Bush footy, busted groin and unbreakable dream: The rise of new Dragons half Adam Clune
He’s just steered St George Illawarra to their first win of the season - a victory that is surely not enough to shake their underdog tag for a little while yet. But that’s how it’s always been for Dragons halfback Adam Clune.
Dragons
Don't miss out on the headlines from Dragons. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- Luke leaving won’t spark Dragons exodus, insists McGregor
- Thompson vows to ‘lift’ Bulldogs off canvas
Adam Clune, at age 25, has finally made the NRL.
But how about the fact he also got here while earning a double degree?
Not only in finance, but law.
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 >
Just as this newest St George Illawarra No.7 also uses what little spare time is left over to crunch numbers for the Rugby League Players Association.
A gig that each week for over a year has required commuting from his Wollongong home via train, bus, then a walk of 10 minutes to reach RLPA headquarters in Balmain.
All up, a round trip of almost six hours.
“But it’s only one day,” Clune says, playing down his journey.
Same as this newest NRL rookie also doesn’t want to make a deal of his two groin reconstructions, three stints in bush football — most recently in 2018 — or the fact he is now being parachuted in to revive the Dragons’ season.
Undoubtedly, Clune is the type of fella whose poster should hang on your kids’ bedroom wall.
But he doesn’t, of course. Right now, even the Dragons Army is paying little attention to its new halfback given the brouhaha around sitting last, possibly sacking coach Paul McGregor and that contentious $6 million salary of Ben Hunt.
Not that Clune cares. In fact, this is where his entire sporting life has been spent. Up against it.
Again, not that he wants to tell you.
No, for Clune real struggle is those stories he keeps close – and often draws on — after volunteering last October to work in Kenya as a teacher’s aide while girlfriend Bianca, a nurse, did shifts at the local hospital.
“An experience which really gave us perspective,” he says.
Still, know that in the past five years alone, this Dragons playmaker has endured not only a dislocated elbow, or broken thumb, but two groin reconstructions so severe, well, surgeons warned he would never be the same player.
At 172cm, Clune is also too small to make it. Or so many have said.
“But that’s no hurdle,” insists the shortest player across the NRL this weekend.
“People saying I was too small, it was never going to push me away.”
Instead, Clune endured. Hung tough while studying, working and persisting with a career that, in three years from 2016, saw him sent as many times to bush clubs such as Collegians, Berkley and Thirroul Butchers.
Hell, even the day Clune’s NRL debut was announced, he broke his nose, with the playmaker sent, bloodied, to hospital after a head clash with prop Paul Vaughan.
Which had him thinking what?
“Disbelief,” Clune laughs.
“But I quickly pushed those thoughts away. Just focused on what was needed.”
Which, undeniably, is the heartbeat of this $75,000 playmaker.
A footballer who, until recently, still lived with parents John and Denise because he could afford nothing more on match payments.
Even despite having forged the type of reputation that sees Dragons assistant Dean Young brand him “a tough human”.
Or at least he did last week, before presenting Clune’s jersey in a speech heavily circulated since on Dragons socials.
“What I admire most about Cluney is his mental toughness,” Young said.
“At training, he has never not made a line. Never not gone around a cone.
“Never left before the whistle … (or) not given his best when wrestling players who are f … ing 20 kilos heavier.
“After all these years watching Cluney play, I have never seen him get out of the way of a hard lead once.”
Which is a grit, you should know, the halfback credits in part to dad John — that primary school principal, and noted bush leaguie, who moved his young family through towns such as Mudgee, Junee, even Rosewood (population, 214).
Elsewhere, Clune says competition has always been rife with both older brother Samuel, who played lower grades with the Dragons and Penrith, and twin brother Matthew, now a tennis coach.
“We were always competing,” he said.
“And I’m so grateful because it’s driven all of us to achieve.”
Still, it has never been easy.
Especially knowing now how Clune not only completed two degrees in regulation time, making classes like every other student over five years, but also those battled groin issues severe enough to leave him limping through games.
Still, the kid dreamt NRL.
“And that hope, it drives you,” he says.
“Obviously when you’re 24 and haven’t cracked first grade, you start to wonder.
“Same when you get another injury.
“But when there’s hope, it drives you to keep improving each week … each year.”
Wonderfully, Clune also credits his persistence to a love of footy that boasts no connection to the standard being played.
“So if you’re competing, if you’re doing everything possible for the people around you, you can be happy.” he says.