Bulletin’s Big Q&A with Gold Coast-raised two-time NRL premiership winner Ben Hannant

HE was born & raised on the Coast before becoming a two-time NRL premiership winner with Brisbane and North Queensland. Now, former Test and Origin star Ben Hannant discusses his career and the transition into retirement in this week’s Big Q&A.

Brent O’Neill

8 min read

October 5, 2019 - 12:00AM

Gold Coast Bulletin

NRL

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HE was born and raised on the Gold Coast before becoming a two-time NRL premiership winner with Brisbane and North Queensland.

Now, former Test and Origin star Ben Hannant discusses his career and the transition into retirement in this week’s Q&A.

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Q. Most locals would know you’re on the radio with Gold Coast Hit now. What else are you up to?

A. It’s really good. Monday to Friday, 6-9am I’m on Gold Coast Hit and then weekends I normally do commentating for Triple M. I’m still involved with football so I do all the Broncos games. I’m an ambassador for the Broncs as well so I go around and do the (corporate) boxes and speak to the corporates there as well. I’m still involved in the game, which is great, but my main source of income now is on the Gold Coast back home.

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Q. It seems like it’s been a pretty smooth transition into retirement for you?

A. It‘s been very smooth. If anything I’m probably more excited because in footy you get caught in that world where footy is everything and once you step outside of it there’s a big exciting world out there with so much opportunity if you’re willing to use the skills you learned from being a footy player and apply those things that gave you success on the field. There’s plenty of opportunity to have a lot greater success outside of footy.

Ben Hannant (right) with fellow Gold Coast Hit radio hosts Dan Anstey, Sarah Wills and Lise Carlaw. Picture: Mike Batterham

Q. Had you always planned to head down the media path when your playing career finished?

A. I fell into it. I signed to keep playing rugby league for the Cowboys and I got asked to do a demo. Obviously I had my knee injury where I got my cartilage taken out and I had to make a decision whether I keep playing and pushing my body. So I did a demo and they offered me a job to come home down here. I didn’t go looking for it, it just aligned and I pinch myself because I think ‘why the hell would you employ someone like me?’ If you’d ask me three years ago before I got the job, I’d laugh in your face and say ‘you’re kidding’.

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Q. Apart from a short stint with Burleigh in 2016, you’ve been out of the game three years now. Do you ever miss it?

A. I think you always miss playing but the good thing is there’s the different legends games and old boys’ games that you get invited to play in, so you still get to throw the boots on and have a good time. Whether you’re playing professional, amateur or just fun, it’s a great game.

Hannant during one of his four Intrust Super Cup appearances for Burleigh last year. Picture: Mike Batterham

Q. Obviously the NRL grand final is on tomorrow. What stands out from the two you played in?

A. If anything, it comes and goes quicker than you realise. My first time playing in a grand final was 2006 and I was only 21 years of age, very young into my first grade career. I remember all the older boys saying ‘enjoy this, soak it up and enjoy the whole week’. I tried to but I was still young and didn’t really understand it. It was a great experience and everything was fantastic but I understood what they meant as I matured. I was 30 years of age when we won again in 2015 and I can still picture every moment leading up to that week - what we did in Townsville, what went down on the bus, what happened in the hotel rooms, what happened when the families got to come down and hang with us, what happened on the field, what we did as a team after. That was pretty special. The whole thing just makes me smile just even thinking about it. It’s something I’ll never forget and I definitely wish I did the same thing in 2006 as I did in 2015.

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Q. So as a player, how does a grand final differ from an ordinary game?

A. Finals footy is completely different. When you’re part of a good team, a very successful team with great leadership and you’re a very tight group, you can really notice it. It’s like a fresh season and it’s like you get a new burst of energy. You’re not as sore anymore, you’re excited and it’s like a whole other season has started. Finals football is a whole different type of football. People think it’s just another game of football – yeah, it is another game – but when you break it down, if anything you do the little things even better. It’s like Origin football, it’s not the big plays, it’s doing those little tiny plays, the basic things over and over and over again. You wait. Essentially, you keep doing your job and don’t go away from that game plan, and you wait until your opposition decides to go for that big play or tries to do something and that’s the time where you capitalise. And that normally happens at the back end of the halves.

