”
The place where the incident happened was unofficially nicknamed ‘Campo’s corner’ while the attacks against him became more ruthless by the day, with calls for him never to be selected for the Wallabies again.
This prompted the Wallabies captain Nick Farr-Jones to intervene, so he wrote an open letter that was published in Sydney and Brisbane newspapers calling for calm.
“I was a young captain at the time but I thought I’ve got to defend this bloke,” Farr-Jones told this masthead.
“I can’t just stand around and hear and read all this crap about one of the greatest players I’ve had the privilege of playing with.
“So I wrote this open letter, basically in defence of Campo, saying ‘you made a mistake on Saturday, but it didn’t cost us the game. We had 79 other minutes in which to win that game’.
“And I went on to say, ‘Campo, if I was selecting the Wallabies tomorrow, you’d be the very first player that I would select, and most importantly, without chains, without shackles.
“If (Wallabies coach) Bob Dwyer had of said to Campo ‘I’m going to select you again but on the basis of thou shalt kick out on the full in your 22’ you would have destroyed the essence of the guy, you would destroy the very fabric of what he’s about and that was about not dying wondering if he could beat the tackle.”
Lloyd Walker, who played inside centre for the Wallabies, was a long-time team mate of Campese with the Galloping Greens and could tell how much he was hurting.
“The focal point on the test was Campo, which was unfortunate,” Walker said.
“I played a lot with David at Randwick and he’s won more games than he’s lost.
“Would I pick in my team every week? Of course I would because he is a player that played what’s in front of him and he always liked to attack. That’s the way he played.
“He was one of the best wingers in the world at the time. So it was disappointing, but in games of football, little things happen very quickly. It’s difficult to take back and it’s difficult to change, but I’d rather have him in my side than not. He took it very hard and I felt really sorry for him because usually he brushes it off but this really hit him before he bounced back.”
Campese took a lot of the criticism he received to heart. No-one had given more to Australian rugby than him but he vowed to make amends.
And he did, two years later, with his spellbinding performances that helped the Wallabies win the World Cup, vindicating his maverick style of play and everyone who stood by him.
“You have to let the guy go out there and strut his stuff, walk the tightrope,” Farr-Jones said. “If you walk the tightropes in life you’re going to fall off a couple of times.
“Campo learnt from his mistakes but still went out and razzle-dazzled the world and to me that was a really important thing that came out of ‘89.
“We learned a lot of stuff and at the end of the day, if I had to go through that series loss to win the World Cup two years later, I’m happy we went through that.”
While Campese was an easy target to portray as the fall guy, the 1989 series loss turned out to be a blessing in disguise because it exposed other weaknesses in the Wallabies and led to generational change.
While Campese and Farr-Jones were among the players who kept their places, the selectors ushered in a number of young players, including John Eales, Tim Horan, Phil Kearns, Jason Little and Willie Ofahengaue, who also went on to become legends of the game.
“There’s no doubt we put a bit more starch into the pack and the team,” Farr-Jones said. “I could talk forever about this but we changed our culture and we changed our mindset.”
Campese declined an interview request from this masthead but did post a comment about the 1989 mix-up on his social media account.
“I’ll never live this mistake down,” he wrote.
“Everyone remembers it… unfortunately. I’d prefer it filed under ‘fictional events that never happened.’
‘“But hey—life’s a game of ups and downs.
“Sometimes you’re the hero, sometimes you’re the blooper reel.
With success comes failure—and with failure comes character.
“Still standing. Still smiling. Still pretending it wasn’t my fault.”
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