by Nick Cummins
But the devoted man of Aussie vernacular I am, I went to the trouble of distinguishing almost all forms of bastard. Play along and see how many of your mates you can categorise.
Crazy bastard
This rooster gets off on doing weird things. A mate of mine once walked nude through a McDonald’s drive-thru while pushing a tyre. It was a bet. And no, they didn’t serve him. He’s the sort of bloke who would eat as much fart fodder as possible and then go to church. Keep at arm’s length. Nathan, I’m talking about you!
Happy bastard
This bloke always has a smile on his dial. He runs around like a dog with two dicks. His whole family could be abducted by aliens and he’d just shrug his shoulders and say, ‘Oh well.’ He sees the joy in everything. Think Ned Flanders.
Dirty bastard
Here’s a character who is filthy about life. He’s dirty on everything. You couldn’t get a smile out of him at gunpoint. A real dipstick and a 10/10 prick.
Tight bastard
This mongrel would never help out. If he owned the ocean he wouldn’t give you a wave. You couldn’t drive a pin up his arse with a sledgehammer. Mate, he is as tight as a fish’s coit. He’s one of those blokes who is last to shout and usually sneaks off before his turn. He wouldn’t shout if a shark bit him.
Low bastard
You don’t trust this bloke. On a scale of one to ten he’s a minus six. He’d rob a bus-load of orphans and bag them about Father’s Day. Dead-set, he could parachute out of a snake’s arse with plenty of time to pull the ripcord. This bloke would have to reach up to touch bottom. Lower than shark shit.
Strange bastard
This character is not the full bucket of chicken. You can tell the steering gear is not functioning and the computer is not plugged in. The type of bloke who’d threaten to beat you to death with a rubber chicken. A sure sign is that the eyes are too close together, accompanied by a single, full-length eyebrow.
Lucky bastard
Everything works for this bloke. He wins raffles hand over fist and is always in the right place at the right time. Dead-set, he could put his hand in a drum of gorilla bog and pull out a diamond. Always good to have around.
Pommie bastard
They can’t help where they’re from. Hygiene is dodgy, especially if the stories about their showering habits are true. I’ve never trusted Cook – he was the only English captain to tour Australia and not play a Test.
Poor bastard
This bloke is behind the eight ball from the start. He’s got the Midas touch in reverse – everything he touches turns to shit. He is destined for a life of misery. If he was a planet they’d call him Uranus. He’d win the lottery and lose the ticket. If he bet on a horse, other punters would give the jockey a cut lunch and a thermos, and pray he didn’t get run over by the following ambulance.
Dopey bastard
The lights are on but there’s no one home. The engine is running but there’s no one behind the wheel. You have to line him up with a post to see if he’s moving. Get my drift? He’s handy to have around because you can blame him for many things. He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed but he makes up the numbers.
Mad bastard
This bloke would do anything. I was at a rugby do once and the clubhouse had exposed rafters. The local dignitary was giving a speech when one of the boys decided to swing nude from a rafter in front of him. The wife of the big wheel gave him a burst and told him to go outside if he was going to do that sort of thing. Out he went and pushed his arse up against the window. He called it a pressed ham! He was a mad bastard.
Courageous bastard
This is the type of bloke who knows his fate but steams on ready to accept it. When the old man was playing second row in a game for Port Macquarie he had an upset tummy. Sook. Finally, he couldn’t hold the monster back. He ripped off this thing that’d bring tears to your eyes. Reg Smith (a former Wallaby great), playing No. 8, pulled his head out of the scrum, shook it, and put it straight back in. That’s courageous.
Skinny bastard
This bloke doesn’t take up much space. He’d have to jump around the shower to get wet. In fact, if he didn’t have feet he’d be straight down the drain hole. With shoulders like a snake he’d be very cheap to keep.
Fat Bastard
See Austin Powers 2.
Summing up
Most roosters I’ve met are great people. You get the odd clown you wouldn’t feed, but all in all we’re not a bad pack of bastards.
VITAL AUSSIE VERNACULAR
SLEEP:
Checking the eyelids for holes
GETTING PHYSICAL:
Going off like a bag of cats
LEGS:
Getaway sticks
VITAL AUSSIE VERNACULAR
PENIS:
1. beef bayonet
2. a major part of his tackle allowance
3. sword
4. pyjama python
5. rod
6. middle leg
7. rodger
TIME MARCHES ON
To play at the top level in any sport is a great honour and something to cherish. I’ve had my share of the big moments and some average ones as well. That’s life.
The battle to get to the top of your game is influenced by many things. Hard work and luck – both good and bad – are your constant companions.
In 2009 I was packing my bags for the end-of-season spring tour. I’d been at the Wallaby training camp and going OK. I’d been measured up for my suit and all my other gear. What a buzz!
Then the day before the squad was named in the media, I busted my ankle in a training accident and that was that. I wept that night after I was told I may never play again.
