Payto & Panda: opposition players save life of former Wallaroos coach at country rugby game

“IF it wasn’t for those guys, Steve wouldn’t have made it.” Two country rugby players have been hailed heroes after saving the life of an opposition coach.

THE lads of the Charles Sturt University rugby club in Bathurst can do it tough in the Central West competition, where mostly colts-aged students play against men.

So the Mitchell men have got good at celebrating their wins and the small country club has rarely been prouder this week after two of their players literally saved the life of an opposition coach last weekend.

CSU were playing away against Orange City at Pride Park when City’s first grade coach Steve Hamson - a former Wallaroos coach - had a heart attack and collapsed.

CSU Bathurst player and second-year paramedic student Jack Keppell. Picture: Adam Murray

Luckily, along with two nurses, CSU paramedic students Jack Keppell, 23, and Andy Fraser, 20, were on hand and using their uni training, they worked on kept Hamson with CPR and a defibrillator for 20 minutes until ambulances arrived. Hamson survived and is recovering in hospital.

“It was just fortuitous that they were there,” Central West CEO Peter Veenstra told us.

“The ambulance paramedics said if it wasn’t for those guys, Steve wouldn’t have made it.”

Keppell, who went on to play no.10 for CSU in first grade shortly after, recounted how he’d been stalling warming-up in the cold when he heard someone yell “Call triple O”. He grabbed Fraser, a fellow paramedic student.

“Steve was just on the ground. I looked at him and realised he wasn’t in great shape,” Keppell said.

“I said I am a student paramedic, I can help if you need me to. We tried to get a response and there was no response. We checked airways, circulation, breathing and when we checked his pulse it was like: ‘no pulse, this isn’t good’. That decision: ‘right we have to do CPR’, that was pretty scary.”

Luckily, again, the club had a defibrillator in its medical room and it was used in between CPR rounds. Eventually ambulances turned up.

Andy Frazer helped save the life of an opposition coach.

Keppell thought the footy would be called off but City wanted to play.

“They were shaken up, and I was shaken up. They were good, they asked if I was good to go,” Keppell said.

“But honestly, there are ten paramedic boys in the club and it could have easily been any of them lending a hand, I just happened to be there.

“It was an incredible experience in a really bad situation, that’s the best way I can put it.”

It’s not the first time paramedic students from CSU rugby had turned into heroes. Last year the team bus came across an overturned car and also went to their assistance.

Listen! Exclusive “Payto and Panda” podcast with Michael Cheika on the fallout from “Bug-gate”, Aussie tactics, Quade Cooper, the state of Super rugby and heaps more.

Keppell said it had been an overwhelming week, dealing with wellwishers, proud mates and teachers, and local media interest.

“I’d imagine this is what being a full-time footy player is like,” he said.

“It’s cool to be acknowledged like that but really it’s just great that he’s alive.”

The ARU have rewarded Keppell and Fraser for their amazing deed by inviting them as guests to the Bledisloe Cup next week in Sydney.

REBELS SECURE AUSTRALIA’S BEST

MELBOURNE re-signing Amanaki Mafi this week was a superb bit of business given the no.8 was not only the Rebels’ best player by a country mile, he is also very short-odds to win the best Super Rugby player in Australia later this year as well.

But what makes Mafi’s retention even better business is that Melbourne are using a perfectly legal loophole to log the Japanese no.8 at under half his value on the Rebels’ salary cap.

Mafi was named in the Super Rugby team of the year.

Mafi is only on the books for $150,000, despite being paid a sum we hear is north of $350,000

In a dispensation deal struck several years, Australian clubs were each given the ability to sign a Japanese player as an extra man on their roster, ostensibly to help the Japanese develop and to foster relations with the JRFU. They go down as a maximum of $150,000 on the salary cap.

PLOT THICKENS IN ABS BUG CASE

THE All Blacks bug case is a massive mystery on its own, so it only added another layer of intrigue when high profile agent Khoder Nasser was spotted watching on in the small courtroom on Tuesday in Sydney.

Nasser, who manages Sonny Bill Williams and Quade Cooper, munched on a muffin and listened intently as hotel managers and investigators gave evidence. We couldn’t reach Nasser for a comment.

TAHS SET TO SNARE UNWANTED SIMMONS

WALLABIES lock Rob Simmons will join the Waratahs in 2018, we hear.

The 60-Test forward and the Tahs have agreed to terms after he was informed by Queensland he wouldn’t be re-signed earlier this season.

