Speaker 1: Hi, my Boris, and this is straight talk, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: Anthony Minchel, Well, we're straight talk. You were three hundred
Speaker 1: and two, orbo.
Speaker 2: Got three or six, and now Jared's clips everyone three
Speaker 2: hundred and seven. You would have eclipsed all of them
Speaker 2: if you hadn't had those massive injury periods.
Speaker 1: Mind you maybe if Jared added up all the time.
Speaker 3: Well that's true as well. He had a few suspensions.
Speaker 3: He's been suspended the first six years. I didn't get injured,
Speaker 3: and I've played more games than anyone in a four
Speaker 3: or five year period where we were making Grand finals
Speaker 3: and I was playing for the NIS in Australia. But
Speaker 3: two thousand and six it all come crashing down. Chronic
Speaker 3: information bubbling beneath my body was out of control. You're
Speaker 3: eating out, you're drinking alcohol, prescription medication through the week.
Speaker 3: So something had to give. Right two back operations, I
Speaker 3: had a smaller disk buldge in my thorasic and then
Speaker 3: I've got this huge dis bulge in my neck and yes, mate,
Speaker 3: just got your report back. It's showing that you're like
Speaker 3: one millimeter away from your spinal cord. That's when I
Speaker 3: really started to dive into nutrition and the role it
Speaker 3: plays in restoring the body. I've got four steps with
Speaker 3: my nutrition that I've still follow now. So the first
Speaker 3: one is Russ has been my whole life basically. You know,
Speaker 3: I grew up as the youngster of the Roosters and
Speaker 3: they've certainly made me the man that I am today.
Speaker 3: An Okay, wait mate, thanks MAV, I appreciate it. Well.
Speaker 2: We're straight talk and as put together by the Sydney
Speaker 2: Roosters Business Club, and we want to thank our sponsors,
Speaker 2: are and my HR thanks very much. And our live
Speaker 2: audience is pretty good. A live podcast. I've known one
Speaker 2: of this since last one did of a live podcast
Speaker 2: I did with Bit of Landers had that he told
Speaker 2: me at the end of the podcast that I sort
Speaker 2: of hypnotized him and he said to me, I started
Speaker 2: talking about things I never thought I'd ever talk about,
Speaker 2: and and I wouldn't let him into the edit room either.
Speaker 1: So welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks very much. So Ricco was.
Speaker 2: Through in one games correct, yep, you with three hundred
Speaker 2: and two, Albo got three or six and now Jared's
Speaker 2: eclipse everyone three hundred and seven. What do you think
Speaker 2: of Jared's game for his three hundred and seventh game.
Speaker 2: I mean, in terms of the way he presented himself
Speaker 2: for the game.
Speaker 3: It was pretty fitting on it he got sent for
Speaker 3: ten blood running down his face. It was just a
Speaker 3: perfect setting for him to break the record. You know,
Speaker 3: I watched him come over from Manley when he was
Speaker 3: a young kid, and you could just see this sort
Speaker 3: of ferocity in his eyes when he crossed that white stripe.
Speaker 3: My loveliest bloke off the field deal met him as well.
Speaker 3: The way he treats the sponsors and fans and around
Speaker 3: the people around the club as soon as he gets
Speaker 3: on the field. He's an absolute beast. And to sustain
Speaker 3: that from a young age to his age now, I
Speaker 3: don't think I've ever seen a front row do that
Speaker 3: for so long, which has been pretty phenomenal, and yesterday
Speaker 3: it was just an amazing day. You know, we are
Speaker 3: the only club to have four three hundred game players
Speaker 3: club in history, so that's really proud moment for the
Speaker 3: club itself. No one's ever achieved that. Have three three
Speaker 3: hundred gamers, four thre hundred gamers at the club.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're going to do a bit a bit
Speaker 2: later but to be frank with you, you would have eclipsed
Speaker 2: all of them if you had those massive injury periods
Speaker 2: for a quite a long time. And mind you, maybe
Speaker 2: if Jared added up all the time, that's true as well,
Speaker 2: had a few suspensions he's been suspended, maybe he might
Speaker 2: have eclipsed everyone by an even greater amount as we
Speaker 2: are today. When I was walking here down George Street
Speaker 2: to walk past a rejuvenation clinic, and the first thing
Speaker 2: I thought of is when he never looks like he
Speaker 2: gets any older.
Speaker 1: Actually looks like a few like you get younger.
Speaker 2: To me, you and Wingy, I don't know what it
Speaker 2: is for you and Craig wing Ye both looks looks
Speaker 2: like you're still twenty eight or something. And to a
Speaker 2: large extent, and it's important, it's an important topic for
Speaker 2: me actually, but to a large extent about it healthy
Speaker 2: healthy living.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to when you were a
Speaker 1: young kid.
Speaker 2: Was this something that your family, because you know, you
Speaker 2: were an hour and for healthy living within our club
Speaker 2: and egg outside of our club as a young kid,
Speaker 2: was that something that was drummed into you or was
Speaker 2: that something you learned?
Speaker 3: Well, it was basically just natural. So we've got Italian heritage.
Speaker 3: So we grew up on five acres just outside Liverpool,
Speaker 3: southwest of Sydney. Was it a farm, Yeah, well we
Speaker 3: had cows, we had chickens and eggs and fruit trees
Speaker 3: and veggie patches and all that type of stuff not
Speaker 3: to go to mark, just just for us basically.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the Italian culture right is to grow your own,
Speaker 3: cook your own if you've got the room at home.
Speaker 3: So that's that's what we did. That's what we That's
Speaker 3: what the Italian culture does. And my mum's a pretty
Speaker 3: duncle cook. So she used to cook all that whole
Speaker 3: food nutrition up for myself and the family, my younger brother,
Speaker 3: younger sister, and without even knowing it how healthy it was.
Speaker 3: It was just how we lived our lives, you know.
Speaker 3: So and now I think back to my childhood. You know,
Speaker 3: I never never got sick. I played many of different sports,
Speaker 3: never seemed to get injured at all. And then I
Speaker 3: signed with the Ruses at sixteen, and I wasn't a
Speaker 3: big guy in the NRL. I was like I had
Speaker 3: to push heavyweights and eat heaps to keep muscle bulk on.
Speaker 3: And you know, when I made my first grade taboo
Speaker 3: at nineteen. You know, the first six years I didn't
Speaker 3: get injured basically at all, and I played more games
Speaker 3: than anyone in a four or five year period through
Speaker 3: that period where we were making grand finals and I
Speaker 3: was playing for nas in Australia. But it all come
Speaker 3: crashing down and when I was twenty.
Speaker 2: Six seven six six, Yeah if I but if I
Speaker 2: go make Anthony minute Cello as a kid growing up
Speaker 2: in Liverpool on five acres and you know you're Mark's
Speaker 2: your younger brother, and you're a sister as we younger sister. Yeah,
Speaker 2: younger sister, she's the youngest. Yeah. I often thought to
Speaker 2: myself if I was trying to create a perfect specimen
Speaker 2: of a fullback.
Speaker 1: And I've often thought this, I mean, apart from having.
Speaker 2: The genetics to play the position and like something like
Speaker 2: you or Teddy and all those slated they've got some
Speaker 2: genetics associated with this, I would have thought. I thought
Speaker 2: to myself, gymnastics is a good bass totally. Who got
Speaker 2: you into doing gymnastics?
Speaker 1: What's the story.
Speaker 3: So that was my main sport as a young kid
Speaker 3: was gymnastics, gymnastics and.
Speaker 1: Little athletics and Mark as well.
Speaker 3: So no So Mark started league when he was six
Speaker 3: or five, almost like just went straight into rugby league.
Speaker 3: But I didn't want to play rugby league at that age.
Speaker 3: And my auntie's sister was a gymnastics coach out at
Speaker 3: Macquarie Fields, that a big gymnastics center out there, and
Speaker 3: my mum just enrolled me and I just started doing
Speaker 3: tumbling and trampolining at the age of six seven and
Speaker 3: I did that from six to about eleven. And I
Speaker 3: was going to State for tumbling and a state competition
Speaker 3: for tumbling, and I was going to State for long distance.
Speaker 3: I was cross country. I was three k fifteen hundred,
Speaker 3: so I had a good aerobic base from athletics, but
Speaker 3: then I had sort of the power core foundation from gymnastics,
Speaker 3: which gymnastics game. I think gymnastics and athletics and to
Speaker 3: an extent ballet as well. They're all foundation sports that
Speaker 3: really springboard you into other sports as you get older.
Speaker 3: So when I went into rugby, I started league at
Speaker 3: ten because of my mates at school. So we all
Speaker 3: joining the local rugby league team. Come and join, soing, oh, yeah, well,
Speaker 3: my brother plays, I might join, So I joined, and
Speaker 3: you know, the aerobic fitness I felt I was fitter
Speaker 3: than everyone because of the long distance running that I
Speaker 3: was doing, And then I had this sort of quickness
Speaker 3: and sharpness that was developing because my brother went to
Speaker 3: State for one hundred two hundred and I went to
Speaker 3: State for fifteen hundred and three k. And as he
Speaker 3: got older, I had a gross burd He moved into
Speaker 3: the forwards and I sort of started to get faster.
Speaker 3: And the explosive power definitely come from gymnastics.
Speaker 1: I remember you when you're playing, obviously, remember your plane.
Speaker 2: When you're playing, You're used to bounce off people, and
Speaker 2: I want to talk to you about it about that
Speaker 2: at the moment, I mean, I wonder if that was
Speaker 2: actually a strategy. So I don't know whether you just
Speaker 2: hit people and bounce back because of the weight difference,
Speaker 2: or whether you actually hit people and bounce and turned
Speaker 2: and then kept running as a part of your strategy.
Speaker 2: Has attack the lestra about it now, And it was
Speaker 2: a pretty obvious thing, and Teddy does that a little
Speaker 2: bit too.
Speaker 3: Was that a thing?
Speaker 1: Was that an ethan Minochello like tactic?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, gymnastics, they teach you how to fall
Speaker 3: and dive, and like you know, when I was six
Speaker 3: seven eight, I was sprung floor in the gymnastics center
Speaker 3: and they're teaching you how to just jump and dive
Speaker 3: and roll and like they teach you all that type
Speaker 3: of stuff and tumbling and all that, so like being
Speaker 3: in space and twisting and all that just come natural
Speaker 3: to me. Like jumping trampolines and doing backflips and all
Speaker 3: that type stuff was just normal because I did it
Speaker 3: for when I was so young. So you know, that
Speaker 3: teachs just spatial awareness, like you know, speed as well.
Speaker 3: It creates power. So when you're in a game of
Speaker 3: rugby league, if you've got that acceleration that creates the
Speaker 3: power that creates the tackle breaks and then being able
Speaker 3: to find little gaps and fall on your front and
Speaker 3: always land on your front, the twisting motion as you're
Speaker 3: going down, that all was natural because I did it
Speaker 3: over and over again in gymnastics, So it wasn't like
Speaker 3: a thing. It was just because of the repetition in
Speaker 3: gymnastics and the tumbling and the trampolining that I did
Speaker 3: and diving and falling and rolling and all that type
Speaker 3: of stuff. Definitely brought it over to the league circles
Speaker 3: for sure, But it seems to.