After the operation I headed home for R&R and spent a lot of time thinking about my future. The family were right behind me and really put some wind in my sails.
Finally, after seven months of rehab, I decided to give it another crack – pardon the pun. It took so long to heal because I’d dislocated it as well as a clean break. You may as well go all out!
Still, I put the big ones in and in 2010 I was selected for the Commonwealth Games Sevens team to play in Delhi. The whole trip was fantastic and with blokes like Chucky Stannard, Liam Gill and Bernard Foley, how could you not be entertained?
I remember the party at the end of the Games up in the athletes’ village – after a weightlifter threw a washing machine out the seventh floor window we decided on a sing-along to calm the big fella.
I’m not great on the guitar but I can play a few songs. There’s an old one called the Do Run Run or something like that and I played the verses with about 30 Indians singing the chorus. Me: ‘I met him on a Monday and my heart stood still.’ The Indians: ‘De do run run run, de do run run.’ It was huge. They must’ve mistaken me for Brett Lee. So I finished the song with a ‘Get it In-dia’ and the crowd went wild. Everyone seemed pretty stoked even though most had no idea what it was all about. It was a good year and something I’ll cherish forever.
It was another couple of years later, in 2012, when I was finally given my Wallabies shot, three years since my injury. Some other players missed out through injury or form and I got the call. Life’s a big evener, you have to keep at it.
It’s 2016 as I write this and at 28, I’m getting towards the twilight of my career and back where it all began – Sevens.
Here’s a brief rundown on what brought me to this point:
2005: Randwick Colts
2006: Randwick 1st Grade
2007: Australian Sevens
2007: Perth Spirit (7 caps)
2008–2015: Western Force (87 caps)
2010: Commonwealth Games – Silver medal
2012–2014: Wallabies (15 Caps)
2014–2015: Coca-Cola Japan (24 caps)
2014: Barbarians vs Wallabies
2014: World XV vs Japan
2016: Aussie Sevens
I’ve gone about a few things arse-up. Super 15 players rarely jum
p into Sevens at the end of their careers; it’s just so bloody hard. Sonny Bill has done it successfully and managed to avoid serious injury. He should be wearing a cape because that bugger can do almost anything. He’s a great athlete.
When I was a young rooster playing for Randwick I found Sevens training really tough. Now, it’s on a whole new level – even harder than working for the old man! Especially with an injury.
After four back-to-back seasons combined with that new level of training, the body didn’t want to play and forced me to pull out of the Olympic Sevens squad. It was a heartbreaking realisation.
The injuries were really knocking me around and stopping me from being where I wanted to be – where the team needed me to be.
But so be it. At least I had a go. When one door closes, another one opens. I’ve had a good run.
Just a bit of ab-seiling.
VITAL AUSSIE VERNACULAR
TO DESCRIBE A BIG EVENT:
‘That was as spectacular as a fart in a bathtub’ or ‘As crushing as a fart in a lift’
A WORD ON RUGBY POSITIONS
To play in a rugby team you need to possess certain physical and mental attributes. For example: fat bastards go to the forwards and handsome, quick bastards go to the backs.
Rugby can be a confusing game at the best of times. Our numbers go the opposite way, there are 30 blokes on the paddock at any one time and line-outs look like a white man’s attempt at an ancient African sacrificial ritual.
I’d be lying if I said I knew all the rules. I’d be lying again if I said I understood the rules.
But I do know positions – missionary, wheelbarrow and the Spiderman to name but a few. All 15 positions in a rugby team are crucial. They each play their own unique role and I’m here to explain to you just what makes each of them unique. You beauty!
The front row
The front row is typically the last station of what I like to call the Fats Domino effect: front-rowers typically start in the backs but as their skills begin to deteriorate they move to the back of the scrum and eventually to the front. It’s just a natural progression. There’s nowhere else to go except Hungry Jack’s. They crave attention, hence their fondness for public nudity.
Tight head prop
This bloke’s the one with his melon jammed between the opposition prop and hooker. Generally, they are not sharp enough to think up hurtful things to say to their opposite numbers so they just pound each other – usually in a non-sexual way – for 80 minutes. They are the least fit blokes on the field and have ears Mike Tyson wouldn’t touch. Because of what they’ve seen and done, most tight heads are atheists.
Loose head prop
The bloke who is on the outside of the scrum and only donates one ear to the cauliflower cause. Otherwise known as ‘the glamour prop’. Tight heads eventually become loose heads because after all the head pounding and their distinct lack of neck, their melons are bolted or super-glued to their shoulders. They put their heads where no man should go, and they do the same on the field as well.
Hookers
These blokes are aptly named as they constantly use their body to every advantage. They cheat, usually lie, and enjoy having men around them. They believe they are popular and love to score. A career in the circus is a future option.
