Paul Kent: Sticky’s appetite for success is a laughing matter
On the verge of another grand final success, Ricky Stuart will be remembered for many reasons. But to me, it’s his witty humour and desire for success at all costs that make him so special, writes Paul Kent.
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It has often been said that Mr Rick Stuart, most famously from the Raiders clan but with a few stints in between, should sit down one heavy Canberra summer and commit himself to an autobiography.
He has always resisted the urge, unwilling to give himself an ulcer big enough he would surely fall into as he relived the memories of a career that has been driven, in equal parts, by rage and humour. The ghostwriter has resisted for the same reason.
Few men have the appetite for the competitive life that risks the highs Stuart has lived with the lows he has had to endure. The wins are easy, we can all live with them. But the losses take a piece of his soul.
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Just the other night Glenn Lazarus, one of the great winners of any time, was talking about his former teammate and how difficult he always was after a loss. Few felt it like him.
“You didn’t want to go near him,” Lazarus said.
Stuart had immediate success as an NRL coach, winning a premiership at the Sydney Roosters in his first season as head coach and two more grand finals followed.
He then endured a tough time that lasted longer than he would have liked and one that surely would have ended most coaches. Only the combination of his highly competitive nature, and his often overlooked sense of humour, saw him through.
It’s why Stuart always has one rule when he assembles his coaching staff.
He likes funny people. Somewhere among the staff has to be someone with a quick wit or mischievous mind because, he says, he is not funny himself and he likes to laugh.
It’s somewhat of an exaggeration, though, that Stuart is not funny himself.
The coaching staff was a heady one when he first gathered them at the Roosters.
Assistants were John Cartwright, Dean Pay and Jim Dymock. Shane Flanagan and Ivan Cleary coached lower grades.
The Roosters trained at Wentworth Park, where the greyhounds raced on Saturdays, and their coaching offices hid in plain rooms across from the main grandstand.
There was a lot of activity around the Roosters from a media perspective with, admittedly, a large part of it being because the location was so convenient. It was much closer to the city newsrooms than Parramatta Stadium for instance and, as well, there was parking.
Not that it was always easy.
You always had to be on full alert whenever the Roosters were at lunch and an invitation arrived to join them.
Cartwright would engage you in conversation and when you were properly distracted Stuart would start making himself a coffee.
“Coffee?” he’d say.
In the spirit of relations the answer was always a positive yes and, in the spirit of jocularity, the coffee would arrive laced with chili powder.
It caused great mirth among the Roosters coaching staff and unveiled one of the little spoken of characteristics not normally associated with Stuart.
Rival players have laughed for years at the particular brand of humour Stuart would employ during games although, to be fair, the laughs grew louder only with the distance of time.
He often joked aloud with young halves, for instance, like the evening the South Queensland Crushers were introduced to the competition in 1995 and opened their short lived life with a season opener against the reigning premiers, Stuart’s Canberra team.
The Crushers signed English halfback Mike Ford and as they walked to an early scrum Stuart, who had spent most of the game barking at his teammates, saved a quick one for the referee.
Crushers captain Mario Fenech walked to the scrum telling Stuart to shut up and Stuart quickly turned from the referee to Fenech and blistered him as well.
Ford came to the rescue of his captain.
“What did you say?” Stuart said, engaging his third argument. “Do I need an interpreter? What’s your name?”
In the backrow Scott Sattler stuck his head from the scrum and told Stuart to feed the ball. Sattler was the son of South Sydney legend John Sattler, on debut.
“What did you say?” said Stuart, moving swiftly on to argument number four. “Stay out of it you attempted chip off the old block.”
As they walked to the sheds at halftime another lightly trialed Crusher, Jeff Wittenberg, the son of former Kangaroo John Wittenberg and two games into his career, asked Sattler what Stuart meant by the chip off the old block line, which Sattler politely explained.
“I’m glad it was you and not me,” Wittenberg said.
It is a rare talent to involve yourself in four arguments simultaneously and emerge a clear points victor on each of the judge’s cards.