Speaker 2: Me that you had a bit of a You hit
Speaker 2: a pretty big engine as well. Playing fullback, you've got
Speaker 2: to have a b engine, and you know, because fullbacks
Speaker 2: cover more kilometers than anybody else in the game. Do
Speaker 2: you put down your bea engine too? Again, as a genetics,
Speaker 2: did Mark have a big engine? He was a big dude,
Speaker 2: But I don't know whether you had a big, big
Speaker 2: engine on him.
Speaker 1: Maybe you did.
Speaker 2: But do you put that down to the fact that
Speaker 2: you were more of a distance runner, because often, I mean,
Speaker 2: I remember Jay Gibson. You just say to me, the
Speaker 2: best rugby league player is someone who can do four hundreds,
Speaker 2: run four hundreds like at speed. If you can run
Speaker 2: four hundred like not a not one hundred meter sprinter,
Speaker 2: but a four hundred runner, do you put much weight
Speaker 2: in that discussion and the fact that you were a
Speaker 2: fifteen hundred runner.
Speaker 3: Well, the long distance running definitely helped my cardiovasciar fitness,
Speaker 3: there's no doubt about it. But because growing growing up
Speaker 3: on a farm, but we'll never inside, we had motorbikes
Speaker 3: and back then it was slug guns and all that
Speaker 3: type of stuff and paddy bashes and cars, and I
Speaker 3: like the chop wood. That was one of my chores.
Speaker 3: So I was always outside riding bikes, driving cars, chopping wood,
Speaker 3: all that type of stuff. So that just built up
Speaker 3: natural fitness. And then adding the gymnastics, then adding the
Speaker 3: long distance running. So when I first got to the
Speaker 3: Roosters and we do pre season, I was always up
Speaker 3: the top echelon of the fitness drills.
Speaker 1: Well, just talk about the beep tests. Yeah, but were
Speaker 1: we in the beep tests?
Speaker 3: Well, I was always in the top five without throughout
Speaker 3: my whole career.
Speaker 1: And it just explained with the bea test.
Speaker 3: Well, the beet test is just a twenty meter run
Speaker 3: back and forth, back and forth, and the beep gets
Speaker 3: faster and faster and faster, and you just keep lasting
Speaker 3: as long as.
Speaker 2: You can, and you're how many repeats you can do?
Speaker 2: Is it becomes a measure of your fitness. Yeah, based
Speaker 2: on so in other words, the last twenty.
Speaker 1: Meters you might be doing it.
Speaker 2: They might be trying to get you doing in six seconds,
Speaker 2: whereas a lot of guys have be dropping out of
Speaker 2: that stage because you've already done the whole lot of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it starts really slow and it gets almost walking
Speaker 3: pace and it just builds and builds and builds, and
Speaker 3: you know you're there. You're there for almost twenty minutes
Speaker 3: doing this, so it's like you can get it in
Speaker 3: someone's head as well. But then the beat gets faster
Speaker 3: and faster and you've got to make the beat. But
Speaker 3: if you don't make two beaps, then you're out. So
Speaker 3: you know, by like the beep tests back then like
Speaker 3: you get anywhere above like thirteen, you're doing really well, and.
Speaker 1: I used to hear quite often, used to get at
Speaker 1: fourteen's and fifteen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we used to go like you know, we
Speaker 3: used to go up at sixteen at sometimes when you're
Speaker 3: feeling really good. But then Ricky Stewart used to stop
Speaker 3: it at fourteen. He goes, I'm happy with fourteen if
Speaker 3: you make fourteen, and we had we had the whole
Speaker 3: team getting fourteen, even front rollers back in Rickie Stewart days.
Speaker 3: Fourteen fourteen for me was easy back because we did
Speaker 3: it so many times, so like beat tests to day whatever,
Speaker 3: it's easy. But the front row was like ack beap
Speaker 3: tests h h. But Ricky was. We used to do
Speaker 3: it a lot with Ricky and by the end of
Speaker 3: sort of a preseason you know Peter Cusack was getting fourteen,
Speaker 3: like you know Brian Fletcher fourteen like the front rollers
Speaker 3: and second roll morally one hundred percent more well more,
Speaker 3: he was a good runner. He was actually good runner.
Speaker 1: He was a good runner too.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he hit the run machine.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, he trained hard. Molly was Freddy getting yeah,
Speaker 3: one percent, the whole team was getting like fourteen.
Speaker 2: And then for everybody that to be able to do
Speaker 2: fourteen reps in a beep test as he gets faster,
Speaker 2: that's pretty that's pretty intense.
Speaker 3: One pre season with Ricky, we trained some of their
Speaker 3: hardest training sessions. Ricky, I love him, But this was
Speaker 3: after New Year's Eve. We have the two week break
Speaker 3: Christmasing years outs marks and he goes beep tests straight away.
Speaker 3: So we're straight into the beep test first day and
Speaker 3: you know, the fitter guys get fourteen. Other guys just
Speaker 3: miss it, all that type of stuff. And then he
Speaker 3: go get a drink. We'll come back, and he goes
Speaker 3: gets ever running. He goes, we're doing it again. What
Speaker 3: two beat tests and this is unheard of and he goes,
Speaker 3: we're doing it again. And if you don't make the
Speaker 3: same marker, then Ronnie's counting and we're going to add
Speaker 3: one hundreds, so just so if you got fourteen, then
Speaker 3: I end up getting thirteen. I missed it by ten points,
Speaker 3: so that's ten hundreds. And this is through the whole squad.
Speaker 3: So we do it again and no one gets the
Speaker 3: same mark except Craig Wing. He gets one better. Right,
Speaker 3: We go get a drink. We come back and Ronnie's
Speaker 3: adding up all the numbers that everyone missed it by,
Speaker 3: and Ricky and I thought, Ricky's gonna just get into
Speaker 3: a sees we've missed the mark by heaps and he goes, so, Wingie,
Speaker 3: what happened? You beat your wings all proud of himself
Speaker 3: and goes, well, didn't get you didn't go hard the
Speaker 3: first time. So he was in the wingie, but then
Speaker 3: he got Then we added it up and it was
Speaker 3: like through the whole squad, it was almost like ninety
Speaker 3: one or ninety two points that we missed it by
Speaker 3: and we had to do. He goes, I will with
Speaker 3: the ninety two hundreds. That's the deal. Everyone's like, what
Speaker 3: two beat tests in the ninety one springs?
Speaker 1: The springs?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and Ronnie's like, even Ronnie Palmer's like whispering
Speaker 3: the ricky gun. They've had two beat tests. You can't
Speaker 3: do ninety hundreds. I just give him fifty fifties. So
Speaker 3: we went two beat tests in the fifty fifties and
Speaker 3: that was our first day of training.
Speaker 2: I just quickly want to ask me about this because
Speaker 2: here's an expert in these sorts of things. But you know,
Speaker 2: today you've got all these and we'll go back to
Speaker 2: your career in a moment. But today we have all
Speaker 2: these big name experts around the world like Peditere, Etceterater
Speaker 2: tear in talking about longevity and health span and lifespan.
Speaker 2: But one of the tests that they keep talking about
Speaker 2: is VIA two MAX. I don't know if you've done
Speaker 2: via two max or anyone there's rooms done via to max.
Speaker 2: But basically what they're trying to work out is you're
Speaker 2: at at stress, at physical stress when you're either running
Speaker 2: or cycling or doing rowing, could be rowing, your ability
Speaker 2: to use oxygen. And what it is is there's a
Speaker 2: score you can get, which is you can't just do
Speaker 2: the score like a beep test, but the score is
Speaker 2: done through meated masks, et cetera. To take taken an
Speaker 2: measure of the amount of oxygen and carbonoxide do you
Speaker 2: admit but today that is considered to be the gold
Speaker 2: standard of your as a NINDA cater or a benchmark
Speaker 2: of your potential for lifespan Vir two max. Do you
Speaker 2: still think and as you are a fit guy today,
Speaker 2: do you still think those sorts of things are important?
Speaker 1: As you're in your forties now? Do you think those
Speaker 1: things are important?
Speaker 2: Being able to do Vo two max and all, let's
Speaker 2: call them a beep test because you do a be
Speaker 2: tested into a calculation which virtwo max is.
Speaker 1: Do you ascribe to those sorts of things today?
Speaker 2: As Anthony Mitchello the retired footballer father but generally speaking
Speaker 2: epitomere fitness.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know, I'm massively in the nutrition before
Speaker 3: we get into it a bit later, but I'm massively
Speaker 3: into the health space and longevity space for me now.
Speaker 3: My personal say, weekly training regime is varied, and I
Speaker 3: know we'll talk about minifit later, but if I'm running
Speaker 3: one of my PE programs in school, I'm doing like
Speaker 3: fifteen to twenty thousand steps a day. I'll probably go
Speaker 3: to the gym at Alliance now maybe once or twice
Speaker 3: a week. And I play tennis once a week, try
Speaker 3: to play tennis once a week. I'm loving tennis. And
Speaker 3: then that's basically so I'm always moving. I'm always doing
Speaker 3: at least eight to ten thousand steps a day, just
Speaker 3: every single day. So moving movement for me is massive.
Speaker 3: It's huge. You know, the body is born to move,
Speaker 3: so if we stay stagnant or sit in a chair
Speaker 3: for too long, then all your tissues start to mold
Speaker 3: to what you do most So movement is huge for me.
Speaker 3: So I don't really actually flog myself too much anymore
Speaker 3: in the gym or go hard at any cardio. My
Speaker 3: heart is probably is tennis. Or if I just go
Speaker 3: for a sprint on the treadmill for a bit, just
Speaker 3: the short burst and then do some do some weights
Speaker 3: or what.
Speaker 1: Would be like that'd be like a two minute sprint.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I get on the it's just a a self
Speaker 3: prepared yeah yeah one yeah yeah yeah. So I'll just
Speaker 3: do I'll do like a fifteen to twenty minute sprint,
Speaker 3: have a break, fifteen to twenty minutes, sprint fifteen to
Speaker 3: twenty minutes, sprint second second sorry second second second, not
Speaker 3: twenty so yeah, fifteen to twenty second sprint, just giving
Speaker 3: the body some type of adversitive with all the longevity
Speaker 3: stuff too. It's like you know, heat therapy, cold therapy, fasting,
Speaker 3: giving this the body some type of hormesis it's called
Speaker 3: so some type of adversity which really activates your longevity
Speaker 3: genes and keeps you younger for longer. All that type
Speaker 3: of stuff, and then you know there's there's heaps of
Speaker 3: stuff that you can do for your own health, like
Speaker 3: you know that you're in control of every day is
Speaker 3: the biggest one is what food you put in your mouth,
Speaker 3: how much sleep you get, hydration, all those things done
Speaker 3: consistently over time, that's when you get the real benefits,
Speaker 3: not just do it for a period of time then
Speaker 3: stop and period of time to stop. So with me,
Speaker 3: I'm big on nutrition and hydration. I try and get
Speaker 3: eight hours sleep at night. I try and do something
Speaker 3: scheduling something that I love once a week, which is tennis,
Speaker 3: And then I move consistently at least eight ten thousand
Speaker 3: steps a day. And then you lift some weights every
Speaker 3: now and again for better testos, own production and all
Speaker 3: that type of stuff. So I do a vary of
Speaker 3: things to keep myself sort of fit and healthy.
