Penrith greats hail Adam Docker’s strength and hitting power

EVEN stepping onto scales with keys, wallet and wet hair, Adam Docker is 18kg lighter than the average NRL player. Still wouldn’t want to run into him.

THE Doctor, sadly, is out.

Has been for 20 years. Leaving Adam Docker to shrug, completely clueless, when quizzed about his ability to thwack.

“My tackling style?’’ the Shellharbour product asks. “Nah, no idea where it comes from.

“Some of the fellas back home, they say my old man could hit. Called him ‘The Doctor’ apparently, he put so many people to sleep.

“But who knows? I’ve asked dad a few times but he won’t say anything ... has never told me one thing about his career.”

Call it part of the wonderful mystery then.

One that makes Docker, unknown 12 months ago, almost dead two years back, a complete NRL conundrum.

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Here, after all, is the footballer unwanted as a teen. A kid so devoid of size, ink or any other illustration of Gen Y toughness, he was targeted not by NRL scouts in 2012, but 20 gutless street thugs.

A lock forward who, even now, when stepping onto scales with car keys, wallet and wet hair, remains 18 kilos lighter than the average weight of an NRL player.

“But for 90 kegs, how intimidating is he?” says Mark Geyer, the legendary Panther who knows more than a little about this topic. “The more I watch Adam Docker the less I’d want to run at him.

“He’s the modern day version of both Cement and The Axe”.

News_Image_File: Penright have unearthed a formidable pair in Adam Docker and Nigel Plum.

Importantly, Phil Gould agrees. The Panthers boss putting his own exclamation point to comparisons with David Gillespie and Trevor Gillmeister, stating: “Adam Docker’s talent technique, it’s one of the best I’ve ever seen”.

And to be fair, Gus has seen a few.

“But Adam, he’s a throwback to a bygone era,’’ Gould continues. “He plays hard, trains hard and is one of the most uncomplicated footballers you could ever meet.

“Self-starter, self motivated ... the kid has no fear.”

Indeed, how long has it been since Penrith owned a group of forwards like this?

Starting from Sam McKendry, the No. 8 who once played with a broken neck, the Panthers pack comprises a steely mix of rock, raw talent and resurrected New Zealander. A group so strong even Tim Grant, whose inaugural Origin charge sat no less than Petero Civoniceva on his are, battles to keep pace.

And good luck to the poor bastard who gets “plummed”.

Hitting harder than drought, Nigel Plum is the red-headed Panther whose ability to drop grown men is legendary. Better, he now has an accomplice — with fans having taken to labelling both he and Docker ‘The Bash Brothers’.

News_Image_File: The Panthers pack: Jeremy Latimore, Lewis Brown, Elijah Taylor, Sika Manu, Docker and Plum.

“But please don’t put me in the same category as Plummy,’’ the younger Panther pleads. “He hits 10 times harder than I ever have. Absolutely folds them.”

And why?

Well, when quizzed on his own tackle technique, Plum responds with tales of whacking sheep. Of knocking one cold.

Part of life, he reckons, when you’re raised the son of a Riverina grazier.

“But farms,’’ Docker laughs, “I’ve never even been on one.”

And yet still he could knock the teeth from a chainsaw.

A truth confirmed by Shellharbour locals who insist this 23-year-old had opponents petrified by age eight. Avoiding his side of the field completely by 11.

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A son, they say, growing into the man they always knew his father to be.

According to the front bar talk in Shellharbour, Nigel Docker was a lock forward who, although small like his son, once stood among the genuine hard nuts of the Wollongong competition.

“Not that he’ll tell you,’’ Docker insists. “Only stuff I know about dad’s career is what his mates tell me.

“These days, he’s an OH&S inspector. Travels up to Sydney for work. One day, hopefully, I’ll make him crack.”

For now, however, NRL rivals will do.

Docker playing, thwacking, folding as you would expect a fella who, two years ago, fought back from an induced coma. Surviving, despite being completely pulverised in an unprovoked Cronulla street attack that, first, included one wine bottle before who knows how many fists and boots?

News_Image_File: Docker still bears the scars of an unprovoked street attack.

Even now, 25 months on, his jaw still pains occasionally. The fact no one was ever questioned, let alone charged, leaving an altogether different type of hurt.

“I was told that particular area where I was attacked, it’s one of the most violent in Cronulla,” he says. “So to think there were no cameras around, nothing to capture what was a group of about 20 guys, I dunno what to say.

“But then I look at where I am now. Think, yeah, I’m going okay I guess. Maybe I wouldn’t even be here had the event not happened.”

Having been punted by St George Illawarra the previous season, Docker initially considered returning to Shellharbour, and a plumbing apprenticeship, before opting to play park footy with Windsor.

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Within weeks, he was training with the Panthers. Within months, receiving a call from coach Ivan Cleary.

And now ... well, the Doctor, it seems, is back in.

“A great hit comes down to one thing — timing,’’ fellow Bash Brother Plum explains. “It’s knowing that precise moment, that split second, when the guy has both feet off the ground as he runs, you get him when there’s nothing to anchor him.

“And while I can sort’ve see it, if you ask me to teach it, no chance. Wouldn’t even know where to start.

“Really, it’s gifted to you I guess. Either you have it, or you don’t. And Adam Docker, he’s one of the lucky few.”