Brad Thorn and Dave Wessels see rugby glass as half full
This might seem a curious thing for a journalist to say, but there will always be those who can’t wait to tell you how bad the situation is.
And then there are people like Brad Thorn and Dave Wessels … men who figure you are intelligent enough to work out how dire the situation might be. They don’t sugar-coat it but nor do they wallow in misery.
Thorn generally hides himself away from the media. Aside from a radio interview he gave following Izack Rodda’s decision to leave the Reds, the Queensland coach had not spoken publicly since the start of the pandemic. Until last Thursday.
A bit of a mumbler is Brad Thorn, which explains why those with less-than-perfect hearing position themselves in the front row of his post-match press conferences. Yet he stood tall and came through loud and clear this week. He is, to be fair, a less-than-typical optimist. He is gruff in that way that only New Zealand rugby forwards of a certain vintage can be gruff. And he likes things done the old-fashioned way. If World Rugby was to suddenly announce the return of rucking, Thorn would have a goofy grin right across his face. Mostly, however, he presents as a realist, not as a man who deludes himself.
But late at night, just as his brain is starting to shut off from rugby, Thorn admits he allows it to drift down a familiar path, back to when he was arguably the best lock in the world. He had excelled in rugby league, winning premierships with the Broncos, State of Origin series for the Maroons and Tests for the Kangaroos, but in the end, or what had seemed like the end, he returned to rugby and to the All Blacks.
In the 2011 World Cup final against France, the last Test he played, Thorn wasn’t the most fashionable lock going around but he was the most valuable, manhandling the huge French pack. When Tony Woodcock scored his stunning try, running straight through a gap in the French lineout, Thorn wasn’t even jumping. Instead he was a lifter, and a dummy lifter at that, hoisting Sam Whitelock into the air while, from memory, Jerome Kaino went up at the back to deflect the ball to the charging Woodcock. But it was that deception that made the try, New Zealand’s only five-pointer of that epic final. These are the memories that Thorn regularly replays in his head.
So there he was on Thursday, fielding questions about a possible comeback for the Reds. After all, with Rodda and Harry Hockings both having departed unceremoniously, Queensland are down two world-class second-rowers. And Thorn had never actually announced his retirement. He had merely said he would be playing a little less.
So in the week when Dan Carter was expected to make his return to Super Rugby for the Blues at the age of 38, a Thorn comeback somehow made sense. Except for the fact he now is 45. While his aching joints might be aware of that only too well, his ego refuses to accept it. And it was his ego that he was trying to starve.
“Don’t feed me,” he begged the media, who could sniff the makings of a good story. “I don’t need this. My wife will kill me.” OK, he finally relented, if all the Reds locks fall over and all the Brisbane club locks too, then maybe … “I want to be able to think that at my age I can still do it.”
One senses that Thorn may have been a reluctant contributor to the joint effort by the Super Rugby coaches to change some of the laws for the upcoming Super Rugby AU competition. He acknowledges the game may need a little less time-wasting but, as an old tighthead lock, how else were the tight forwards ever likely to catch their breath if the scrums were speeded up?
Schools rugby is flourishing, Thorn observed. Club rugby is flourishing, women’s rugby, the Six Nations, France, Japan, hell even the USA have burst into the market as a huge player. Didn’t last year’s Rugby World Cup attract more viewers than ever before? Maybe, he speculated, if Australian teams simply played a little better under the existing laws, there wouldn’t be any need for changes.
As one of the key drivers behind the law amendments, Melbourne Rebels coach Wessels probably wouldn’t agree. But in just about every other respect, he and Thorn are thinking alike. He, too, made the point that elsewhere else in the world, rugby is going gangbusters. Like Thorn, he clearly is in love with the game, though at times — like most love affairs — it tortures him. A little of that came through in The Australian’s Rugby Rescue program on Facebook on Wednesday night when Wessels admitted freely — too freely, perhaps? — that he had been made a head coach too early in his career and that he had made lots of mistakes that he was still learning from. Yet, almost in the same breath, he noted that things are never as bad, or good, as they seem.
There was nothing Pollyannaish about the fact they both chose to look on the bright side. They know well enough that there are plenty of obstacles strewn across the path ahead, both for the game and themselves. Thorn, for instance, must start delivering some wins. Reds fans have shown incredible patience in his rebuilding plan but even though the signs were looking good this year, Queensland have won only two games out of seven. And that was before they lost three key players.
As for Wessels, he must know that things could turn ugly for the Rebels if the New Zealanders get uppity about how many Australian teams they would agree to play if they go down the path of a trans-Tasman competition. He has already been through this drama once before — with the Western Force in 2017 — and he and everyone else would hate to relive it. Perhaps — and this is only a guess — he knows something about those Rebels talks with private equity firm KKR that the rest of us don’t.
Either way, it is simply refreshing to hear influential figures speaking so confidently about the future of the game. Australian rugby has had its fill of doom-and-gloom.
More Coverage
First Nations Pasifika go within a whisker of all-time Lions boilover
The Lions remain undefeated on their tour of Australia but only just after they scraped through against a First Nations Pasifika side that gave them a brutal physical test.
From City v County to Aussie rugby jersey! Teen’s story inspiring
Last year a teenager made his first NSW country team, played his heart out and is now inspiring other young guns from the bush as a rising star of rugby.
This might seem a curious thing for a journalist to say, but there will always be those who can’t wait to tell you how bad the situation is. Doesn’t matter that you might be well aware that things are pretty grim, these people will want to tell you in graphic detail just how gruesome things really are.