Rugby league shows its true strength by getting behind the Mark Hughes Foundation

FOLLOWING a week of scandals the NRL was bleeding but a simple woollen beanie has demonstrated the healing power of the game, writes Paul Kent.

WEDNESDAY morning Mark Hughes sits in a car, a great potential about to be unleashed.

Not even Hughes knows what is coming.

He is in remission for brain cancer and this week the NRL has got behind his Beanie for Brain Cancer appeal and so Hughes is hitting the road for Sydney, with Paul Harragon beside him, to begin the work.

Hughes began selling beanies last year, concerned that brain cancer receives just 5 per cent of cancer funding even though it is the biggest killer of people under 40.

Just that number alone is enough to send a cold chill up your back.

This week, driven by Matt Callander, the Channel 9 league executive producer who fights the disease himself, the NRL made the entire round Beanie for Brain ­Cancer round and so the game gives.

Mark Hughes had no idea the week would get as big as it has. Picture: Richard Dobson

Hughes has half a million dollars worth of beanies to try to sell.

It won’t be nearly enough.

And this is how it happens.

Rugby league needed a week like this. At least as much as it didn’t need a week like this.

Only a week ago the game was bleeding by its own hand.

Cocaine busts dominated the news cycle. It was hard to know where the biggest shock would come.

Cronulla chairman Damian Keogh was arrested for possession, forcing many to sit down and think.

About the same time came news Kiwi Test captain Jesse Bromwich and teammate Kevin Proctor were caught snorting cocaine.

They were white knights of the game, their reputations flawless.

Already everybody knew about Shaun Kenny-Dowall.

Following a horror week, this is the week rugby league has needed. Artwork by Boo Bailey.

Elsewhere the City-Country game, the last ever, stood as a monument to the game’s lost soul.

It was under-­promoted and went quietly to its death as if it was just any game of rugby league instead of the end of a 106-year-old tradition that was the making of some of the greatest men to ever play this game, that was always such a big part of the game’s calendar, that meant something to so many.

But there it went, with a small whimper.

It was just one reason why clubs were circling when they gathered in Sydney this week to meet with the NRL over funding and the hopeless waste of millions of dollars inside headquarters and a genuine fear for the game’s welfare.

So it was a tough time for the game, bruised and tender.

As Hughes headed to Sydney on Wednesday morning news was about to break later that night of Greg Inglis and his struggle.

Inglis was checked into a mental healthcare facility­ ­suffering depression.

News of it was around the game for a week before it broke. By then the game was circling around him.

Hughes attended a lunch to raise money and began the slog of interviews.

The momentum was gathering. He could feel it.

“We knew it was huge and we knew it was going to be big but, I’ll be honest,” says Hughes, “we didn’t think it was going to be this big.”

The game was buying in.

That night, Brett Kimmorley sat backstage with Brisbane chief executive Paul White.

Both have been traumatically affected by brain cancer.

Kimmorley, one of the game’s greats, lost his wife Sharnie to brain cancer in March.

He has been nothing but tremendously brave since, his thick arms around his four daughters getting through life together.

They do it the only way you survive any struggle. A day at a time.

Kimmorley and White talk. White has four daughters like Kimmorley and is coming back from his own fight with brain cancer.

He attacks each day as a fresh fight but a new opportunity.

“I’ve never trained harder,” he says at one point.

It is all positive.

The unspoken part of their conversation is both are ­worried about going on air and being overcome with emotion.

Kimmorley heads out first and a minute into it, watching backstage, White turns pale.

Kimmorley breaks down on television and the last of White’s defence is gone.

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How is he going to get through this? Of course he does, though.

Meanwhile, Hughes spent Thursday morning doing radio interviews back to back. Wagga and Rockhampton, nobody was refused an ­interview.

It is four years now since his diagnosis and right now, touch wood, his scans are clear.

After the round of radio he headed to Cronulla for ­Thursday night footy.

The Sharks gave him a stall and they came by in their thousands, buying beanies, many just donating money.

Matt Callander turned up and volunteered to man the stall. By yesterday he was ordering a further 30,000 beanies, the initial hope of $500,000 raised now nudging towards $1 million.

As the week wore on ­Hughes found himself turning more and more towards Harragon. This obligation to never say no began to wear him down.

Harragon, already busy as the Mark Hughes Foundation ambassador, picked up the slack.

“Having Chief next to me ... he calms you down,” ­Hughes says. “Makes things simple.”

Harragon took the load each time Hughes needed small rest.

Like when they played ­together at Newcastle, ­Harragon doing the heavy lifting up front.

“Couldn’t think of a better man to have in the trenches with you,” Hughes says.

Two men, shoulder to shoulder. It has always been the strength of the game.

Whether in the middle of the contest or, like now, ­healing.

This is Beanies for Brain Cancer Round in the NRL — you can buy a beanie or go to www.markhughesfoundation.com.au to pick one up.

What chance is Conor McGregor against Floyd Mayweather.

TAKEN FOR A RIDE

HE gullibility of the boxing public — and the wider sporting public, to be honest — is again set to be exposed.

During the week, UFC champion Conor McGregor announced he had struck a deal with the UFC to allow him to fight Floyd Mayweather in a boxing match.

Ah, you can’t help but love it.

McGregor (pictured) is barely even money to survive the first round, let alone win any fight, yet by the time the fights begins, many will have convinced themselves he is a chance.

And we will all buy it to see, of course, despite the fact we all know that, like when a rugby league team takes on a rugby union side under their rules say, or vice-versa, the result always goes overwhelmingly to the home side.

Former middleweight, super-middleweight and cruiserweight world champion James Toney was a boxer of high renown when he was spotted in the crowd at a UFC event in January 2010. By August, he was walking in to the octagon to fight former UFC heavyweight champion Randy Couture.

Fifteen seconds into the fight Couture took Toney down and, like a fish flapping on a dock, we watched Toney squirm for three more minutes before Couture submitted him.

McGregor gassed in the first of the five five-minute rounds in his last loss, against Nate Diaz, so how he handles Mayweather over 12 three-minute rounds remains to be seen.

The great lesson for the rest of sport is how the fight game, boxing or mixed martial arts, take your pick, continue to sell their fights.

McGregor has already begun antagonising Mayweather. Mayweather sits back saying nothing, knowing with each taunt the pressure-cooker builds, which equals money.

Last week, two fighters at a press conference began insulting each other before punches were thrown.

It was brilliant.

Originally published as Rugby league shows its true strength by getting behind the Mark Hughes Foundation