$5 memory that turbocharges Josh Addo-Carr

Josh Addo-Carr is on the verge of NSW State of Origin try-scoring records. He’s scoring like his grandfather, boxer Wally Carr, is still giving him $5 a try and telling him to go, go, go.

Melbourne Storm winger Josh Addo-Carr with his grandfather, the late Wally Carr Photo: NRL Photos

Perhaps NSW has an extra man out there. Perhaps Wally Carr is whispering go, go, go in Josh Addo-Carr’s ear. The Blues flyer used to rake in the pocket money from his grandfather — sometimes five dollars, sometimes 10 — every time he scored a try as a kid, and he’s still crossing the stripe like he’s on commission. He goes and goes and goes.

Like the clappers. Born to run. What a beauty he is. I’m shocked he’s only 25 years of age. He seems an accomplished 30-something. If he keeps going at this giddy rate, a dust-churning rate comparable to Looney Tunes cartoons in which the Road Runner is bolting from the up-and-in defence of Wile. E Coyote, he’s going to set State of Origin tryscoring records that will never be broken.

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Granted another decade of fitness, he’ll go, go, go past Queensland legend Greg Inglis as Origin’s greatest tryscorer.

Wally Carr was a mighty Aboriginal boxer who fought in RSL clubs and circus tents and anywhere else that allowed a man to put up his dukes. Addo-Carr called him Pop. When Pop visited a Melbourne Storm training camp at Geelong, he was meant to be there for four hours. They were so smitten by his humility and the power of his life story that he was asked to extend his stay to four days. Pop had 100-plus fights and held eight Australian titles, a tough and proud bloke who literally fought, tooth and nail, to make something of his life.

When a teenage Addo-Carr found himself in jail for doing the wrong thing, for trying to make much-needed money in the wrong manner, when he was still in his football gear in his cell because the Redfern cops had taken him to the clink straight after training, he told himself this was not who he was going to be. He was going to be tough and proud. Pop was who he wanted to be.

Graphic on most tries in a Origin series

They were inseparable. Five dollars a try, sometimes 10. Go, go, go. When Pop was fighting stage four stomach cancer last year, Addo-Carr scored a try for the Storm and shadow-boxed in the in-goal with all the might and power in his veins. Best try ­celebration ever. Addo-Carr didn’t want Pop to go, go, go but he had to. The Storm played the Knights in the Indigenous round this year and the name printed inside their collars was Wally Carr.

We cannot underestimate how deeply a free-spirited soul such as Addo-Carr keeps someone like Pop with him. In day-to-day life. In an Origin decider.

I have seen two sides to Addo-Carr. There’s the hilarious and carefree bloke who laughs louder and longer than a kookaburra and grins like the entrance to Luna Park. He cannot give a straight answer, everything’s funny. It’s a joy. But there’s also the Wiradjuri bloke whose voice gets deeper and whose stare grows longer when he talks about his family and the pride in his Indigenous skin. That version of Addo-Carr is turbocharged and powerful.

Look closely at him. Read the ink. Beneath his right ear is a tattoo that says the name of CARR. Above the name is a tattoo of a dove, flying towards his ear like it’s carrying a message. The message may be this: Go, go, go. Perhaps it’s ridiculous to suggest that Pop is out there with Addo-Carr, running down the sideline and waving a $5 note in the air, telling him to go and don’t stop. Perhaps it’s not ridiculous at all.

Before Indigenous Round, Addo-Carr told nrl.com: “Pop was a perfect role model for me. I didn’t want to waste my life. I wanted to achieve something. Pop grew up without a dad and moved from place to place with family. He has been fighting since he was born. That made him the person he is today and is why he was able to achieve so much in his life. I am very proud to be his grandson and to have his blood running through my veins.”

There’s never been a long-term Origin player with Addo-Carr’s strike rate for tries. Eight games, eight four-pointers. He’s been recorded at an NRL record 38.5km/h. That’s perhaps a little far-fetched. At that rate, he’d clock 9.35 seconds for 100m, knocking over Usain Bolt’s world record by a fair margin and catching the Road Runner. But we know there’s been no one quicker.

He has four tries from this year’s two matches. He needs one more to match the Origin series record of five by the Blues’ Ryan Girdler in 2000 and the Maroons’ Lote Tuqiri in 2002. Inglis’s 18 Origin tries came from 32 matches. Addo-Carr will smash it if he has career longevity. Closer to home, for the Blues, Brad Fittler also scored eight tries … but he needed 31 games to do it. Michael O’Connor and Jarryd Hayne share the all-time NSW record of 11 Origin tries … but they required 19 and 23 outings respectively to get there. Addo-Carr is on track to lap them, and then lap them again. If I was Fittler, now the Blues coach, I would give Addo-Carr five bucks a try. To show how much I cared.

After Indigenous Round, when Addo-Carr refused to swap his Storm jersey because this one had the name of Wally Carr on it, he said: “Pop would be looking down, proud as punch. He’d be thinking that he was back in his boxing days when he was famous and a star. I do really miss him.”