Speaker 2: If I go back now to Anthony Mitchell or the
Speaker 2: young kid at school, which good to go.
Speaker 3: To Liverpool pats the Nutritionian brothers.
Speaker 2: And you're playing footy there for the school. Were you
Speaker 2: a good student or was some year gave damn about Not.
Speaker 3: Really, I was all about sport, like pe was my
Speaker 3: favorite lesson. Obviously, I actually wish I'd focus a bit
Speaker 3: more on my studies, but I was all just I
Speaker 3: never sort of had the focus to study. I was
Speaker 3: always focusing on playing sport. I was so Liverpool Ttritioni
Speaker 3: brothers went to year ten and then the year eleven
Speaker 3: and twelve school was called All Saints, which was at
Speaker 3: Kasoula down the road. So I remember I was in
Speaker 3: year ten and when the science lab with one of
Speaker 3: my other mates was a bit naughty and we had
Speaker 3: these water bombs and we're doing some experiment and we
Speaker 3: ended up throwing them at the blackboard and the feature
Speaker 3: walked in and kicked this out and we actually got
Speaker 3: suspended for a couple of days. But two weeks prior
Speaker 3: to that, I got invited to play with Arthur Beats
Speaker 3: and invited me to play in a trial where we
Speaker 3: trialed again with the Roosters. We trilled at Hanson Park
Speaker 3: and I remember but.
Speaker 1: As an SG ball it was for SG boy. Yeah
Speaker 1: those days. Under fifteen, yeah, under it was I.
Speaker 3: Think it was under seventeen, seventeens or eighteen's I think, yeah,
Speaker 3: I was sixteen. Yeah, And I remember playing that game
Speaker 3: and look I played, I was playing. I was right
Speaker 3: center back in the day. I played center and look
Speaker 3: I played. Okay. I went looking for the ball. I
Speaker 3: did a few dummy lots of dummy half runs, but
Speaker 3: nothing special. And I went back to school and I
Speaker 3: was just wondering. I didn't wonder if I was called whatever.
Speaker 3: I ended up getting suspended and I got home and
Speaker 3: my dad just went off, you know, and he just
Speaker 3: bought me a new car. Wasn't new. It was a
Speaker 3: Laser t X three where I chipped in half and
Speaker 3: he did the rest and he has that's it. I'm
Speaker 3: selling it. And you know, I was doing all the
Speaker 3: chores for the next week because I was off school.
Speaker 3: And I remember the second day in Brian Kenevan rings
Speaker 3: the phone, the home phone back then, and my mum
Speaker 3: answers and they put me on and he says, I'd
Speaker 3: like to offer your two year contract anyway. So I
Speaker 3: got offered a two year contract at sixteen, and I
Speaker 3: remember telling my family and anyway, all was forgiven about
Speaker 3: the suspension of school and I had the rest of
Speaker 3: the week off and I was killing it, and I
Speaker 3: was like, this is all obviously, play first grade for
Speaker 3: the roosters now. And I remember my dad saying, look,
Speaker 3: that's all. That's all well and good. You can play foot.
Speaker 3: You know. There's no dramas there, but you either finish
Speaker 3: eleven and twelve or you get yourself a trade as well.
Speaker 3: So obviously, being all about sport and not focusing on
Speaker 3: school studies too much, I went, I'll get myself a trade.
Speaker 3: So my dad drove me around to lots of different
Speaker 3: I liked woodwork and metal work back at school as well,
Speaker 3: and so we drove around to lots of different joiners
Speaker 3: and cabinet makers around Liverpool and Hoxton Park.
Speaker 1: And austral and plenty of Italian ones around.
Speaker 3: There's lots lots of Italian ones around. But I I
Speaker 3: like to finish early every day to go train excite,
Speaker 3: to drive on the old M five which is almost
Speaker 3: one lane, and to get on Kenoby Road and go
Speaker 3: to Hanson Park or go to s Mark. So it
Speaker 3: was over an hour to get there. So I had
Speaker 3: to leave by three o'clock and most of the tradesman,
Speaker 3: all the bosses were like, naha, you know, if he's
Speaker 3: doing an apprenticeship, then he's got to work for five.
Speaker 3: So I reckon. We went around about twenty but that
Speaker 3: just kept going. That just kept driving another one and
Speaker 3: another one another. Anyway, we found this guy's Italian dominic,
Speaker 3: Kimira West End Kitchens out of Austril, and he said, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'll give him a go, no dramas. He can start
Speaker 3: at seven and he can finish at three, and you
Speaker 3: do tafe on Thursdays and all good. So I was.
Speaker 3: I was obviously getting up at six point thirty and
Speaker 3: driving out further west to work and then leave it
Speaker 3: three and then try and race into es Marks by
Speaker 3: four four fifteen every day, and then on Thursdays I'll
Speaker 3: go to Taife and Taye finished at five as well,
Speaker 3: but I'll leave at three in the afternoon tea break
Speaker 3: and my teacher Cotton underwe goes, mate, what are you doing?
Speaker 3: You're leaving at three every every week? What's happening? What
Speaker 3: are you doing. I said, I'm going to footy training.
Speaker 3: I'm playing for the Roosters. And he was like, mate,
Speaker 3: that's no career, Like this is a creed what you're
Speaker 3: doing now, This is a career anyway. So I was like, okay, right, mate,
Speaker 3: kept leaving it three and yeah, I made first grade
Speaker 3: at nineteen.
Speaker 1: What was like to meet someone like Jack?
Speaker 2: Was a jackalslad to meet something like Arthur?
Speaker 1: But did you know who he was? I mean, you're
Speaker 1: a sixteen year old kid, I mean, did you know
Speaker 1: who Arthur was?
Speaker 3: Really not? At the start, I used to love Laurie Daily.
Speaker 3: I used to follow the Raiders because I love Laurrie Day,
Speaker 3: the way you played. And then my mum used to
Speaker 3: film every game of ours, like my brother's footy games,
Speaker 3: my sister's netball games, my games. So I a talent scout.
Speaker 3: Come up. Well, I was playing for East Valley United Talents.
Speaker 3: Talent scout come up to my mom and said, I
Speaker 3: do you have any videotapes because I'm interested in number
Speaker 3: three and number ten was two guys and she has
Speaker 3: number three is my son Anthony, And yeah, I've got
Speaker 3: heaps of tapes.
Speaker 1: Yeah Italian serious.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we show the Christmas, so she gave it to
Speaker 3: him and then he took those tapes back to Arthur.
Speaker 3: But yeah, the after I got signed at the Ruses,
Speaker 3: then yeah, you get to know a bit of the
Speaker 3: history of the club and Arthur beats and now he's
Speaker 3: a legend in the game and the statue that he had,
Speaker 3: And then I had a really good relationship with him
Speaker 3: because you know, he signed me at the club, but
Speaker 3: then we developed a really nice relationship and become great
Speaker 3: mates over that period. And yeah, he was what do
Speaker 3: you remember of him? He was He had a big aura,
Speaker 3: like you just lumbered into the room, big guy, and
Speaker 3: you can just you know, as soon as Artie walked in,
Speaker 3: you knew it was there. And just just subtle comments,
Speaker 3: you know, like he used to just come in and go,
Speaker 3: soe you catch those balls, make sure you get elbows in,
Speaker 3: or just like little comments that were okay, nowhere, he's
Speaker 3: already all good. But he loved to tell stories as well,
Speaker 3: so everyone used to listen, and yeah, he was the
Speaker 3: top guy.
Speaker 2: Unreal who was in the who else was in the
Speaker 2: stuy ball? So do you remember that we ended up
Speaker 2: all knowing it.
Speaker 3: Of well, Mark Ridell played with Mark Ridell, peg You Riddell,
Speaker 3: Andrew Lomu. He played first red for the Rusters. So
Speaker 3: we had heaps of talented guys in that but we won.
Speaker 3: We actually won that comp seventeen sixteen. I think we
Speaker 3: beat Newcastle at nor Sydney Oval that year in nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety seven it was and we had guys there that
Speaker 3: were more talented than me, but obviously they just didn't
Speaker 3: work hard enough. All they got distracted by alcohol or
Speaker 3: women or whatever. It was well above yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: So it was like out of the whole team, I
Speaker 3: was myself, Mark Riddell, and Andrew Lomu, and there's another
Speaker 3: guy called Nelson Lommie. He only played a few first
Speaker 3: grade games. Are those the only guys that really made
Speaker 3: first grade?
Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 3: All the rest had more talent but then just fell
Speaker 3: by the wayside.
Speaker 1: It's a very interesting thing point you just made.
Speaker 2: Actually, it's very interesting, and you know, we can probably
Speaker 2: all of us have at some stage in our lives,
Speaker 2: at school or playing stu ball or whatever it is,
Speaker 2: have known guys and girls, probably in female sports, who
Speaker 2: are much more talented than most of the other people
Speaker 2: in the group, yet didn't get there and there's an
Speaker 2: old saying talent is great, but persistence is king, and
Speaker 2: persistency is the most important thing. Most of these individuals,
Speaker 2: the ones I knew as well, just didn't stick with
Speaker 2: what they were doing. They just gave it away and
Speaker 2: they got distracted for some reason. What is it that
Speaker 2: sets someone like you aside and other people? Because here's
Speaker 2: an a stuy ball side won the comp. Only three
Speaker 2: or four paps ended up playing doing anything with their lives,
Speaker 2: and probably you and Rodella are the probably the most
Speaker 2: signifitant of that particular side. Every year, this happens every
Speaker 2: single year for the last fifty years. I mean, I
Speaker 2: played a shueball. All the kids in my only two
Speaker 2: guys that are playing grade. But there were some really
Speaker 2: talented guys and there who should have played grade, but
Speaker 2: they didn't because they just didn't hang in there. What
Speaker 2: is it that brings persistence to a particular individual. I mean,
Speaker 2: consistencies are obviously an important thing, but persistence, in other words,
Speaker 2: stick at your game. Why do you think that you
Speaker 2: stuck at your game and others didn't. I mean, you
Speaker 2: just kept in front of everybody and just kept doing it.
Speaker 1: What was it about you? I don't know.
Speaker 3: To be honest, I don't know. I've always been sort
Speaker 3: of intrinsically motivated within myself. Like Susan, my alarm got up,
Speaker 3: went off in the morning, I'll get up out of
Speaker 3: bed straight away, I'll go for a run by myself.