It’s understood the public release of that information left Simmons fuming with the QRU. Still only 28 and armed with an ARU contract until 2019, Simmons wants to prove people wrong who say he’s past his best and the Tahs - who have lost Dean Mumm and Will Skelton - were willing to give him a blue jersey to make it happen. Dave McDuling is also moving on, we hear.

Simmons adds his name to list of wise defectors who’ve escaped across the Tweed River DMZ: Little, Sailor, Barnes, Grey, Cannon, Mitchell, Valentine and Chapman.

WALLABIES’ GRAPE ESCAPE

CAMPED in the wine region of the Hunter Valley this week, some of the Wallabies players allowed themselves some tastings on their day off last Wednesday.

We figured that as a man who’d spent the better part of two years in Paris, Will Genia would be able to guide teammates on the differences between Hunter shiraz and Bordeaux cab-sauv.

There’s only one problem.

“I don’t drink,” Genia told us.

WALLABIES IRKED BY AUCKLAND BLUES

THE last time the Wallabies played the All Blacks in Auckland last October, the Aussies looked set to end their Eden Park hoodoo when Henry Speight went over to score a try that would have levelled scores at 15-all.

But referee Nigel Owens and TMO Shaun Veldsman controversially ruled that Dane Haylett-Petty had obstructed All Blacks winger Julian Savea and prevented him from attempting a tackle on Speight, and it was no try.

Speight was disallowed a try in Auckland last year.

The All Blacks went on to win 37-10, and Haylett-Petty still shakes his head at the decision.

“The series was done, but we were still on top in that game,” Haylett-Petty said.

“I’ve never really seen people get pinged for running a support line blocking a defender trying to get back. Bit of an interesting decision, but of a turning point, we were on top there and you could see we were going well.

“Had we scored that try, that game could’ve turned out differently.”

NBA STAR JOINS AQUAMAN AT ANZ

THE Bledisloe Cup is set to have couple of high-profile guests next week at ANZ Stadium.

NBA star Eric Gordon will be in town and is set to attend the game. The Houston Rockets swingman was recently voted the NBA’s Sixth Man of the year. The Wallabies are struggling with their Six man, so let’s connect the dots Michael Cheika.

Actually let’s not. We don’t want the Kiwis to try and get the other big star at the Bledisloe to join them.

Jason Momoa on the set of Aquaman. Picture: Instagram.

Jason Momoa - a monstrous actor known to Game of Thrones fans as the Dothraki ruler Khal Drogo - is also attending while in town filming Aquaman.

Momoa is a Hawaiian but is apparently an All Blacks fan.

HOME TRUTHS

THE Waratahs had plans to get together and uncomfortably watch the Super Rugby final last weekend but the midnight kick-off saw a meeting held on Saturday morning instead.

Almost the entire squad attended, including Wallabies players who were in town. Some called in, like Ned Hanigan from Coonamble.

The meeting asked the basic question: what do we need to do to get from this room to the Super Rugby final next year?

We hear new assistant coach Simon Cron gave his first address to the team and hit the mark with a few truth bombs.

The external review into the Waratahs commissioned last month, and conducted by former Bulldogs and Sydney FC boss Dirk Melton, is expected to be finished next week.

THIS IS NOT SPARTA!

SIGNIFICANT changes are already underway at the Waratahs.

The Tahs have discontinued the Sparta strength and conditioning training system they’ve used since 2014.

We are also hearing NSW Rugby is in the finalising the agreement to move its headquarters and the Waratahs’ training base to the UNSW fields in Pagewood.

HICKEY HOPS TO FIJI

FORMER Waratahs coach Chris Hickey has emerged as part of the coaching panel of Fiji’s National Rugby Championship team.

The popular Hickey has been sighted around his beloved Eastwood since leaving the NSW job in 2011 but has knocked back offers to take up a head coaching role since then.

Hickey will assist coach Senirusi Seruvakula.

YOUTUBE SENSATION REWARDED

CASSIE Staples - the rising sevens player discovered via YouTube - has won a full contract with the Australian women’s team.

Staples was a net baller looking to get into sevens last year when she posted footage of her training and playing in sevens tournaments online.

It got the attention of Aussie sevens scouts, and Staples was invited to come and train with the national squad.

The rest is history. Just a few months on, Staples made her Australian debut in Canada in May, and she scored a try with her first touch.

Staples played a second tournament in France and has now been rewarded with a full-time contract.

Originally published as Payto & Panda: opposition players save life of former Wallaroos coach at country rugby game