Speaker 1: Okay, welcome to a very special edition of Off the
Speaker 1: Record with Buzz and Webby. We promised you an international
Speaker 1: superstar and we've delivered.
Speaker 2: Hugh Jack and Digner.
Speaker 1: He's a legend of rugby league, of TV, of radio, newspaper,
Speaker 1: of podcasts and Las Vegas dive bars. He played one
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy six matches for the Newcastle Knights, including
Speaker 1: the nineteen ninety seven Aarl Premiership, twenty five games for
Speaker 1: the Wig and Warriors, twenty one for the Sharks. He
Speaker 1: also played nine matches for Australia four for New South
Speaker 1: Wales before injury forced him to retire. But Buzz here
Speaker 1: listening to me.
Speaker 3: I'm listening Buzz.
Speaker 1: This guy's football career was merely a tasty entree before
Speaker 1: the sumptuous main course of rugby league, analysis, impersonations and
Speaker 1: vague references to illegal activity. He's the star of The
Speaker 1: Late Show with Mattie John's, Sunday Night with Mattie John's,
Speaker 1: Morning Glory with Maddie John's, The Backstage Podcast with Cooper
Speaker 1: and Maddie John's, The Johns Family Podcast, and Maddie and Kronk.
Speaker 2: I'm exhausted.
Speaker 4: Some call him amla maniac.
Speaker 1: Those who work with him call him attire and are
Speaker 1: very difficult to work for. Actually I'm yet to see it,
Speaker 1: but he is seriously one of the best humans I've
Speaker 1: ever met in footy and in life. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: buzz you feel the same way. Maddie, John's welcome.
Speaker 2: Thanks for the invite. I'm enjoying the show.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: I'm enjoying the show. Excellent. What an incredible mate. Even
Speaker 2: I'm blown away by what I've done.
Speaker 4: It took to write that word. Very good, Buzzy, you
Speaker 4: lead off your.
Speaker 3: The I don't know where to start with your Maddie,
Speaker 3: and so I'm you know, I've never interviewed you. I
Speaker 3: can't recall last time, apart from the Stinking newcast.
Speaker 5: Had a stick in Newcastle. That was the one where
Speaker 5: you said he was six buzz brother Andrew, Brother Andrew.
Speaker 5: We were doing a training session at the field. And
Speaker 5: Andrew used to get in a mood sometimes and when
Speaker 5: he was in a mood, he would deliberately fire balls
Speaker 5: fire passes at the feet of the players, the fowards
Speaker 5: who worked with their hands him a mouthful. So that
Speaker 5: was the last training session heading into Christmas and We're
Speaker 5: all good.
Speaker 2: We're going to this Vietnamese.
Speaker 5: Restaurant that night, players, partners, coaches, wipes and all that
Speaker 5: sort of stuff. And the players were just off Andrew
Speaker 5: and I said, I can fix that. So I went
Speaker 5: to Joey and I just said it's been canceled. And
Speaker 5: he said, oh mate, I'm happy anyway, do you want
Speaker 5: to go? I said, well, you're in luck. So you know,
Speaker 5: we're sitting at the Vietnamese restaurant, Darling little restaurant there
Speaker 5: on Delaney the junction. Yes, So I'm sitting there and
Speaker 5: I can hear rumbling coming down the street and as
Speaker 5: Andrew and his Poluka mates all blind drunk, and when
Speaker 5: I when someone came in side. Your brother's coming up.
Speaker 2: Oh, here we go.
Speaker 5: He's going to he's going to find out double crossed him.
Speaker 5: And of course he spots me in there and the
Speaker 5: whole team, and he starts screaming abuse. Might have been
Speaker 5: punching the front the glass. Well, anyway, he's giving me
Speaker 5: a mouthful. Everyone in the restaurant's horrified.
Speaker 2: He walks.
Speaker 5: I know where he's going. He's going down the Creektor's
Speaker 5: Arms Hotel. And I'm sitting there and I'm starting to
Speaker 5: stew and I said, Tricia sitting together the toilet. She goes,
Speaker 5: don't do anything to you. So I was just going
Speaker 5: to the toilet.
Speaker 2: So I've ducked out.
Speaker 5: Gone down there and walked into the part and of
Speaker 5: course he's in there with all these dropic mates birds
Speaker 5: of a feather and he's going, oh, here she is.
Speaker 5: She's arrived, and I said, come on out the front. Well,
Speaker 5: Tricia arrived and he when he came out the front,
Speaker 5: he was a little disorientated on the way out.
Speaker 2: Little did I know that on the.