Speaker 3: I was. I didn't have to get pushed by my
Speaker 3: parents at all. Oh you got to go out and
Speaker 3: chop wood? Okay, yep, sweet. I always felt like my
Speaker 3: mental prep. I always visualized my game from a young
Speaker 3: age too, And that's mindfulness, mental prep, that meditation, all
Speaker 3: that stuff that's in our game now. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I just had a good ability to prepare mentally, I felt,
Speaker 3: and I had an ability. I felt that I could
Speaker 3: separate things. You know, if something was going wrong in
Speaker 3: say your family life or an argument whatever, I could
Speaker 3: come to training or just put that aside and I
Speaker 3: could just focus on training and play my best, where
Speaker 3: some other people can't do that. That comes into their training,
Speaker 3: They train poorly, they play poorly well. I felt like
Speaker 3: I could always separate things and then visualize what I
Speaker 3: needed to do and try and execut the best of
Speaker 3: my ability. And then it was it was a repetition
Speaker 3: it's like as a fullback, you just got to catch,
Speaker 3: repetition a ball after the ball, ball after the ball,
Speaker 3: until it becomes automatic. Because you know, in the pressure
Speaker 3: of eighty minute Grand Final, when there's eighty thousand fans,
Speaker 3: people get overawed by it. But if you've just caught
Speaker 3: that ball a thousand times at training, it's the same thing. Really,
Speaker 3: it's just a lot more noise around you. But if
Speaker 3: you can separate that and persist and consistently do your
Speaker 3: bit and train and train and catch and catch, it
Speaker 3: just becomes automatic. And then and then like after you've
Speaker 3: done your physical prep, then the mental prep starts. Like
Speaker 3: and I was always visualizing, not doing like amazing things,
Speaker 3: so you'll do you would visualize that, but visualize like
Speaker 3: like just immense fatigue, but pushing through that fatigue to
Speaker 3: do something good like that. That was my visualization that
Speaker 3: I did weekly and see if I did my training regime,
Speaker 3: then I did my catching and my extras, then I
Speaker 3: did my visualization prep. I always felt I went into
Speaker 3: a game confident because I ticked all my boxes, all
Speaker 3: my prep boxes. Always went into a game confident. If
Speaker 3: I didn't do something, then you goeshit. I didn't do
Speaker 3: that this week. It's in the back of your head
Speaker 3: straight away, and that brings doubt into your mind. And
Speaker 3: when it's when it's under pressure, you don't want doubt.
Speaker 1: Do you remember having.
Speaker 2: Dreams the night before a game or something like that
Speaker 2: that you perhaps forgot your mouthguard, or you had the
Speaker 2: wrong boots, or you didn't I've heard stories from guys
Speaker 2: who played first grade and probably in many grades where
Speaker 2: they had sort of dreams about not being prepared for
Speaker 2: the game that were about to play, dreaming, so it
Speaker 2: could be a bit of a nightmare to some extent.
Speaker 1: But did you ever have experiences? Riquet used to me, You.
Speaker 3: Know, it's really weird. I still have dreams now, like
Speaker 3: I'm like Robo calls me back in I'm playing, I'm
Speaker 3: on the field. That's weird. I do. I have not,
Speaker 3: not all the time, but it happened. It happens sort
Speaker 3: of quite regularly where you get one more shot and yeah,
Speaker 3: you play well, or you feel like you're out of
Speaker 3: the loop and you yeah, you wake up?
Speaker 2: Was that real? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I know, yeah, No, I have some of those now still.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking back when I was playing, I think I
Speaker 3: was okay with all that type of stuff. But I
Speaker 3: have more now I reckon And.
Speaker 2: You would you say that your ability to You just
Speaker 2: said if if you had some drama somewhere, you could
Speaker 2: actually separate that from what it is the task at hand,
Speaker 2: get on the task at hand, and perhaps deal with
Speaker 2: the drama after it.
Speaker 1: That compartmentalization.
Speaker 2: That you were using, do you think that's a bit
Speaker 2: of a superpower of say, when your case someone like you,
Speaker 2: because I know other people who do the same thing
Speaker 2: in business and all sorts of things. Compartmentalization of something
Speaker 2: in other words, park something, deal with it later. I
Speaker 2: mean I have this process where I say I'll put
Speaker 2: some you know, in a not in a real sense,
Speaker 2: but I actually put something in a box closer they'd
Speaker 2: lock it.
Speaker 1: It's there. Get on all that I've got to get
Speaker 1: on with. That's just a technique I use.
Speaker 2: Is that something you use as a superpower in terms
Speaker 2: of being able to do your best on the field
Speaker 2: on the day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I felt I had that. I felt I had
Speaker 3: it mentally over other opponents because I could do that,
Speaker 3: I felt and you know, the I always the visualization
Speaker 3: part was massive for me. And then like even like
Speaker 3: you see people when they come off contract, they're always
Speaker 3: eager to sign a deal, like oh, they get really stressed.
Speaker 3: The last five years of my career, I just I
Speaker 3: did one new deals would David olam Menze will go
Speaker 3: to you guys on the board and Nick and going
Speaker 3: up and he's feeling good. You want he wants to
Speaker 3: go one more year. Okayep, let's work it out. This
Speaker 3: was at the end of the season in September and October. Yep,
Speaker 3: we'll go one more. Yep, we'll go one more. So
Speaker 3: it didn't really bother me that I was on a
Speaker 3: one year deal or I was coming off contract. It
Speaker 3: was fine, but I can I can see in other
Speaker 3: players they get stressed. This is what I'm coming off
Speaker 3: contract this year, and I need to get this deal
Speaker 3: done and I need security. That's that's That's why I've
Speaker 3: always felt I've seen other players get stressed in different areas,
Speaker 3: and I always felt that my mental prep was not
Speaker 3: better than others, but I could really excel and jump
Speaker 3: other other players in that area because in the NROL
Speaker 3: now everyone's pretty much physically matched up pretty well. They're
Speaker 3: all strong, they're all fast or powerful. But it's how
Speaker 3: you prepare in your head. That really elevates you from
Speaker 3: good to great. That's very interesting.
Speaker 2: I can you said confidence of your own confidence felt
Speaker 2: to perhaps the confidence that others didn't have. And I
Speaker 2: know there's going to be hard question to answer, or
Speaker 2: maybe not a hard complex question to answer, given personalities,
Speaker 2: et cetera. When you run on a field, which front
Speaker 2: rower have you played with in terms of either for
Speaker 2: Roosters or Origin or Australia that would give you the
Speaker 2: most confidence that because the smaller guys, guys out of
Speaker 2: the back like to know they've got the big guys
Speaker 2: up the front. Which, dude, do you just comes to
Speaker 2: your mind?
Speaker 3: Oh well, it's pretty easy. Both of them are pretty
Speaker 3: equally there that I'll have in any team as my
Speaker 3: front rows, which will be Adrian Mullin and Jared were
Speaker 3: hard graves. Those two would be my front rollers any
Speaker 3: day of the week at any player in the it's
Speaker 3: ever played.
Speaker 1: And of course both of the nicest blokes off the field.
Speaker 1: Did you like to meet?
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say shit for a shilling, but what was
Speaker 2: the characteristic, the common characteristic perhaps for those two that
Speaker 2: when they're.
Speaker 3: On the field, well, as you mentioned, off the field,
Speaker 3: they were just like the loveliest spokes, like by your beer,
Speaker 3: even Morley, even like back when the early two thousands,
Speaker 3: wrestling wasn't in the game that much, and then it
Speaker 3: sort of filtered into the game where we did wrestle sessions.
Speaker 3: I remember Moreley. He was just just to cuddle youer
Speaker 3: and just put you down to the ground and didn't
Speaker 3: want to hurt your teammate, where now restolession is a
Speaker 3: bit different. Right, the boys go hard, but as soon
Speaker 3: as they get into the change room, same with Jared,
Speaker 3: and they crossed that white stripe and they run out
Speaker 3: and play. They just absolute beasts. Like Molly. His eyes
Speaker 3: used to flicker and you can see the glint and
Speaker 3: Jared's eyes. They have focused ears. You want to be
Speaker 3: playing with them, not against them. You know, I played
Speaker 3: against Morley in two thousand and three and when we
Speaker 3: played it was a last Ashes series ever played, so
Speaker 3: I was great Britain forsus Australia. And you'll probably remember
Speaker 3: this way great Britain kickoff and I think Darren Locket
Speaker 3: catches it passes the Robbie Kerns. Anyway, Adrian Morley's five
Speaker 3: meters in front of his line of his own teammates
Speaker 3: five meters in front, coming down the bash Robbie Kerns.
Speaker 3: Robbie Kerns just puts a right foot step. Morley hangs
Speaker 3: out the arm, clips on the chin and knockout. Carried
Speaker 3: Robbie ERNs carried off. Morley sent off one of the
Speaker 3: fastest send off send offs in history. He's just it
Speaker 3: was just like a ball. He just wanted to love
Speaker 3: the aggressive nature of it. And the same as Jared.
Speaker 3: And that's those two guys you want to be playing with,
Speaker 3: not against.
Speaker 2: That's what's so important for a back or someone in
Speaker 2: the back line. Why was it so important for you
Speaker 2: to have these guys up front.
Speaker 3: Well, you know they're the engine room, right, so they
Speaker 3: set the platform, set the tone of the game. So
Speaker 3: we're the little guys. We can't make big hit So
Speaker 3: I'm at fullback, so I don't tackle that much. So
Speaker 3: if you see your forwards going hard and they're making
Speaker 3: inroads and they're building momentum, that's that's what you want
Speaker 3: for confidence. It gives me confidence and it gives us
Speaker 3: room to move right, sob.
Speaker 1: Them creating space for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you want space and time, and that's that's
Speaker 3: what happened in Origin too, where the forwards got on
Speaker 3: a roll on and they are pushing coins m forwards
Speaker 3: back and as soon as you spread about wide, then
Speaker 3: the defence is on the back foot. So you've got
Speaker 3: time and space and that's what you want, and you
Speaker 3: know the forwards obviously create that.
Speaker 2: For the people in the room, perhaps you can explain
Speaker 2: something and it's often something I look at sort of
Speaker 2: more in a mathematical sense, But basically, Joey Freddie, those
Speaker 2: grade halves always look like they've got more time than
Speaker 2: everybody else when they've got the ball in the hand.
Speaker 2: But is that because they is it because the forwards
Speaker 2: are creating the space for them? Because space and tom
Speaker 2: has sort of related. So the more space got more
Speaker 2: time you got. So look because he looks like everyone's
Speaker 2: hanging off them. I mean, by the way, same have
Speaker 2: played for Lockyer and et cetera. I mean like Queensland
Speaker 2: players equivalent. Because is it because the forwards were making
Speaker 2: that space for you?
Speaker 3: And is that?
Speaker 1: How important is that in terms of selection?
Speaker 3: Oh, it's so important. I would say those three players
Speaker 3: that you just mentioned, Joey Freddie and Lockey, they're the
Speaker 3: best players I've ever ever played with equally. But they're
Speaker 3: all different players, right, and I think those three, even
Speaker 3: though the momentum wasn't in our favor, those three could
Speaker 3: actually turn the momentum. That's how good they were. Whereas
Speaker 3: you know, you need the forward roll on which we
Speaker 3: just spoke about. But Joey was like he was a
Speaker 3: massive thinker, so he would he would just work three
Speaker 3: players over, get them tackling, tackling, tackling, and you'll just
Speaker 3: mention the me stanly inside tackle four and you would
Speaker 3: have outside support ready inside in me. But he would
Speaker 3: get those three players tackling on the inside for the
Speaker 3: last three tackles, so they're tired already, and Joey will
Speaker 3: go to the line and weave his magic and just
Speaker 3: pass it inside to me and here's a half gap
Speaker 3: or a gap there, I'll go through at pace. At pace. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: he was all speed, but he had like he was
Speaker 3: like he was a massive thinker. So he'll get the
Speaker 3: A V to B, you know, get these guys tackling
Speaker 3: like he was unbelievable. Even that Origin game where he
Speaker 3: kicked the ball back hit the post, well, I swooped in.
