NRL 2020: Peter V’landys opens up about sleepless nights and illness

There were many sleepless nights for Peter V’landys after a season like no other but the ARLC chairman can now sleep easy after his defiance brought the game back from the brink.

Andrew Abdo with Peter V'landys, bumping elbows during the season. Picture: Phil Hillyard

Ben Fordham calls him The Godfather.

“I’m not suggesting Peter V’landys would leave a horse’s head in someone’s bed or anything, but he knows how to fix any problem that gets in his way,’’ Fordham says.

However, unlike Marlon Brando’s portrayal of Mafia boss Vito Corleone, the ARLC Commission Chairman and boss of Racing NSW is yet to perfect the skill of sleeping with one eye open.

The stark reality — and personal toll — of how V’landys finds himself just seven days away from the NRL grand final that most considered impossible is that he has rarely slept at all.

Without pretending to be something other than the former second-rower who played junior footy with Wests Illawarra, V’landys declares he’s proud of how he and the NRL took on health authorities, government agencies, state premiers and the Prime Minister to achieve what will long be regarded as rugby league’s most difficult season.

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Australian Rugby League Commission Chairman Peter V'landys. Picture: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images

Yet in a year of impossible wins, defiant belief and pinpoint goal-setting, he freely offers that his need to use sleeping tablets to survive 2020 has been his greatest failure.

This column remembers ringing V’Landys on a Saturday prior to the competition’s return on May 28 after a 10-week lay-off.

Clogged up, the 58-year-old answered his phone from under a doona.

“I was very crook at one point through it, which must be said was the flu — not coronavirus,” V’landys said.

“What stress and strain does, it breaks down your immune system.

“For some unknown reason I can handle stress, but it’s the lack of sleep that I can’t handle.

And no matter how good you are, when everything is in your mind, it just keeps going round and round in circles.

“That’s the greatest thing I’ve discovered in this journey, is that lack of sleep can cause a lot of ailments. I can see how people fight depression if they don’t sleep. Sleep is critical.

“I was proud of myself how I could manage my time, manage the stress, manage the workload, but I could not manage the sleeping.

“That was the only failure. I tried everything, but some nights it was two or three hours of sleep.

Rugby League chairman Peter V'landys at Rugby League Central. Picture: Nikki Short

“In the end I gave up and took sleeping tablets. I had to because I just couldn’t keep going without sleep. I might take it one day every couple of weeks.

“That was the hardest part because when you‘re in a high stressful situation talking to state premiers and politicians, trying to get the game up and running, you’ve got to be at your peak.

“I always say, to be successful you‘ve got to be prepared — and sleep is a big part of that.’’

Sleep will soon come easy for V’landys, who could be excused for entering ANZ Stadium on Sunday for the decider with the exhausted look of an Olympian nearing the finish line of the 50km walk.

His relief will be palpable.

“I never had any doubt, never,” V’landys said.

“I knew that Andrew Abdo (NRL CEO) had everything covered.

“Every day I kept a personal chart of the community infections and the number of infections and monitored it each day.

Andrew Abdo was crucial to the success of the league. Picture: Phil Hillyard

“I would email it to Wayne Pearce (ARL Commission), Andrew Abdo, Patrick Delany (Foxtel CEO) and the broadcasters, showing (the infection rate) coming down.

“That’s when I had confidence to set the 28th of May (as rugby league’s return date) and gave Project Apollo that challenge.

“I knew what protocols we had to have because of what I had gone through with Equine Influenza (in 2007) and those biosecurity measures we used.

“Wayne Pearce (on the Project Apollo team) and Andrew did an absolutely brilliant job. I can’t stress how important they were.

Ultimately, it came down to trust. I trusted the players and the officials (not to break the bubble rules).

“I would never have gone out there to governments and health authorities and Prime Ministers and Premiers, without having trust in what I was saying.

“I knew that everyone was willing to sacrifice for the game.

“As I said to the Warriors in a video when they were flying home, the sacrifices they made wasn‘t only for the game this year, it was for the game for the next 20-years.

“Because if we had to borrow money to keep us going, you‘d have to repay that money over a generation.

“We didn‘t have to do that — and that’s because of their sacrifice.”

The Warriors played a key role in keeping the NRL afloat. Picture: Matt King/Getty Images

In his post-game speech on grand final day, V’Landys will pay tribute to the players, officials, family members — and specifically the Warriors — who have sacrificed so much.

“Getting safely to the return date of May 28 was one thing, but then it was getting through each round without an infection breakout,” V’landys said.

“The wait felt like being in a jail cell.

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“Every week, I‘d tick another round off. It was like being in a cell, you’ve got 15 days to go and you cross each day out. That’s how it felt.

“Now we’ve made it to a grand final and next is a State of Origin series, it’s what we set out to achieve.

“All I wanted to do was give back to rugby league for what it did to me, which is mateship and a feeling of belonging.

“I was in debt to it. But I think now I‘ve paid that debt back and that’s what makes me happy.’’

Originally published as NRL 2020: Peter V’landys opens up about sleepless nights and illness