Speaker 5: Way Tricia belled him over the head with a bag,
Speaker 5: got him at the sharp spot, obviously because he was
Speaker 5: but he was also full, and I thought, here, here
Speaker 5: we go. He's here's the victory, and just hit him
Speaker 5: with a couple of lefts. He drops and I say,
Speaker 5: you know my job's done, so ill I go. And
Speaker 5: then two days later we had a call from Buzz
Speaker 5: made our way and Phil Rosfeld here, I know what
Speaker 5: this is.
Speaker 3: About, and he was in complete denial, complete denial, not
Speaker 3: knowing that I photos. I didn't have a vader, but
Speaker 3: made I went to school, I went to I was
Speaker 3: raised in new castlebody didn't know that. And I had
Speaker 3: a few of the regulars at the cricket his arms.
Speaker 3: I just happened to be at school with and make
Speaker 3: They're reliable people. So when I ring Maddie and he's
Speaker 3: in fulled denial, didn't happen everything sweet, I put Joey Ondra,
Speaker 3: I said, well, it's a shame, mate. I was going
Speaker 3: to write that you bashed him, you know, and you
Speaker 3: clearly won the fight. And then he was you got
Speaker 3: me run.
Speaker 4: We did run in the paper.
Speaker 3: It was the lead to what's the bars? Tell me
Speaker 3: what happened? What's the bust?
Speaker 5: And we had a dinner that night, a family dinner.
Speaker 5: It's fee to say.
Speaker 2: The family dinner was a little.
Speaker 4: Icy, a little bit, a little bit frosting.
Speaker 5: And my daughter, my daughter, my sister who's ten years
Speaker 5: my junior, had her new boyf friend. It's the first
Speaker 5: time we'd met, and he's sitting in between Andrew and
Speaker 5: I at the dinner and it was it's night He'll
Speaker 5: never forget.
Speaker 4: Are you guys?
Speaker 1: Relieved that there was no such thing as camera phones
Speaker 1: back in the nineties.
Speaker 3: Because TV for Djandre If I needed it for a cook.
Speaker 4: It on your buzz yes.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know it would have been different for
Speaker 1: a lot of football back then, veteran journalists.
Speaker 5: Different society, society, isn't it. I mean, you've seen these
Speaker 5: things now on these different social medium mediums like TikTok,
Speaker 5: where people just walk up to people in the street
Speaker 5: start feeling them and political questions and things like that.
Speaker 1: You just, well, your brother loves that stuff very good.
Speaker 2: He really does. He's a people personally, he is people.
Speaker 2: He doesn't know.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you because I've seen you in
Speaker 1: public money like, You're very good with the public.
Speaker 4: I reckon you know, you make a pint of really.
Speaker 1: I remember we were in Vegas earlier this year when
Speaker 1: you and I ran into each other in front of
Speaker 1: the Ballaggio, when neither of us were in a particularly
Speaker 1: great state to be talking to the public, but you
Speaker 1: had all these people coming up to you and your
Speaker 1: role with it. Look, do you make a point of
Speaker 1: not being a prick to people when they come up
Speaker 1: to you for a photo and the chat.
Speaker 2: It's not a discipline at all. I actually like people, now.
Speaker 5: That's just it's just part of my makeup. I'm a
Speaker 5: conversationalist and I like people, so for me, it's no drama.
Speaker 2: It's just Andrews. Andrew's just different, it's not I've seen
Speaker 2: Andrew do.
Speaker 5: Some incredible things for people, you know, for people you know,
Speaker 5: some people who are down on their luck, and you
Speaker 5: know some people who lived around the Newcastle area who
Speaker 5: were really doing it tough and we're at rock bottom.
Speaker 2: I've seen him do some amazing things. I remember my.
Speaker 5: Dear mate Brian Carney when he played in Newcastle. He
Speaker 5: said he was saying to me, he said, I used
Speaker 5: to tell all the former teammates back at Wigan, you
Speaker 5: wouldn't believe Andrew John. Sometimes there was the local bloke
Speaker 5: who's doing it tough. Alcohol and Joey once a week
Speaker 5: would have him up on his balcony and they would
Speaker 5: sit down in the afternoon have a beer and yeah.
Speaker 4: He's misunderstood your brother.
Speaker 3: How are you too now.
Speaker 2: Buzz, We're actually good and the connection, the reconnections come through.
Speaker 3: I heard the story Jack and.
Speaker 5: My oldest son Jack. One thing about Andrew Andrew is
Speaker 5: a very good uncle. He's a very very good uncle,
Speaker 5: and he's very good to my boys. And they're they're
Speaker 5: really close, particularly Jack and he are really really close.
Speaker 5: You know, to the point that when I was away
Speaker 5: for a week or so, the neighbors were saying, when
Speaker 5: me and Joey had fallen out, he was They were like, oh,
Speaker 5: it's nice to see that Andrew was around the house.