Speaker 3: He actually told me about that I room with him
Speaker 3: that two thousand and five series where we called Joey
Speaker 3: back in game two playing at Home Bush, and he said,
Speaker 3: Billy Slayter, fullback, mate, really good, fullback smart. I'm going
Speaker 3: to kick the corner, corner, corner, corner for twenty minutes,
Speaker 3: and he's going to start hugging the corner to get
Speaker 3: the ball in the full I'm going to kick back
Speaker 3: and try and hit the post. I want you swooping
Speaker 3: down in the middle. I mean, yeah, sweet, same way
Speaker 3: he kicks twenty minutes, kicking to the corner, Billy Slater
Speaker 3: starts hugging the corner and then I think it was
Speaker 3: like tackle three or something. I call for an inside
Speaker 3: board because I was just always hanging inside Joey. And
Speaker 3: he does the kick and what do you know, hits
Speaker 3: the post. We've been the score the try. So it
Speaker 3: wasn't a fluke. No, it wasn't a fluke at all.
Speaker 3: He actually he mentioned that to me in my in
Speaker 3: our room like two days before the game.
Speaker 1: So Billy Slater is mortal.
Speaker 3: He is normal, So he's a freak.
Speaker 1: He's so if I just go back to it, just
Speaker 1: I just want to cover off this before we get.
Speaker 3: Moved on, but I've never spoke about Joey or Locke yet.
Speaker 2: In two thousand and two, Villa Sandy put a good
Speaker 2: shot on Freddy and I don't know if everyone room
Speaker 2: remembers it, but.
Speaker 1: Open him up a bit and it was a bit
Speaker 1: of a shock to us.
Speaker 2: And at that stage I think we were they were
Speaker 2: leading Auckland were leading it in New Zumber.
Speaker 3: I think it was twelve six maybe to us, but
Speaker 3: that they had all the momentum, they had the sndency
Speaker 3: at that point, we're one of the pump.
Speaker 1: What was Morley's response at that point.
Speaker 3: He's like, you see's eye steaming. So Freddie gets cut half,
Speaker 3: gets knocked out, and Villasany is standing over him and
Speaker 3: then everyone comes in and he's like, I got you.
Speaker 3: Like he's just pointing that, yeah, it's your mind anyway.
Speaker 3: So he's in the memory bank and the play goes on,
Speaker 3: and then I think Stacy Jones gets the ball and
Speaker 3: drops it under to villas Andy and Mos just come
Speaker 3: out flying out of the line and just wax him
Speaker 3: and just knocks him over and everyone's like, eh, they
Speaker 3: momentum changes it massively. Yeah. Yeah, I remember one game
Speaker 3: in New Zealand. We'll come back with the Grand Final.
Speaker 3: But one game in New Zealand, Ned Caddick got hit
Speaker 3: by Owen Good and bild it was and it was
Speaker 3: a high shot and got knocked him out, carried him
Speaker 3: off anyway, Morley just went you mate, anyway you literally
Speaker 3: point to it. Yeah. Anyway, he didn't get him that
Speaker 3: game anyway. A year later, a year later, we're back
Speaker 3: at Mount Smart Stadium and mate, he just tore on
Speaker 3: Good the shreds like he just asked him to come
Speaker 3: out of the line. And even Owen said, mate, I
Speaker 3: know more is coming for me today. And that that
Speaker 3: was a year later. He had it in the memory bank.
Speaker 3: He never never forgets. And then so that back to
Speaker 3: that Grand Final, that moment and change and then Freddy
Speaker 3: kicks at forty twenty fitsy scores and then we roll
Speaker 3: on and score all those points to win.
Speaker 1: Because I remember Fitzi telling me a little bit after that.
Speaker 2: He said to me that Freddy was behind the trial
Speaker 2: on one stage and he said to the forwards, just
Speaker 2: get me down there, get me down down to our
Speaker 2: try line and I'll do the rest.
Speaker 3: Freddy was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: He could actually the.
Speaker 2: Confidence you must have got from someone like that just said,
Speaker 2: if you get me down there, yeah, I saw something
Speaker 2: out for him.
Speaker 3: His instincts. Freddy's instincts was just phenomenal. Like he was
Speaker 3: just a footy player where you know, as you said,
Speaker 3: just get me down there and then he will look
Speaker 3: for certain things, weaknesses into the fence, like he was
Speaker 3: so quick at picking something and just give me the ball, boom,
Speaker 3: and that's that. That was Freddy's superpower. He's instinct was unbelievable.
Speaker 3: I spoke about Joey so Lockey. Lockeye was different. He
Speaker 3: was just a smooth sort of operator. He would like,
Speaker 3: you know, skip this player, skip two players in a
Speaker 3: heartbeat and put you on a block or an overlap
Speaker 3: every single time because he's such a good mover and
Speaker 3: he could skip two players in so quick overlap every
Speaker 3: single time. So those three players were some of the
Speaker 3: best players I've ever played with.
Speaker 1: Who was the in your opinion?
Speaker 2: Put yourself out aside, because you can't talk about yourself.
Speaker 2: I guess of all the fullbacks us a great fullbacks,
Speaker 2: not just here at the Ruster, but just generally speaking,
Speaker 2: there's been Who do you think is a real standout
Speaker 2: fullback apart from Anthony Minchello.
Speaker 3: Well, Billy Slater's no doubt so back back in the
Speaker 3: early two thousands, like fullbacks were known for all their attack,
Speaker 3: but then as you get into the mid to late
Speaker 3: two thousands, then the fullbacks really control the defensive line basically.
Speaker 3: And what I mean by that is, you know there's
Speaker 3: three people in the tackle and they're trying to slow
Speaker 3: the tackle down for a slow player the ball and
Speaker 3: obviously two markers. Then the third person comes out and
Speaker 3: gets back to the line. But that third person needs
Speaker 3: to look at the fullback and they're pointing him where
Speaker 3: to go left or right. So you've got to get
Speaker 3: the defensive numbers right every single time to give your
Speaker 3: the best opportunity for your defensive line to combat their attack.
Speaker 3: When it becomes goal line defense, that's that happens to
Speaker 3: split second. You've got a pool players where to go,
Speaker 3: put them on the left or right. You get it wrong,
Speaker 3: then there's an overlap for the attacking team. Billy Slater
Speaker 3: was one of the best defensive organization fullbacks going around
Speaker 3: plus then adding his attack and being a ball player
Speaker 3: as well. Like a second five eight. He was unbelievable
Speaker 3: Back in the was it late nineties or early two
Speaker 3: thousands when Brett Mullins was on fire at fullback, like
Speaker 3: I used to love watching him play as well. But
Speaker 3: there's been semi wonderful fullbacks. But that's the big thing
Speaker 3: in today's game is how they can control the defensive line.
Speaker 3: That basically the defensive line is yours as a fullback,
Speaker 3: because you're you're controlling and putting the players where you
Speaker 3: need to put them.
Speaker 1: Which means they've got to be super fit because you've got.
Speaker 3: To be You got to think under fatigue, yep, and
Speaker 3: especially goal line defense. You're doing forty men sprints just
Speaker 3: in case they get around around the defensive line for
Speaker 3: you to cover. But you know, obviously the defensive line
Speaker 3: makes a tackle, so he've done a forty minute sprint
Speaker 3: for nothing. But you need to be there. That's your job.
Speaker 3: But then you need to look at the defensive line,
Speaker 3: see where the players are left right, pull that guy there,
Speaker 3: so you're under fatigue. But then you need to organize
Speaker 3: the line as well. Billy was pretty good at that.
Speaker 2: And I dare say, I don't dare say, I definitely
Speaker 2: say that you and Teddy's very good at that too.
Speaker 3: Heels unbelievable. That ye unbelieva and you know you.
Speaker 1: Saw a of great full ball, great fullbacks comes through.
Speaker 2: Of course Roger was. We put Roger on the wing
Speaker 2: for a while and then you know it was the process.
Speaker 2: We put him on the wing. You were on the
Speaker 2: process on the wing for a while. Luke Phillips was
Speaker 2: full back. I think it was full back two thousand
Speaker 2: and two. I think wasn't he fullback? End the game
Speaker 2: where we played Brisbane too in the Grand Final he
Speaker 2: played two thousand and I actually to met good defenders.
Speaker 1: I remember.
Speaker 2: Wendell Saylor hurling down and Luke just he's not a
Speaker 2: big guy, like completely arm I.
Speaker 3: Thought, because he was one of the hardest players at tackle.
Speaker 3: Wendell Sailor, he's a beast, unbelievable. He was fast, too, huge,
Speaker 3: and he had lots of skills. So you know, like
Speaker 3: the general process.
Speaker 2: I don't know about this whether this is the case
Speaker 2: no other clubs, but at our club anyway, you play
Speaker 2: wing for a while and you get chooed into the
Speaker 2: full back position, into the full position, and so Roger
Speaker 2: was playing on the wing.
Speaker 1: Were you were playing full back at the time.
Speaker 3: So what was in two thousand and two we won
Speaker 3: the obviously one comp and then in the preseason that year,
Speaker 3: Luke Phillips retired and we thought Luke Phillis was still
Speaker 3: only twenty seven to twenty eight. What are you doing
Speaker 3: retire because he should all the stuffed And I said,
Speaker 3: what are you doing retiring? And you're twenty eight, head mate,
Speaker 3: I've been lying about my age for years. I'm like
Speaker 3: thirty four.
Speaker 2: That's what he did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he used to lie about his age anyway, So
Speaker 3: he retired and then in the preseason we had Justin Hodgs,
Speaker 3: remember right center, and he played lots of fullback at
Speaker 3: the Broncos before we come to ass and Ricky goes, mate,
Speaker 3: what do you think about playing fullback? And I like, yeah,
Speaker 3: give me a crack. I want to get the hands
Speaker 3: on the ball much more because I'm thinking about you
Speaker 3: or Justin Hodges, and I said, I'll give me first
Speaker 3: crack anyway, So he did, Ricky, and always praise Ricky
Speaker 3: for this because that sort of elevated my career to
Speaker 3: the next level where I made Origin that year. So
Speaker 3: my first ever game at fullback was the World Club
Speaker 3: Challenge over in England when we play yeah two and three,
Speaker 3: when we were off the back of winning two thousand
Speaker 3: and two correct, yeah, and we went on the smash
Speaker 3: thirty eight nil. And that was the start of my
Speaker 3: fullback career. And then later that year making the Blue
Speaker 3: Squad at fullback and that was it. That was the
Speaker 3: start of the fullback career. And then then in twenty
Speaker 3: fourteen when it was my sort of last year, I
Speaker 3: sat down and Robert at the start of the year
Speaker 3: and he said, we want to sort of get Roger
Speaker 3: a bit more involved. What do you think about whenever
Speaker 3: we go across the fifty meter line when we were attacking,
Speaker 3: you go to right wing, Roger comes into fullback, and
Speaker 3: then all the defensive organization, all the defensive play your fullback,
Speaker 3: Roger right wing. And I went, yeah, yeah, no dramas
Speaker 3: if that you know, that sounds like a plan. I
Speaker 3: moved to the right wing. I think I scored more
Speaker 3: tries on the right wing that year. That's good, but
Speaker 3: it worked really well, just to give Roger a taste
Speaker 3: of playing fullback in that attacking zone where you can
Speaker 3: do some ball playing and just feel out how much
Speaker 3: running he needs to do before he takes over in fifteen,
Speaker 3: So that worked really well.
