Why every club needs a player like South Sydney’s Jason Clark
JASON Clark isn’t an NRL star. He’ll be the first to admit it. But he brings something special to the Rabbitohs, so much so that the fans don’t ever want him to leave.
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TOBY Stace spends smoko like any other apprentice. Running for coffees. Waiting on sports pages. Talking crap.
But not today.
No, today when this knockabout plasterer, still only 20, goes for that morning break on a Port Macquarie worksite, his first job will be grab his mobile phone and check for signatures.
“And enough, hopefully,” he says, “to create real change.”
FIRE: Dragons roar on Anzac Day
ANALYSIS: Who starred, who struggled?
So how many people does it take to save South Sydney’s Jason Clark?
For rather than a twist on those old light bulb jokes, this is what Stace wants.
At last count, his online petition demanding Souths retain Clark beyond 2018 has attracted 3000 signatures — and counting.
Which is something.
But enough? Probably not.
Indeed, you have to wonder if anything less than that famed mark of Souths owner Russell Crowe can now save a club favourite who is to be let go after this year.
For this isn’t Hollywood, remember.
It’s Redfern. And rugby league. The Greatest Game of All until it isn’t.
Which is surely how Clark must feel right now going into the Rabbitohs’ clash against the Brisbane Broncos.
This rugged, Bunnies heartbeat — local junior, premiership winner, Souths Cares ambassador — who for 10 straight winters has proved himself the type of footballer willing to spill blood, and almost brain, for that little white hopper stitched above his heart.
A fella who at 28, still has more to give.
But superstar? Um, no.
Even this week, Clark politely declined a League Central interview because, well, the club wants all focus to stay on Kangaroo Greg Inglis, celebrating 250 games. And Englishman Tom Burgess, his 100th.
And who is Clarky to deny that?
Besides, the shadows have never bothered him. Nor hard work. Nor blood.
Which is exactly why fans don’t want him disappearing to the English Super League. Or worse, an NRL rival.
None of which is meant as a knock on South Sydney. Not when decisions like this one arrive hourly in the NRL.
And usually, with nothing more than an empty cardboard box for belongings.
Not the 18 months’ grace Clark received when, late last year, he was told inside the offices of GM Shane Richardson how, sorry mate, but next season is your last with us.
And still it makes no sense to Bunnies fans.
Especially those who can recall Clark once playing with a forehead split so badly against the Parramatta Eels in 2016, you could see skull. Stitched so heavily afterwards too, a photograph went viral, then global, comparing him with that famed mascot of the New York Mets — a giant, smiling baseball.
And how good Clark playing again the next week?
Indeed, when Souths need someone for the toughest of carries, this Coogee Wombat is there. Just as when they were punted from the game, he marched. Aged 10, and among 80,000 others descending on Sydney Town Hall in 2000.
Which is why last Saturday morning, over breakfast in his Port Macquarie home, Stace grabbed a laptop to create his first online petition.
Clark marched for us, he reasoned. So why not us for him?
Indeed, only the previous evening, this Bunnies fan had watched the backrower he doesn’t know — “I’ve only said g’day at a couple of signing sessions” — come from the bench to run, tackle, sweat, chase, push, support and score.
All up, prompting no less than Peter Sterling to proclaim how “every club needs a Jason Clark”.
But today ... well, it seems not all of them do. And maybe not any of them.
Which troubles the apprentice plasterer. A Rabbitohs fan all his life — and yes, Richo, a fully paid member — who, during that same telecast last Saturday afternoon of Souths’ 42-22 towelling of the Raiders, was reminded how Clark is unwanted beyond this year.
“Which had been lost on a lot of us,” Stace says. “Around the time Clarky was told to look elsewhere, it was also revealed Angus Crichton was going to the Roosters ... and you know which one made the headlines.”
And so when smoko arrives today, Stace will grab his phone. Count the signatures. Hope.
Every club needs a Jason Clark. No, our entire game does. Blokes like Clarky are good for the soul.
Same deal with Mitch Aubusson at the Roosters. And Clint Gutherson at Parramatta.
Throw in, too, Newcastle’s Nathan Ross (“Ross Dog”), Jarrod Croker at Canberra and Kevvie Naiqama inside those Wests Tigers prayer circles.
“They’re players,” says Stace, “you just feel connected to.”
And to prove his point, the plasterer suggests we read through those comments that, posted beneath his poll, praise a forward whose 99kg frame is too light for a middle defender.
And at 183cm, shorter than every forward bar hooker Damien Cook.
“But Clarky, he works his slot off,” writes Gordon Morgan. “The club should look after him.”
Elsewhere, Jason Lipscombe praises Clark’s “loyalty”. While Lyne Wright, she describes his re-signing as “just the right thing to do”.
Joanne Kovacevic even uses the story of a homemade bracelet to wonderfully sum up.
“When my kids were little,” the Bunnies fan says, “they adored Jason because he always took time out to chat.
“So they made him a bracelet, on a Friday night, and he swore to them he’d wear it in the game. And to see the kids’ faces (that weekend) when they saw him on TV, playing for Souths with the bracelet they made on his wrist ... priceless.”
And on it goes.
Stephen Mclean: “Love ya Clarky. Heart and soul of the club”. And Emma Longbottom: “Who wouldn’t want Jason Clark?”
While Oscar Sobb simply writes: “Two words. Heart and soul”.
Stace has read all of these comments. Just as every smoko, he hopes for more.
“But where it ends up? No idea,” the plasterer says. “Eventually, if we get enough signatures, I’d like to send them off to the club.
“See if we can change the minds of those who matter.
“Because Sterlo, he’s right ... every club does need a Jason Clark.”
JASON CLARK IS NO SUPERSTAR BUT ...
# He owns a 2014 NRL premiership ring.
# Is a World Club champion
# Won the 2015 Auckland Nines
# Represented NSW City
# Has survived 10 years in the NRL
# Won the 2014 Burrow Appreciation award
# Won the 2016 Bob McCarthy Clubman of the Year award
# Marched to keep South Sydney in the game in 2000
# Once played with 26 stitches in his face
# Bunnies’ inaugural National Youth Competition captain
# Bunnies’ NYC Players’ Player, 2009
# A father to three beautiful girls — Milla, Andi and Billie