Second row
It’s a little-known fact that most second-rowers are test tube babies, often the results gone wrong of some mad scientist in a government lab somewhere – probably Penrith. You can tell by how tall and rangy they are. With the cauliflower ears that are actually formed at birth, they often resemble an extra-terrestrial, and can occasionally conduct short conversations, too. Women want them because they can reach high things. Which coincidentally is the bulk of their use in a rugby team – to catch a ball from a line-out. Second-rowers have no friends and eventually end up haunting houses.
No. 8
Very courageous and with no sense of smell, No. 8 is a tailored position that very few fit the criteria for. To jam your head between two large men’s arses for 80 minutes is almost Victoria Cross-like. Their ability to cope with appalling stench and hurricane-like wind is proof of their commitment to the team. They’re desperate to get picked and will do anything and everything on the field to impress. They make good bus drivers.
Breakaways
These blokes think they’re handier than the Indian god Krishna – the bloke with many arms. They’d love to be backs but are too courageous. No one talks to them at halftime. They have no social skills and are not allowed to keep pets. Breakaways make great Buddhists and are known to leave horrible things in letterboxes . . .
Scrum-half
You need nuts like a buffalo to survive this position. Your role is to upset, threaten and start fights with the opposition and linesmen then back away. It’s never your fault and you’re always hard done by. The halfback’s cheeky grin is to mask the terror of having to fight some hairy South African forward that they’ve recently insulted. After rugby, most halfbacks turn to crime.
Fly-half
Loved by women everywhere, these buggers should wear capes. Afraid of nothing except kryptonite, these players usually end up in France and then marry a masseuse – male or female, it doesn’t matter. They make tonnes of cash and laugh at the poor an underprivileged – everyone in the forward pack. Following rugby they usually have a career in public office. They constantly grin like a dead sheep and will one day rule the world.
Centres
Selfish bastards with no love for wingers. They’re the epitome of the word ‘hog’. Most centres have public records for lewd acts and have few friends because they can’t be trusted. Most global conflicts were started by centres. George W. Bush was a centre.
Wingers
God’s gift to mankind, their game is 70 minutes of boredom and 10 minutes of sheer terror. Wingers’ shorts come with pockets to store hair products as well as tissues to clean up after a highball scare. Wingers are very intelligent and are skilled in the art of facial recognition. They can spot a good sort in the crowd and then commit the image to memory for later retrieval. This is a very handy skill and assists with late-night horizontal folk dancing. Wingers make great scholars and visionaries. When Jesus returns, it will be as a winger.
Fullback
Fullbacks are about as important as flossing, paying taxes or parking fines. No one cares. When I was about 12 I watched the old man play golden oldies rugby – he was 42 at the time but lied on the books and said he was 32. No one argued . . . Like Dad, most in the team were well past their prime. If ever a prime existed. They had heaps of forwards so he put his hand up like a flash to play fullback. And as a try was being scored, there he was, leaning on the goal post having a can. What’s worse is that the right winger was leaning on the other goal post having a smoke!
I watched the opposition dive over the line right between the posts. Dad yelled at him as he’d scored and I later asked what exactly he said. He finished his can and replied: ‘Mate, I told him that if it meant that much to him, to go right ahead.’ This is typical of most fullbacks.
Most fullbacks are vegans. Don’t trust fullbacks.
VITAL AUSSIE VERNACULAR
AS LONG AS MY ARSE POINTS TO THE GROUND:
While I’m still standing
EXHAUSTED:
Done like a dog’s dinner
VITAL AUSSIE VERNACULAR
COCKY:
Thinks the sun shines out of his arse
TIGHT ARSE:
Wouldn’t shout if a shark bit him
AFTER RUGBY
When any professional sportsperson sees the writing on the wall they must look to a career after sport.
Some athletes make good coin during their career and invest wisely. Some blow the lot. And others after years at the top level have bugger all to show for it because many sports just do not offer the financial rewards.
Sevens players, both men and women, deserve much more loot than they get. The fast-paced entertainment
that they provide brings in a lot of coin to the respective unions and I reckon it needs to be shared around a bit. After all, without them there is no game.
I’m starting to look at the finish line in the distance. Luckily, I’ve put a few bucks away but I will still need a career like everyone else. I’ve dabbled in a few bits and pieces and I reckon I should be cool. Let’s see where the wind blows! But it doesn’t work out for everyone.
One ex-Wallaby told me he’d almost had a nervous breakdown after he finished professional rugby. He was so used to having everything done for him that when he found a real job he was lost! It’s true. Meals, transport, almost every little lifestyle thing is controlled and organised for an athlete. It’s like you’re a teenager and an only child at that. Ask the manager – no problem.
But once you get that tap on the shoulder you need to be ready with a solid career path, and ready for a big challenge. For many it comes early. Before their 30s.
Some players, however, are like rechargeable batteries and it seems like they can play on forever. Adam Ashley-Cooper is one of those. He’s played over 100 Tests and is still killing it in France. Matt Giteau is another one. These blokes are smart operators and have managed injury, form and finance to a point where they are secure. They’ve worked bloody hard to make this happen and they deserve their good fortune.