Speaker 1: So your I think it was two thousand and six
Speaker 1: two seven.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about your injuries. I mean, you had a
Speaker 2: horrific two or three year period with your back, and
Speaker 2: as a request Cynerical, we had two back operations.
Speaker 3: Is that right?
Speaker 2: Yep, I've had three now, but three now two dreams. Yeah,
Speaker 2: most this would be career ending back operations.
Speaker 1: Just tell me quickly.
Speaker 2: I mean, given your abs are so strong, I mean,
Speaker 2: you know you've been a gymnast, a professional sportsman, very
Speaker 2: conscious about your health and strength and speed and et cetera.
Speaker 2: I'm sure in those days you're probably doing lots of
Speaker 2: agility stuff and lots of stretching, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Why do you think you had a back a back problem?
Speaker 1: Was that cause by game or was that genetic?
Speaker 3: Now, so I'll tell you the story. So obviously I
Speaker 3: had that good foundation of when I was a kid,
Speaker 3: whole food, nutrition and all that type of stuff. But
Speaker 3: you know, as soon as I signed the ruses, I
Speaker 3: moved that a home at a Dean and I started
Speaker 3: living in the city with the boys and all that
Speaker 3: times of so you're burning the candle at both ends, right,
Speaker 3: So you lose that home cooked meals. You're eating out
Speaker 3: every night, you're eating poor quality food.
Speaker 1: Who are you living with?
Speaker 3: So two thousand and four we called this house the
Speaker 3: House of Grouse was in Bond. I had a big
Speaker 3: five bedroom houses, myself, Brett Finch, Chris Walker, Mick Krocker,
Speaker 3: Todd Payton and so that was a pretty madhouse for
Speaker 3: a year. And I remember we got the house and
Speaker 3: Ricky has, no, you're not living again, no way. And
Speaker 3: we're like, well, you can't really tell us where to live.
Speaker 3: If we're playing bad, then we'll move out. That's the deal,
Speaker 3: rick and he has all right, done, all right, you
Speaker 3: play well, you know we're on fire that year. But
Speaker 3: go back to two thousand and six where the breakdown happened.
Speaker 3: So you know you're eating out, you're drinking alcohol on
Speaker 3: the weekends and even prescription medication through the week you know,
Speaker 3: everything like back then the voltarans and yeah, volta burns
Speaker 3: and sleeping tabors all around. And two thousand and five
Speaker 3: I had some flare ups in my lower back. So
Speaker 3: but prior to this, right, we had professional nutritus and
Speaker 3: dietitians on board, and all that type of stuff. And
Speaker 3: that day, because I was always lean, I was lean
Speaker 3: as bloken the team and they were saying eight ninety killers.
Speaker 3: I played at eighty eight killer killer, but still I
Speaker 3: was still really lean. Skin fold is always the lowest,
Speaker 3: and they were just saying to me, you just got
Speaker 3: great jeans and genetics from your parents and grandparents. You're
Speaker 3: one of the lucky ones. You know, you can basically
Speaker 3: eat what you want all that type of stuff. So
Speaker 3: you know, in the early twenties, when you get told that,
Speaker 3: you think you're bulletproof. Right. So I was drinking all
Speaker 3: weekend and eating out and eating whatever I wanted, and
Speaker 3: I wasn't getting injured through that two thousand and twousand
Speaker 3: and five period, so I thought, I thought I was bulleproof.
Speaker 3: I can do whatever I want because IVE got great jeans.
Speaker 3: But yeah, in two thousand and six, it all come
Speaker 3: crashing down. Two thousand and five, I had some flare
Speaker 3: ups in my low back, got an MRI. It was
Speaker 3: two bulging discs L five s one L four five
Speaker 3: two lolls discs in your back. And I remember lizeed
Speaker 3: a physios I could look after your back. You go
Speaker 3: to make sure I was like, yeah, yeah, it's all good.
Speaker 3: I didn't even care about it. I just kept doing
Speaker 3: what I was doing on and off the field. And
Speaker 3: then it went from back spasms one time for a day,
Speaker 3: then I went to two or three days where they
Speaker 3: was backspasms. And then in two thousand and six preseason,
Speaker 3: I was just in a scrimmage down down the South
Speaker 3: Coast and I just did this little click. I just
Speaker 3: got checked. There wasn't even like a bad tackle or anything,
Speaker 3: and I had this nerve pain running down my left leg.
Speaker 3: And I took two weeks to get over. And this
Speaker 3: was leading into the season where we were playing South
Speaker 3: Sydney for the first game, and I rehabbed it and
Speaker 3: I played the first six games and I played with
Speaker 3: constant hamstring pain. I thought it was hamshing pain, but
Speaker 3: it was actually nerve pain running down my leg into
Speaker 3: my toes. But every time I warmed up it would
Speaker 3: fade away. But every time I'd warm down or around
Speaker 3: the house, it'll increase from week to week, ever so slightly.
Speaker 3: I got picked in the ANZAC Day Tests against New Zealand.
Speaker 3: I remember coming in. Tony Abe was a physio and
Speaker 3: he been down Touchy toes all the things to get
Speaker 3: the tick of approval, and I was bending down and
Speaker 3: touch my knees before that sharp pain will dig in
Speaker 3: and I'll go back up and what are you doing
Speaker 3: go back down and touch it? I can't. I've got
Speaker 3: this pain that runs down my leg. And he was
Speaker 3: asking me more questions and more questions, and he said, man,
Speaker 3: I can't let you play with this, meaning there's no chance.
Speaker 3: He ruled me out of that game. I was angry
Speaker 3: at the time, but he set me up a little
Speaker 3: specialists and I had an MRI and I had a
Speaker 3: ruptured diss in my L five s one the lowes
Speaker 3: diss in your back pressing on that sidic nerve. And
Speaker 3: I remember the surgeon goes, you need an operation. You
Speaker 3: need to get that just shaved off and through that
Speaker 3: for you because it just would.
Speaker 1: Have been put. But the bit was protruding, hitting the
Speaker 1: hitting on the nerve.
Speaker 3: Hitting on the nerve, protruding, hitting on the nerve. And
Speaker 3: that's that constant nerve pain that I was always there
Speaker 3: throughout the days, and trying to get your socks and
Speaker 3: shoes on was a nightmare. But you know, I thought
Speaker 3: i'd warm up the fades away. It's all good anyway.
Speaker 3: So the actually the surgeon explained what I was experiencing
Speaker 3: and that you need an operation, and I thought, you know,
Speaker 3: I played more games than anyone through this four or
Speaker 3: five year period. I get this operation and come back
Speaker 3: bigger and stronger. So I'll get the operation, and I'm
Speaker 3: running within six weeks. I'm now taking more any inflammatories,
Speaker 3: thinking they're helping me. Two thousand and seven season rolls around.
Speaker 3: I play the first ten games and I'm in camp
Speaker 3: actually for Origin. Get picked in the Origin side again.
Speaker 3: It's game two and I literally just roll out of
Speaker 3: bed to put my socks on. This click in my back.
Speaker 3: My back goes in the spasm. This time nerve pain's
Speaker 3: running down my right leg. So I sort of crawled
Speaker 3: the fall alert on the floor. Call Lizzy in the physio,
Speaker 3: and I'm sort of I was sort of stuck to
Speaker 3: the four for an hour or two. Anyway. This was
Speaker 3: three days before the game. The bus was going out
Speaker 3: to the home bush to stay last night. So the
Speaker 3: obviously the bus days on course, all the boys get
Speaker 3: leave and I get ruled out obviously because I couldn't move,
Speaker 3: and they called Brett Stewart in go back up to
Speaker 3: the s Vincent's, the mur and the surgeons, and they
Speaker 3: go them. I look, the disc above has done the
Speaker 3: same thing. L four five is ruptured hitting the side nerve.
Speaker 3: Do you want to come back and play a contact
Speaker 3: sport like rugby league? Again?
Speaker 1: Was Dr Tim Steel?
Speaker 3: Now that I wasn't Tim Steel, was Richard Parkinson had
Speaker 3: some Vincent's And I go, yeah, of course I want
Speaker 3: to come back and play. I'm twenty seven, of course,
Speaker 3: I'm so young. And he has well, look well, had
Speaker 3: a lemonectomy the first operation. This one will do a
Speaker 3: micro to secting. It's a bit of a smaller operation.
Speaker 3: Similar operation, but a little bit small, but don't affect
Speaker 3: the structure of his spine. If you're going back in
Speaker 3: the contact. And he said you've got to take the
Speaker 3: recovery a lot slower. I said, okay, sweet, get that operation.
Speaker 3: I take the recovery a lot slower. But I still
Speaker 3: hadn't connected to the dots with lifestyle and nutrition all
Speaker 3: that type of stuff. Yet I'll still doing the same things.
Speaker 3: Any inflammatories morning and night too, and morning two at night.
Speaker 3: I was doing four a day last I've had stomach
Speaker 3: ulcers and everything developed a year after that. Anyway, So
Speaker 3: two thousand and eight season rolls around and I'm preparing
Speaker 3: for that season. I played the first six games. I'm
Speaker 3: on the bench press and I just push out a
Speaker 3: rep three days before a game. I sort of pinched
Speaker 3: a nerve in my neck. You don't really think too
Speaker 3: much of it. Go out and play that game. Towards
Speaker 3: the end of the game, I get the water bottle
Speaker 3: and squeeze the water out. I feel like my wrist
Speaker 3: in hand just didn't have any power. That's weird, right,
Speaker 3: And I finished the game off tell the dock and
Speaker 3: they're like, that doesn't sound right, like knowing your back history.
Speaker 3: Maybe I should get an MRI. That was a Sunday
Speaker 3: night game, Monday MRI, and I don't. I didn't think
Speaker 3: anything of it. I'm training on field. It was a
Speaker 3: Tuesday night. We're doing scrimmage against reserve grade and our
Speaker 3: physio comes running out down the tunnel. Not he's screaming.
Speaker 3: One day, many many mini come off, come off, and
Speaker 3: I'll walk over to him, what's up? And yes, mate,
Speaker 3: I just got your report back. You've got a like
Speaker 3: significant dispulge in your C five c six vertebra and
Speaker 3: it's like it's showing that you're like one millimeter away
Speaker 3: from your spinal cord. Anyway, so I was basically in
Speaker 3: shop two back operations. I had a smaller dispuldge in
Speaker 3: my thoracic and then I've got this huge dis bulge
Speaker 3: in my neck and we just sit on the side
Speaker 3: of the stadium and a million thoughts are running through
Speaker 3: your head. Go back up to St. Vincent's and they
Speaker 3: do another MRI, and this is when the surgeon was
Speaker 3: looking at my spine and he was like, like, all
Speaker 3: your discs they're black. In someone that has a healthy spine,
Speaker 3: there should be white. They're your cushioning system for running, grappling, sprinting,
Speaker 3: all that type of stuff. Yours are all dehydrated. This
Speaker 3: is why they start to bulge out, tear and rupture.
Speaker 3: And I was like, Okay, well, how do you fix it?
