‘I’ve never seen Cam Smith so weighed down’

CAMERON Smith told his Queensland teammates he was ready to go to war. It was a brave face masking a man completely ‘weighed down’.

Cam Smith. Queensland vs New South Wales during game 2 of the State of Origin series being played at the MCG in Melbourne. Pic Peter Wallis

I WALKED into the Queensland sheds after State of Origin Game III and ended up sitting down and having a chat with Cameron Smith.

I have known Cam for about seven years and I have never seen him so weighed down.

I saw a guy who was strained. He looked exhausted and it had nothing to do with Origin.

Queensland’s comprehensive victory in the Origin decider gave the appearance that Smith is an emotionless robot, impossibly able to separate feelings from form.

But that’s not the truth.

Smith was rocked by the unfortunate events leading up to State of Origin III that painted Smith as the villain in Alex McKinnon’s recovery story as told by Channel 9’s 60 Minutes.

The story slammed Smith for telling match officials in the heat of the moment that McKinnon contributed to his own injury, which has seen him paralysed from the neck down for now.

Smith still hasn’t responded to the allegations despite huge pressure.

For some reason, people look for reasons to dislike Cam.

You’d never be able to tell by looking at him, but by the time game day came around everything must have been wearing on him.

It took a really big toll on him. He looked punch drunk from the amount of hits he’d taken when he couldn’t defend himself.

It sucked so much life out of him. It drained his wife Barb and his family.

He looked exhausted when Origin was over. That was supposed to be the moment he could relax after a job well done in the biggest game of the year. Instead, Origin was a temporary 80 minute relief where he didn’t have to deal with everything else off the field.

He was trying to be strong. He didn’t want his struggle to make the media. He didn’t even want his teammates to know how tough he was finding that week.

I can only imagine how hard it would have been for Cam not to react. Who wouldn’t want the chance to defend themselves when you’re on the front page of every newspaper being portrayed as a villain?

He knew that speaking about it or even speaking to Alex before the Origin game would have made Origin all about him. He was prepared to ware all the criticism because he knew he’d be able to handle it.

My point here is that Cam went through all of this when he didn’t really have to.

His decision not to talk to Alex straight away when the spotlight was brightest, was about Alex.

He didn’t want to trivialise Alex’s position or Alex’s legitimate feelings of disappointment about the way Smith behaved that night by making some grand apologetic gesture in public.

There’s no way he could have guessed what was really going on. No one on that field could have truly predicted the consequences of that tackle. Nobody realised how bad it was until the stretcher took Alex off the field.

That’s why Smith wants their chat to be real.

That’s all rugby league should want.

Declaring your support for one of them does not mean you don’t support the other.

There is no bad guy in this story. Just two blokes I respect a great deal in an extraordinarily difficult situation.

I hope rugby league fans don’t forget that.