Some years later Andrew Johns was getting upgraded at Newcastle and the follow-on effect of negotiations was not enough money was left in the salary cap for his brother Matthew, who was forced out.
On this particular day the Knights and Raiders were playing and a fresh-tongued Stuart believed it thoughtful to remind young Andrew how his big new contract was costing his brother, his own flesh and blood, his place at the club.
LISTEN! In the season finale, Matty Johns is joined by James Hooper and Paul Kent to go over this Sunday’s grand final, plus how the build-up to the NRL’s biggest weekend can weigh on the favoured team (and how the Roosters are counteracting it!).
Matthew felt quite chuffed at the ongoing support.
“What sort of bloke are you?” Stuart was saying to Andrew. “Taking all your brother’s money.”
It might come as a small shock to reveal the dialogue continued, in various versions, for much of the game until, late in the game, Andrew chipped and regathered and scored, the try underlining the rare genius that justified his new contract. As Stuart walked towards the tryline he crossed paths with Matthew.
“You’re on your own,” he said.
The combat is strong in Ricky Stuart, and it is what gives the Raiders their best chance against the heavily favoured Sydney Roosters on Sunday.
He has created a team in his own image.
Five years back he needed a dummy-half and he knew it had to be a certain kind of dummy-half. He scoured all of Australia and even parts of Queensland before he ultimately found him playing in England.
Few had heard of Josh Hodgson in Australia, even when England toured Australia late in 2014 and he hit the nightly news.
“How’s that hooker of ours going?” Stuart asked.
The pause was brief.
“See the news last night, when one of the Poms ran through that door …?”
Stuart has formed a strong bond with his English imports. They are quick to laugh and rarely serious, except when it comes to their football. They are tough and always ready for the fight, like their coach.
This gentle philosophy goes all the way back to his early coaching years and the mood he created around the club, led by chili powder.
It took only four or five times for your lips to be set aflame at Roosters training all those years back for your guard to be duly up and the coffee politely declined.
Stuart would then tell you not to be silly and make you one anyway, which was always declined again and then placed on the table in front of you, anyway.
At which point a game would be played where he would offer to swap cups with the wary drinker. Do you swap? Or was he anticipating you would swap, so you shouldn’t swap and keep the one offered?
It was never an easy afternoon. Dean Ritchie returned to the Telegraph office one afternoon with his lips gently peeling.
It had become an unbeatable act.
After one or two safe sips of harmless coffee Stuart would distract the drinker while Cartwright, who had become complicit in the deceit, would drop a spoonful of chili powder into the brew.
DALLY M’S BEGINNING TO LOSE THEIR APPEAL
The Dally Ms appear to be losing their lustre. And, most worryingly, they appear to be losing support from within.
The awards night was once highly anticipated but has slowly declined in recent years both inside the game and outside it.
Only three retired former Dally M Players of the Year attended Wednesday’s ceremony — and all three were there in another capacity.
Greg Alexander and Danny Buderus were there as part of the Fox Sports coverage and Ricky Stuart was there as a nominee for Dally M Coach of the Year.
Past winners like Johnathan Thurston, Andrew Johns, Allan Langer, some of the greatest names that have illuminated the game, failed to attend or get an invite.
Cameron Smith was said to be suffering a gastric virus but when asked about it coach Craig Bellamy breezed past that and spoke of his concern that Smith is considering retirement, another blow for the awards.
Other greats, not necessarily past winners but champions of the game, don’t seem to be invited any longer like the awards ceremonies of years past, which diminishes the event.
In a bid to streamline the awards night, and perhaps save on expenses, the NRL has basically cut back on so many invites that all the prestige has gone.
The awards need a shake-up, with an emphasis put on making it an event worth attending rather than a television special.
Given the awards are held in grand final week, a compulsory attendance by both grand final teams would add to the lustre around the award and could be built in to the grand final preparations.
Originally published as Paul Kent: Sticky’s appetite for success is a laughing matter
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