Speaker 3: How can I fix it? How can I rehydrate my
Speaker 3: disk again? And he was like it's pretty hard to
Speaker 3: rehydrate one, let alone all of them anyway, So you know,
Speaker 3: we've got access to all the best specialists. You go
Speaker 3: see another one, you go see another one else, giving
Speaker 3: me the same answers. And I remember I met my
Speaker 3: wife prior to this, and she's always asking me about
Speaker 3: you got to find out the reasons why you'r this
Speaker 3: there black and someone else's. Isn't that why I kept
Speaker 3: bringing in my head? So I just went on. I
Speaker 3: just tried to find anyone to give me some answers
Speaker 3: or how to repair my body. And I went conventional holistic.
Speaker 3: I saw heaps of people, heaps of different people, and
Speaker 3: towards the end of that journey, I found he's a
Speaker 3: good friend of mine now, I Ara mackenzie. He's got
Speaker 3: a training studio in bond Ni Junction. Original Energy does
Speaker 3: all the gymnastic stuff. It does all the gymnastics and
Speaker 3: functional movement type training. This is two thousand and eight
Speaker 3: where functional movement training wasn't really in rugby league yet.
Speaker 3: And yeah, he sat me down. He didn't even ask
Speaker 3: me once about injuries. He asked me about my childhood
Speaker 3: and what I ate in all these lifestyle questions, which
Speaker 3: I thought was weird at the time, but he was
Speaker 3: trying to get a picture of haw Shrong, my foundation
Speaker 3: was as a kid, and what I'm doing now to
Speaker 3: improve my body. And he said to me, you can
Speaker 3: repair your body if you're willing to make some sacrifices
Speaker 3: and do things consistently. And I was like pretty much
Speaker 3: invested in that straightway, because you know, I saw on
Speaker 3: contract for another year at the Roosters and I had
Speaker 3: three spine injuries in the last three years. I played
Speaker 3: minimal amount of games. So I started training with him
Speaker 3: where the last part of our session he would film
Speaker 3: it send it to my phone, and I would bring
Speaker 3: my phone into the Roosters gym, put it up on
Speaker 3: the corner, and I'll do all this sort of functional
Speaker 3: type movement training, which was all weird back then because
Speaker 3: there was all how much can you lift and squat
Speaker 3: and all that still, But you know, the Rusters were
Speaker 3: pretty good to me. They let me do what I
Speaker 3: wanted because they tried a lot of things that sort
Speaker 3: of hadn't been working either. So I felt two thy
Speaker 3: and nine season now rolls around and I felt stronger
Speaker 3: in my core, ready to start the season, try and
Speaker 3: push out a full season this year. And it's around
Speaker 3: two down in Cambra and I do all my ligaments,
Speaker 3: my ankle and we did a sidneys mosis and I'd
Speaker 3: spiral fraction in my fibula. I thought I broke men
Speaker 3: be cause I heard this huge crack. So another operation.
Speaker 3: I was out for twenty two weeks I think, so
Speaker 3: most of the season again, So that was four years
Speaker 3: in a row and I was coming off contract and
Speaker 3: I remember, you know, you guys gave me great support.
Speaker 3: A lot of the board rung me and said, look, well,
Speaker 3: I don't give you another year match payments and I said, yep, sweet,
Speaker 3: I'll you know, I'll take that. And that's when I
Speaker 3: did one year deals for the rest of my career.
Speaker 3: But that's when I started really two thousand and eightousand
Speaker 3: and nine, that's when I really started to dive into
Speaker 3: nutrition and the role it plays in healing and restoring
Speaker 3: the body. And I really I dived into it like
Speaker 3: one hundred percent. I took a deep dive into it,
Speaker 3: and I was really meticulous with lots of the things
Speaker 3: that I still practice now. I've got four steps with
Speaker 3: my nutrition that I've still follow now. So the first
Speaker 3: one is get to know the source of food and
Speaker 3: where it comes from. You know, everyone's heard of the
Speaker 3: saying you are you eat, but I take that a
Speaker 3: step further, so you are what your food eats so
Speaker 3: meaning like you know, if you're eating beef for lamb,
Speaker 3: it's got to be grass fed, grass finished, so they're
Speaker 3: on their own natural diets of the animals healthy themselves
Speaker 3: before you consume it, wild caught fish, organic, free range
Speaker 3: pork and chicken, seasonal fruit and veg, spray free if
Speaker 3: you can, or the washing process becomes important because lots
Speaker 3: of herbicides and pesticides are sprayed on crops. Now the
Speaker 3: prescious food cutting down on ultra process food big time.
Speaker 3: Step two is the process of your food. Now, save
Speaker 3: you got just so you've got a lamb shoulder. Most
Speaker 3: people put it in the oven, put it one hundred
Speaker 3: and eighty degrees and cook it way too quickly, burning
Speaker 3: all the enzymes and nutrition out of it. So I'll
Speaker 3: just turn that doll down to one hundred and twenty
Speaker 3: one hundred and thirty or put it in a slow cooker,
Speaker 3: cook it over time.
Speaker 1: Old school stuff, old school Yeah, And I.
Speaker 3: Was thinking, this is what I used to do, this
Speaker 3: is what my parents used, It's how they used to cook. Right.
Speaker 3: I didn't get so really hit a chord with me.
Speaker 3: It was natural, so you know, cooking with the right oils,
Speaker 3: getting rid of all the vegetables industrial seed dolls which
Speaker 3: can harm your health. And then step three is that
Speaker 3: cut down on the ultra process foods. And then step four,
Speaker 3: which I practiced now, which I didn't have the research
Speaker 3: behind me then was the weaving intimate fasting for accelerated healing.
Speaker 3: So they are my four steps of nutrition now. And
Speaker 3: you still do that now, yeah, big time. Yeah. I
Speaker 3: always create my foundation always. I do lots of speaking
Speaker 3: on nutrition now as well, but I always create my
Speaker 3: foundation at home and through the work week, so you
Speaker 3: have a good, strong foundation, and then when you have
Speaker 3: a weekends, I'm pretty relaxed. Or if you have a function,
Speaker 3: you know, enjoy yourself. It's part of life. You've got
Speaker 3: to enjoy yourself as well. If you work towards the
Speaker 3: eighty twenty rule eighty percent whole nutrient dense foods twenty percent,
Speaker 3: enjoy what you'd like to enjoy. But when I was
Speaker 3: back then, I was like more ninety ninety five five
Speaker 3: or not ninety ten because I was really honing in
Speaker 3: on decreasing the inflammation in my body. I'll always show
Speaker 3: a photo of Arthur Beats and when he was handing
Speaker 3: me the Golden Boodleward in two thousand and five. I'm
Speaker 3: playing for Australiam over in England. You should used to
Speaker 3: see the photo in My face is puffy, my eyes
Speaker 3: are almost closed over. I had like the oxidave stress
Speaker 3: and the chronic inflammation bubbling beneath my body was out
Speaker 3: of control, so something had to give. Right for an athlete,
Speaker 3: that's an injury, but for a normal person that's illness disease,
Speaker 3: chronic disease, and that can be all reversed through what
Speaker 3: we put in our mouth, because we have the choice
Speaker 3: every single day or what we put in our mouth.
Speaker 1: You said something really interesting in the beginning of this.
Speaker 2: You talked about you do a bit of resistance work
Speaker 2: in order to help you with your hormonal balance, in particular,
Speaker 2: probably something like testosterone, because particularly you do legs, just
Speaker 2: trying to keep things at balance.
Speaker 1: You're not trying to pump it up, You're just trying
Speaker 1: to keep it a balance.
Speaker 2: How important is it to have a real in your case,
Speaker 2: at least a full picture as to your not only
Speaker 2: nutrition in your exercise, but things like hydration like you know,
Speaker 2: like because and not take things like voltauran for example,
Speaker 2: because and inflammatory, especially in essay. It's like voltan, which is,
Speaker 2: as I understand, it actually have the negative effect on
Speaker 2: your hormonal system, make you lose testosterone. They're trying to
Speaker 2: build testostera by doing squats for example or something like that.
Speaker 2: And then the next thing, you know, because you get
Speaker 2: to saw back, you sho't have a couple of voltauran
Speaker 2: down your gob and it reverses exactly what you just did.
Speaker 2: So this whole process, Anthony Minochello is really good at this.
Speaker 2: How important is this whole process?
Speaker 3: Oh? Massively? Like so you know, obviously they have a
Speaker 3: short term benefit. If you've got a really acute saw
Speaker 3: back or whatever it is, you take a voltaire and
Speaker 3: it gives you some these but if the long term
Speaker 3: use of that one hundred percent affects your hormonal profile,
Speaker 3: then it makes your gut lining compromise all that type
Speaker 3: of stuff. But also the biggest thing that hurts testosterone
Speaker 3: is plastics as well. If you.
Speaker 1: So, do you stop eating fish though as a result
Speaker 1: of it, I mean, what.
Speaker 3: Do you do like well, like, well, microplastics in yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of research around. There's lots of microplastics
Speaker 3: in fish. If I get fish. I try, I always
Speaker 3: try and buy wild court. But even then, still there's
Speaker 3: there's some effects of microplastics in the ocean, no doubt.
Speaker 3: But the things that you can control more it's from
Speaker 3: your grass feed, grass finished beef, and more animal animal
Speaker 3: products rather than sea products. But the thing is if
Speaker 3: you put everything together right. So if you're when I
Speaker 3: when I dive deep into this, and inflammation is the
Speaker 3: key driver to chronic disease, everyone will know that now,
Speaker 3: So how can you minimize your own information? Well? What
Speaker 3: can what can you can you control? You control your
Speaker 3: food intake, you can you control your sleep, you can
Speaker 3: control your hydration, and you can natural sunlight's important. But
Speaker 3: then the plastic thing, like drinking out of plastic bottles consistently,
Speaker 3: all the skin care and all these products, right, they
Speaker 3: have just little micro toxins in them. But if you're
Speaker 3: consuming poor quality produce, you're drinking tap water, you're getting
Speaker 3: six hours sleep, you're not getting that much sunlight using
Speaker 3: conventional products. These are the things that all add up.
Speaker 3: And as we age, the detoxification systems in our body
Speaker 3: just that slows down. It's just the aging process. So
Speaker 3: in your twenties, you can get rid of stuff quite easily. Thirties, still,
Speaker 3: forties starts slow down fifties, and that's when your toxic
Speaker 3: load just keeps building and building and building, and then
Speaker 3: what happens. Shit, I've got chronic disease, I've got top
Speaker 3: two diabetes, I've got this autoimmune disease. Where did it
Speaker 3: come from? It's just accumulation of what we've done to
Speaker 3: ourselves over a number of years. So I've gone deep
Speaker 3: into all like, so my household all natural products, and
Speaker 3: my whole house is filtered, and so I'm meticulous of
Speaker 3: all this. But then I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm not like obsessed, obsessed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know, everyone, anyone knows me. We're on
Speaker 3: the sponsorship. I'm having a thousand beesving. I'm enjoying. I'm
Speaker 3: enjoying my time, right, But I know that my foundation
Speaker 3: is strong because I practiced this.
Speaker 1: And you keep coming back to your foundation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I always keep coming back with my
Speaker 3: four steps that I'm meticulous with at home, with my nutrition.