Hannant celebrates with teammates after Brisbane’s 2006 NRL grand final win.

Q. The chance to play in not one, but two grand finals must be a highlight of your career?

A. By far. It’s so hard to get in one. Origin comes around every year and if you’re playing good footy you’re in that team. But to make a grand final you have to have a body of 30 men competing and performing and wanting to improve and being accountable, (with) great leadership and great direction of where you’re going as a team. That doesn’t happen in a year, that takes years to get that. And when you finally do get that opportunity to be in the big dance and then you get the job done there, that’s special. Anything worthwhile in life is never easy so once you’ve done all that hard work and everything comes together, that’s when the most joy comes in life. I was pretty lucky, I’m the only person in history to win a comp with two Queensland teams. There’s not much to my career that is special but to be the first one to do that, no-one can take that away from me.

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Q. Who were the other players that you really enjoyed playing with?

A. There’s definitely people that really stood out to me. Cameron Smith is definitely at the top of the list and Billy Slater is another. They’re so good at what they do on the field but they’re equally as good with what they do off the field with respecting other people and the way they live their lives. These guys are going to be Immortals one day but in Origin camp they’ll walk up to your wife and say g’day and have a chat with them. They’ll take the kids outside and play footy with them. Not only are they the best at our great game but they’re good human beings and genuine role models.

Hannant with former Queensland and Test teammate Cameron Smith in 2012. Picture: Adam Head

Q. What about rivals - who are the guys you really enjoyed playing against?

A. I used to have big battles with Fui Fui Moi Moi back when I was playing for the Bulldogs and he was at Parramatta. I got the Dally M Prop of the Year in ’09 and him and I had a really good season that year and it could’ve gone either way. Every time we played each other we shoulder charged each other, we bashed each other, we just ran at each other. I didn’t dislike him, I don’t know why but we just picked each other out and went at it. No words were said, no name calling but we just tried to kill each other. Even afterwards, he had a book and he asked me to help him out with a chapter in his book about it. I don’t know why it happened but it was great because it brought out the best in both of us.

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Q. We spoke about career highlights before. Test and Origin footy must be among them too?

A. Definitely Origins and Test matches and to be able the represent your country. (But) the biggest highlight is being able to share it with your family. To be able to have a young family of my own, and that grand final in 2015 having six of my kids there at the game with the trophy and with my wife as well, that’s the highlight of my career. The stuff that goes on around (football), it’s the family that sacrifices so much as well. And they’re the ones that no matter what, they’ll always still love you.

Fuifui Moimoi and Hannant do battle in the 2009 preliminary final.

Q. Your career was obviously very successful but do you still have any regrets?

A. The biggest regret for me in my footy career is I tried to maintain after I had a couple of big years where I played Test footy and won a Dally M and all that sort of stuff. I was busy with kids and I’ve got a few things going on at home and I just thought I had to keep doing what I was doing to stay at the top but there’s always some younger kid or someone that’s more hungry who’s going to keep pushing. I realised that maintaining means you’re going backwards, you’ve always got to continue to improve. That was a good life lesson for me and that’s the only regret I’ve got in my footy career. Now knowing that, it’s fantastic because it’s helping me outside of football as well to make sure I’m always trying to better myself.

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Q. Do you feel like you ever got back to the top of your game after that?

A. I definitely did feel like I did. It was a different role, it was coming off the bench (for the Cowboys). Some people say ‘that’s not the same as starting’ but the effort I put in and everything I was doing on and off the field in attack and defence (was at the top). I feel when I was up at the Cowboys I was playing as good a football as I ever had in my whole career. It was coming off the bench and making sure we were strong and that we did the job. If we didn’t have momentum we swung it back in our favour or if we did have it, that we maintained it and tried to take it to that next level.