Victor ‘The Inflictor’ Radley’s desire to belt opponents comes from a trait he’s had from a young age
IN an NRL career spanning only 22 games, Victor Radley has already inked himself among league’s biggest hitters. His ability and desire to whack bigger opposition wasn’t exactly inherited overnight.
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JARED Waerea-Hargreaves returned to his 4WD ute the other day, only to find the tray chokers with garbage.
Not so much filled, as overflowing.
And the culprit?
“Yeah, me,” Roosters rookie Victor Radley confesses, seated now with League Central after a Tuesday morning weights session ahead of Sunday’s Raiders clash in Canberra.
“It happened a few weeks ago. I filled Jared’s ute full of rubbish, just for a laugh.”
Which is gutsy, sure.
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And according to whispers, the first shot in what is now an ongoing prank war between the pair of you, right?
“Ah, no, Jared hasn’t got me back,” Radley insists, sipping a takeaway coffee as he talks. “And I’m not doing anything more to upset him, either.
“Nothing.
“I’m too scared.”
Which is a lie, of course.
For Victor “The Inflictor” Radley, he isn’t scared of anything.
Nor has he been since age three, when this second-youngest of four Radley boys would hurtle his skateboard down a hill outside the family’s Bronte home.
“Mum reckons I’d crash into all these bushes at the bottom, too,” he grins. “Then reappear and go again.
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“When I got older, too, I loved going down to the beach and riding massive shore breaks. Getting myself absolutely belted.
“I’ve always loved getting smashed, I guess.”
Hasn’t he what?
Like at age seven, when little Vic signed with Clovelly Crocodiles. And soon after became a regular source of complaint for rival parents.
For apart from a slightly, err, contentious tackling style — Radley often led so badly with his head, he’d knock himself out — there was also that insatiable need for physicality that, by high school, saw him regularly googling “Rugby League’s Biggest Hits” on a laptop during class.
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“But I just love contact,” he shrugs. “It’s built into me.”
So who cares if you weigh 92kg? Or have a family history embedded in football?
In an NRL career spanning only 22 games, Radley has already inked himself among league’s biggest hitters.
This kid who once sourced big hits on the web is now establishing a YouTube collection all of his own thanks to folding Manly enforcer Marty Taupau, brutalising Sea Eagle Dylan Walker and, only a week back, taking it to all three Burgess brothers like John Rambo once did the Burmese military.
In Radley, you have a fella reviving memories of Easts tough Barry “Bunny” Reilly, aka “The Axe”.
A 1970s backrower who won premierships, survived 14 seasons and regularly buried men in shallow graves.
A legend more than one old Rooster now sees in this 20-year-old protege.
“Absolute beast,” prop Dylan Napa oozes of his No. 13. “Vic’s so tough, so competitive … I’m bloody glad he’s on my side.”
Which is some compliment.
Especially considering that in a recent NRL Player Poll, it was Napa crowned biggest hitter in a vote he didn’t so much win as wipe out.
Listen! Nick Campton and Tim Williams discuss where Ben Barba will end up in his NRL return, who will win the Dally M Medal, while also reviewing the Roosters-Souths blockbuster.
https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/league-central/id1117246594?mt=2
Apart from claiming one in every three picks, the Queenslander also doubled the count of nearest rivals such as Sam Burgess, James Fisher-Harris and Jack de Belin.
And still, the Roosters redhead isn’t sure the numbers are right.
“Because our hardest hitter, it’s Victor Radley,” Napa insists. “Reminds me a lot like of myself at the same age.
“I reckon he’s going to play a lot of rep footy.”
Radley has the chance to ink his name among our Ministers of Defence, too.
Men such as Charlie Frith, a 1970s Souths forward who once hit Bill Cloughessy so hard, medics eventually rolled the Western Suburbs prop over and all his teeth fell out.
“Geez, what if I’ve killed him?” Frith apparently asked fellow Bunnie Paul Sait as, together, they stood over the crumpled Magpie. “Well,” came the reply, “go kill another one.”
Call it the same mantra employed by Peter Johnston, that Parramatta hitman who trialled in the NFL.
And David “Cement” Gillespie, who really should’ve registered himself as a firearm the year that Canterbury donned fibreglass shoulder pads.
Trevor Gillmeister was The Axe. And Gorden Tallis was a Raging Bull.
As for Terry Randall?
Well, apparently before games inside the Brookvale sheds, this Manly marauder would sit and write every opponent’s name on to a piece of paper … then draw one target each from a hat.
And on it goes.
Take Nigel Plum, whose skills were honed tackling sheep. Or Mark Geyer, who whacked like The Mob.
This truth says plenty, too, about Balmain tough David Brooks, who once hit Geyer so hard that, as MG recalls it, “I shit in my Speedos”.
And it’s into this company Radley can now climb.
This rising Roosters junior all big hits, personal cheer squad and striking resemblance to Billy Slater — albeit, right now, with several facial scrapes thanks to that one-man war he waged with the Burgeii in Homebush last Friday night.
Better, Radley has skill, too. His four try assists are the most of any middle forward this year.
“So he’s really a double threat,” Roosters No. 7 Cooper Cronk explains. “Victor can carry strong and get you a quick play-the-ball.
“But he can also be creative. I’d actually put him in the Boyd Cordner mould. There’s no ceiling to what he can achieve.”
And away from footy?
“Well, you know when blokes get into the golf craze?” Cronk asks, grinning. “They get themself new clubs, shirts, shoes, everything?
“Well, that’s Victor … except he can’t play.”
Yet rugby league?
Thankfully for the Roosters, no problem.
“And I’m enjoying everything about this season,” Radley says. “Well, maybe not the spotlight, but everything else.
“I haven’t even had one bad day yet.”
And then, with both his interview and coffee done, the young Rooster disappears through the gym car park to where a hulking 4WD ute — think the teenage offspring of some Monster Truck — stands unattended.
Unmistakably, it’s the ride of Jared Waerea-Hargreaves.
And then, with nobody looking, Radley walks up to the back, opens the hardtop tray … and places his styrofoam cup inside.