Speaker 3: Then all the trying to decrease all the crap that's
Speaker 3: around train, you know, eight hours sleep, hydrate, good quality water,
Speaker 3: reverse filter at home, stop trying to drink out of plastics.
Speaker 3: Had to mate whose testosterone was really late. His estrogen
Speaker 3: was really high, right, this is from blood tests anyway.
Speaker 3: So he cut out he actually cut out beer, and
Speaker 3: he cut out drinking from plastic bottles and plastic food containers.
Speaker 3: Got rid of all that, and his testosterone went up,
Speaker 3: and his estro and went down just from the plastic
Speaker 3: use and cutting out some beer as well.
Speaker 2: I mean, we haven't talked about your family, and you
Speaker 2: have a wonderful family, and I don't think we'll talk
Speaker 2: about them today, but I could talk to you for hours,
Speaker 2: but within the interest everybody's time. What's Mini do now?
Speaker 2: Apart from you helping us, helping us with the roosters,
Speaker 2: and you know, we see you all the time down
Speaker 2: the grounds and you obviously, you know, always beautifully attired
Speaker 2: and you're a great representative, great representative of our club.
Speaker 1: What does Mini do day to day?
Speaker 3: Then?
Speaker 2: In terms, and you said earlier on you do you
Speaker 2: know ten to fifteen thousand steps today? What are you
Speaker 2: doing to get those ten to fifteen thousand steps up?
Speaker 2: With the kids in particular your kids are the kids?
Speaker 3: Yeah, my business minifits So I just registered the name
Speaker 3: Mini Fit in twenty ten, because you know, obviously, throughout
Speaker 3: injury period, I was like, shit, what if I don't
Speaker 3: come back. I don't want to go back to cabinet making.
Speaker 3: That wasn't really what I wanted to do. But I
Speaker 3: love playing sport obviously and working with kids, and Rusters
Speaker 3: used to do lots of holiday clinics, so I thought Minifield,
Speaker 3: what a great name. I just registered that, and then
Speaker 3: in twenty twelve I sort of worked with a friend
Speaker 3: who was in the p space in schools and she
Speaker 3: helped me get One school was East Lakes Public School,
Speaker 3: where I used to go in there once a week
Speaker 3: and run a pea pregnant by I used to get
Speaker 3: someone else to run it for me as well because
Speaker 3: I was still playing footy. But then when I retired
Speaker 3: in twenty and ten, I still work full time at
Speaker 3: the Roosters, and I always say my transition was smooth,
Speaker 3: but it will still like a four year transition. I
Speaker 3: felt for me to run my own business and feel
Speaker 3: comfortable doing that, so the transition was smooth, but I
Speaker 3: was at full time at the Rusters and I had
Speaker 3: Minifit on the side, and I started running holiday clinics.
Speaker 1: For the club industries during the school holidays.
Speaker 3: School holidays yep, so clubs like wwenty and Mountis and
Speaker 3: Rieesby Workers Club and all these big clubs that spend
Speaker 3: money on community. I will go in there run a
Speaker 3: holiday clinic for them on their field. And that was
Speaker 3: really starting to take off. And then I sort of
Speaker 3: started to transition from the Roosters more into my own
Speaker 3: business to start to grow that because I always felt
Speaker 3: like I wanted to grow something of my own. And
Speaker 3: then a few years after that, I had an email
Speaker 3: from a past teacher of mine year six. He was
Speaker 3: my year six teacher and footy coach and obviously he's
Speaker 3: a primary school teacher. He'd been working in Hong Kong
Speaker 3: for eighteen years teaching and he was moving back to
Speaker 3: Australia and he said, I follow you love the Roosters
Speaker 3: and followed your career and see you've got minifit. Now
Speaker 3: are you thinking about going back into the school system.
Speaker 3: We should have a coffee And so I've got him
Speaker 3: on board now and he's one of my head pe
Speaker 3: teachers that writes the program to the syllabus, and we've
Speaker 3: gone into the school program we found in the public
Speaker 3: school system they outsourced a lot of their physical activity
Speaker 3: where they don't have PE to part it's anymore like
Speaker 3: the private schools do. They just have PEA coordinators and
Speaker 3: not many teachers want to really teach PE anymore. And
Speaker 3: in the syllabus, you've got to have a minimum of
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty minutes of physical activity per week
Speaker 3: for the kids really yep, each kid yep, yep. So
Speaker 3: that's like two PE class a PE class P doubles
Speaker 3: on Friday, and then there has to be something else
Speaker 3: in there. So a lot of the public schools they
Speaker 3: outsourced to companies like ours, where we come in once
Speaker 3: a week and run a ten week program for them
Speaker 3: in a term. Yep. So we'll go there, say a
Speaker 3: school on a Wednesday, and we'll go nine to three
Speaker 3: and we roll two or three classes will come out
Speaker 3: and we roll out the whole school in that day.
Speaker 3: If it's a big school, we'll go there two days
Speaker 3: a week. But my model is a PE teacher and
Speaker 3: athlete delivering a program. So the school loves that there
Speaker 3: is a PE teacher credit the PE teacher running it,
Speaker 3: and then an athlete, which is the kids love. Is
Speaker 3: a rooster actually, and I employ a lot of the
Speaker 3: young roosters Sheridan here and it's the NROLW girls and
Speaker 3: every under twenty one plan needs to be working or
Speaker 3: studying otherwise and allowed to play in the NRL. So
Speaker 3: there's an access of a lot of the kids that
Speaker 3: want to work and have their working with children checks
Speaker 3: and so I employed. Yeah yeah, yeah, so that's great.
Speaker 3: So the kids love there's an athlete there, school loves it.
Speaker 3: There's a PE teacher there, so that that's been sort
Speaker 3: of growing nicely. And then last year we last year
Speaker 3: we went into the special needs school space. So my Rick,
Speaker 3: my head teacher, is special needs trained and we just
Speaker 3: put on another PE teacher that worked in Hong Kong
Speaker 3: with him, and an Australian guy who's special needs trained
Speaker 3: as well. So we started with one special needs school,
Speaker 3: Lucas Gardens in the Inner West, which is moderitor severe
Speaker 3: disabilities and now we're working with six this year already.
Speaker 3: So that's a real area of growth for Minifit this
Speaker 3: year where we can. It's a much needed area that
Speaker 3: needs more attention really because those teachers they're like angels.
Speaker 3: They're looking after these kids with disabilities every day and
Speaker 3: they're trying to teach them, but then when it comes
Speaker 3: to sport that they sort of find it hard to
Speaker 3: have kids maybe in wheelchairs or non verbal or whatever
Speaker 3: it may be, what do we do with them?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: So that's where we come in and run that ten
Speaker 3: week program for the disability kids, and that's been working awesome.
Speaker 3: They're they're unreal.
Speaker 1: They'll be fairly fulfilling seeing that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll tell you it puts everything in perspective, that's
Speaker 3: for sure. If you think you're having a bad day,
Speaker 3: going into the school and seeing these kids and the
Speaker 3: challenges that they face each each day's phenomenal.
Speaker 2: I guess it's a really good opportunity for you to
Speaker 2: be grateful to for what you have osed to what
Speaker 2: you don't have.
Speaker 1: And I can't go.
Speaker 2: I mean, we've talked about a lot of really serious topics,
Speaker 2: and you know you're going to get the Good Guy
Speaker 2: Award for being Anthony Minoicello the good guy.
Speaker 1: But you were at one stage voted I can't remember.
Speaker 1: Now there's some of the sexiest.
Speaker 2: Man and.
Speaker 3: What was I think I come forth?
Speaker 1: I'm not sure about that. Do you remember this? It
Speaker 1: was the two thousand and two or three yeah.
Speaker 3: Before that was Wingy, right, he won Clean of the
Speaker 3: Year and you know that's all the girls loved him
Speaker 3: after that. They still do. Yeah, but yeah, you know
Speaker 3: the Errol used to run the sixtiest Mining League thing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think I got thrown in there one.
Speaker 1: I think you won it, I think, And you're just
Speaker 1: for everybody in the room.
Speaker 2: You had two nicknames, obviously Mini, but the other one
Speaker 2: was Count, and the players office often referred to as
Speaker 2: Camp when they were being interviewed and they were talking
Speaker 2: about if players were being interviewed during that during your
Speaker 2: playing period, they were to talk about Count, the Count,
Speaker 2: that's you.
Speaker 1: What's what's the reference there?
Speaker 3: So two thousand and one I made the City Origin
Speaker 3: team when the City Country was around still and Brett
Speaker 3: Kenney was our coach, and here's the guy that named
Speaker 3: me the Count. Yeah, yeah, like Count. So he's out
Speaker 3: of street, yeah straight, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: So he was on his account, you look like the
Speaker 1: out of session.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then all the fans ran with that actually, and
Speaker 3: then later in the two thousands it went to the
Speaker 3: Mountain Cat, the Italian Mountain Cat, the min Cat, all
Speaker 3: that type of stuff, because in back in the Monday
Speaker 3: Sports section. There was there's a section where fans could
Speaker 3: write in little comments about anyone, players, whatever, and one
Speaker 3: guy wrote, Anthony Minichello reminds me of an Italian mountain cat.
Speaker 3: He always lands on his front anyway. Rico reads true. Though,
Speaker 3: Rico read this and went bang all the mountain cat,
Speaker 3: and that was it. That's how it started.
Speaker 2: Maybe you've had a wonderful career, and everyone in this
Speaker 2: room would acknowledge that, obviously with a lot of ruster
Speaker 2: fans here the but you've had a wonderful crew just
Speaker 2: generally for both state, country, importantly.
Speaker 1: Our club and our local area. But you're also a great.
Speaker 2: In factor of prodigy of rugby league in that not
Speaker 2: just your own rugby league talent.
Speaker 1: But I'm not talking about just talent.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about the outcome of Anthony Milicello today, being
Speaker 2: able to get through adversity and come out the other
Speaker 2: side probably much better than you were prior to yourself
Speaker 2: going into adversity, and being able to be grateful and
Speaker 2: have a great family. I built a great career post
Speaker 2: rugby league and still maintain your fantastic and probably one
Speaker 2: of the most elevated reputations in roadby league. You never
Speaker 2: really get yourself in any trouble or at least that
Speaker 2: we know about.
Speaker 3: Well, there's no social media back then.
Speaker 1: Great, but you know, be in real terms.
Speaker 2: And we think, I think, and I'm sure I'm talking
Speaker 2: on behalf of everybody, hit on everybody who supports Rus's
Speaker 2: that we think you're just a wonderful example of what
Speaker 2: it means to be a Rooster.
Speaker 3: Thanks very much, mate, I appreciate it. Thanks Mane, thanks
Speaker 3: for having me. It's you know, RUS has been my
Speaker 3: whole life basically. You know, I grew up as as
Speaker 3: a youngster at the Roosters and they've certainly made me
Speaker 3: the man that I am today. And you know, obviously
Speaker 3: through verity that's when you learn and evolve and adapt,
Speaker 3: and that's through that mid part of my career, that's
Speaker 3: where I sort of started to educate myself a little
Speaker 3: bit more through those injuries and I had massive support
Speaker 3: obviously from my wife and my family, and it's been
Speaker 3: a wonderful ride. Mate. So I appreciate you having me today.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen,