Paul Kent: Paul Gallen’s winning secret is he just works harder than anybody else

Never one to quit, Paul Gallen has to ignore his instincts and trust his training when he fights Mark Hunt writes Paul Kent.

Paul Gallen has the engine to match it with Mark Hunt. Artwork: Boo Bailey

You are Paul Gallen and you cannot be discouraged.

The motor inside is larger and heavier nowadays but it keeps running like it always has.

The one thing everyone is certain of when you step into the ring against Mark Hunt in 11 days is that there will be no quit.

Everybody who knows you knows this truth.

Those who don’t only speak of it, repeating the wisdom of others.

Their confusion is understandable because sometimes it is hard to spot.

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Paul Gallen has the engine to match it with Mark Hunt. Artwork: Boo Bailey

There was that time in the last minutes of the 2016 grand final when Cronulla had the ball and time was nearly done and your Sharks were out on their legs.

Fatigue makes cowards of us all, they say. They believe they are quoting Lombardi when they say this, the great NFL coach. They kind of are, catching it in a sports book, but do not realise Vince Lombardi was quoting the US Army General George Patton in a World War II letter to his troops.

Few know the rest of Patton’s line: “Men in condition do not tire.”

It is how you live your life.

In the NRL it is the same philosophy, different outlook. Fatigues makes mistakes, and mistakes make losses.

Mick Ennis moves into dummy-half with a safety first mentality late in the grand final, looking for the man to do not the best job, but the right job.

Paul Gallen training for his heavyweight fight against Mark Hunt at the Cronulla Masonic Temple, Sydney. Picture: Brett Costello

Somebody to get them to the siren.

He finds you.

“I just knew how much I trusted him when others were fatigued,” Ennis says of you later.

You hold the ball like you are running from a bank.

Your Sharks are leading and the clock is ticking down so close to that first premiership that every Sharks fan immediately tightens through the chest.

Cronulla has a history of losing the winnable grand finals. For 50 years it is the club’s DNA.

It is the same set and Ennis gets to dummy-half and goes looking again.

He looks past several teammates.

He finds you, a second hit-up in the same set. keeping the result safe. Your engine keeps running.

That is the big question ahead of the Hunt fight.

Can you keep the result safe?

Hunt will set traps, retreating with his back to the ropes and refusing to take the fight to you.

The competitor in you will want to press forward, turn it into a fight.

That’s what they saw that day at Cronulla when Sosaia Feki beat your dead lift record.

You rang the strength coach and took advice on technique. You went to your home gym, after the Cronulla sessions, and put the plates on the bar and began to lift.

A month later you walk into the gym and stack enough plates to make it five kilograms heavier than Feki’s record.

Up it goes.

Former champion UFC fighter Mark Hunt is going to test Paul Gallen’s will to box clever. Picture: Richard Dobson

This is the engine inside.

It is your strength and weakness.

It is what Hunt will be relying on when you fight, withdrawing to the ropes, exploiting that strength.

He will wait there and play on your instinct to walk forward and make a fight of it.

Keep boxing, your corner will say, but inside the engine is running.

Nobody wanted to wrestle you at training. You would choke, bend an arm, whatever it took to win.

Your first trip into the boxing ring you stepped in against Chris Heighington, a tough kid himself, who comes from a place where men earned their way fighting.

And Heighington has a surprise. He is a southpaw, which confuses you because you are a novice, and so he walks out and jabs you straight in the nose with his right hand.

Fury follows.

“He attacked for three minutes straight,” says Heighington. “Overhand rights, coming from everywhere.”

You have come a long way since then.

Many still see you as a novice but the advantage in the ring is actually yours.

Your record is nine wins and a draw. You don’t know how to lose in the boxing ring.

Against this Hunt has just two boxing matches. Forget that he is an established mixed martial arts fighter, an advantage for him emotionally but not physically.

Paul Gallen and Chris Heighington celebrate winning the 2016 NRL Grand Final. Picture: Brett Costello

In the ring he boasts a draw and a loss in those two fights.

To prepare for this fight you are doing it right.

It is the first time you have prepared for a fight without interference.

Usually it is part of footy training, done in the spare hours, and last time there was a book and a trip to England and other distractions.

Now, for the first time, you are preparing totally as a fighter.

Running and sparring the best you can find. People don’t realise how difficult it is to find sparring partners.

On Thursday you flew to Brisbane for rounds with former heavyweight contender Alex Leapai and Herman Purcell, who you have beaten twice.

Purcell is still chirping like he carries the colours of Queensland, the state where they could not like you so they had to hate you.

It was a tough time for NSW, the team you captained. You took on Queensland with nothing but water pistols.

They say the odds are somewhat similar this time around.

Hunt is the firm favourite.

Your trainer Graham Shaw dismisses the odds, saying: “It’s not a tough man contest. It’s a boxing match. The last thing we want is to do is enter a tough man contest.”

Yet that is Hunt’s plan.

Draw you on to the ropes and make you confident, encouraging you to throw punches so your hands are away from your chin, working away like you always do, making the fight … until he drops the right. A short loopy right hand that has knocked dozens of men cold.

The question is whether you ignore your instinct, trust your training.

He knows the competitor inside you, the man prepared to work harder than anybody else to win.

He preys on it.

* * * * * * * *

The Jack de Belin hung jury leaves the NRL with a quandary.

Clearly, with a deadlocked jury some jurors were satisfied of de Belin’s guilt of his charges.

But that means, equally, there were others on the jury who were not convinced beyond reasonable doubt that de Belin should be found guilty.

Which raises the question whether there should be a capped period for which players are stood down under the NRL’s rules. Is two seasons enough? Is a hung jury grounds for reinstatement?

If the stand-down policy continues, de Belin will miss at least part of a third season before his trial is heard in April.

The vastly different opinions might have something to do with the diversity on the jury panel.

Those in the courtroom were shocked at some of the scenes.

Most impressive was the jury foreperson, a woman, who took copious notes throughout the trial and was recognised by most for her attention to the evidence.

Unfortunately, not everyone appeared as diligent.

Twice the judge had to wake jurors who had fallen asleep.

At other times, when the judge checked on how they were keeping with the trial, they were most vocal about the quality of sandwiches they were being given for lunch and that the size of the table they sat at while in recess was too small.

To think this is their concern, when the freedom of two men is at stake here, or that a victim’s injuries are trying to be properly acknowledged, is tremendously concerning.