James Horwill has ridden the highs and lows on his way to 100 QLD games, Andrew Slack writes

THE hurdles have all helped to put together the pieces of a rugby package that is some way yet from being completed for James Horwill.

QLD Reds captain James Horwill with the 100 Game honour board.

THERE is something old fashioned, in a modern kind of way, about James Horwill.

At a Classic Wallabies function the day before the game against the Force earlier this month, the Reds captain was a guest of honour among a crowd that was much more Baby Boomer than Gen Y.

If there were one or two in the 500-strong audience who were unimpressed by the way he carried himself and the common sense underpinning what he had to say, they were the one or two in every crowd who don’t have the courtesy to listen.

For a big man, Horwill is quick on his feet. To the suggestion by former All Blacks captain Stu Wilson that the laws be altered so a yellow card is issued to any player who commits an infringement against a side attacking in the 22 metre area, Horwill quickly interjected. He argued if that were to happen there would be some games when no All Blacks would be left on the field!

His suggestion to the lawmakers was that rucking be re-introduced to the game. With a smile on his face, he opined, “A little bit of shoeing never caused any harm.” He received plenty of support for that notion.

A day after putting the suit and tie away, the 28-year-old was in the more familiar garb of the Reds jersey, and demonstrating to the Suncorp Stadium faithful the best of what the current day rugby lock has to offer.

His performance did not deliver the win his team needed but it was his strongest game of the season, and hinted at a man who was heading towards his very best form.

On Saturday night he played his 100th game for the Reds, only the third lock to do so after a couple of handy second rowers named John Eales and Rod McCall.

It is a century that has been hard earned. As a 21-year-old he endured personal tragedy no one of his years would expect to confront, and his journey from first gamer against the Waratahs eight years ago to becoming the 26th Reds Centurion, has not been as trouble-free as he might have hoped.News_Rich_Media: Reds coach Richard Graham joins Tim Horan on Rugby HQ to discuss the pressure he face in replacing Ewen McKenzie and his side's chances of claiming Super Rugby glory in 2014.

Nevertheless, the hurdles have all helped to put together the pieces of a rugby package that is some way yet from being completed.

Horwill was on board what seemed the sinking ship of Queensland rugby when the Bulls beat the Reds 92-3 in Pretoria in 2007. Four years later, he became the first Queenslander in the professional era to raise the Super Rugby trophy. Those two ends of the scale will teach you perspective, and Horwill has definitely grasped the notion.

A cruel run of serious injuries and his demotion as Wallabies skipper will not have hurt his capacity to learn to take the bad with the good either. I’m sure he has had some cat-kicking moments in private, but his public demeanour and actions have always been about getting on with whatever job was next on his plate.

Some observers seem ready to suggest his best is behind him, but the evidence from recent games does not support that. Injury-free, he potentially has half a decade worth of his best rugby in front of him. Nathan Sharpe, another former Wallabies lock and captain, definitely got better with age. When he retired at 34 he may well have been at the top of his game.

Like Sharpe, Horwill sits comfortably in the professional age, but there is something about both men that suggests they would fit perfectly in the bygone days when you were playing for beers at full-time.

Horwill’s a man of many eras. Maybe his first one ended with his 100th game for the Reds, and a new one begins from now.