Speaker 2: I said, But now he's he's a very good, very
Speaker 2: good uncle to the two boys.
Speaker 4: Good.
Speaker 3: Hey, I want to go back, and I'm trying to
Speaker 3: think if things should never been asked before. You've done
Speaker 3: so well in life as a football player. Now in
Speaker 3: the mood is where he speiled off at the top.
Speaker 3: What were you like at school? You're smart.
Speaker 2: At school. I struggled at school.
Speaker 5: Bus I don't know, like you know all the today.
Speaker 5: There's all these terms for things and whatnot. And I've
Speaker 5: never gone and never tried to. But I had something
Speaker 5: going on because I could not hold attention whatsoever. You know,
Speaker 5: I'd struggling class.
Speaker 3: Can you remember your HS suit?
Speaker 5: No, it was completely I remember having a science teacher
Speaker 5: who was a terrific bloke, and he came up to
Speaker 5: me and it was about a month out from the
Speaker 5: HSC and he had my exercise books, of course, the
Speaker 5: day's before computers, the old exercise book and he goes,
Speaker 5: I hand it to you John's. He said, I want
Speaker 5: to congratulate you. He said, somehow you've got away from
Speaker 5: the last six months, not right, adding a single thing
Speaker 5: in this exercise book.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: He said, I've got a lot of fears for your future.
Speaker 2: And I said, I've got a lot of fears, sir
Speaker 2: as well. But now I struggled to school.
Speaker 3: Buzz, Were your mum and dad worried that you was
Speaker 3: a kid? Then?
Speaker 2: Yes, yep, that they were.
Speaker 5: For Andrew, it was always Andrew was actually a pretty
Speaker 5: good student. And for Andrew Buzz. You know, I'm not
Speaker 5: exaggerating here and saying that like Andrew when he was
Speaker 5: a kid was quite a phenomenon when it came to
Speaker 5: rugby league. He's certainly not one of those guys to
Speaker 5: go who would have thought and he just sprout wings
Speaker 5: like people Andrew was a kid that he would get
Speaker 5: the worst player in the side and tell him go
Speaker 5: down the other end of the field standing the end goal,
Speaker 5: and Joey would beat everyone handing the ball. I put
Speaker 5: the ball down. He was pretty amazing. I'm not comparing
Speaker 5: into people like Wayne Greskin. I'm not for one second.
Speaker 1: People knew from an early age He's going to be
Speaker 1: a special special football people knew.
Speaker 5: I remember interviewing Wayne g Resky once and when I
Speaker 5: was working at Triple Am and Lovely Men by the way,
Speaker 5: and I said to him, I asked him about, what
Speaker 5: were you like when you were young? And he said,
Speaker 5: from as long as I remembered, I was always going
Speaker 5: to be the one they call him the great one special.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And he said people would.
Speaker 5: People would drive sometimes three or four hours just to
Speaker 5: come and watch me when I was like a seven
Speaker 5: year old. And I said, was that ever a burden went? No,
Speaker 5: because I always knew where I was.
Speaker 2: Going to go.
Speaker 5: And for Andrew, Andrew, just Andrew from being a junior
Speaker 5: all the way through, never endured any doubt whatsoever. The
Speaker 5: only thing he had to endure was I'll never I'll
Speaker 5: never forget were kids and he in the middle of
Speaker 5: the night he was having this agonizing pain in his legs, to.
Speaker 2: The point that.
Speaker 5: In a short period of time he could barely run,
Speaker 5: he could only really shuffle.
Speaker 2: And what had turned out? Mom and Dad sought.
Speaker 5: Diagnosis and no one could find it. Neil help and
Speaker 5: end up finding and it was oscar slats, you know,
Speaker 5: the growing disease and the leagues which can affect you
Speaker 5: know a lot of times affect young sportsmen, and they
Speaker 5: got it in the nick of time. He said, if
Speaker 5: this kept going, he was so bad and how he
Speaker 5: got his start at the Newcastle Knights. He was trialing
Speaker 5: for the end of fifteen side and I'll never forget this.
Speaker 5: I felt so sorry for him because he was out
Speaker 5: there trialing and he couldn't run. He was basically it
Speaker 5: was almost like he could brisk walk and people were laughing, going,
Speaker 5: look at this kid, like you know anyway, David Waite,
Speaker 5: to his credit of course, former first grade coach at
Speaker 5: the Newcastle Knights, who at that point was wait, he
Speaker 5: was the development manager at the Knights that were in
Speaker 5: charge of signing young players. He just said, I'm going
Speaker 5: to sign that kid. He said him to go out
Speaker 5: there and play with what was going on and what
Speaker 5: he was enduring. He said, he's got something about him.
Speaker 1: I never knew that story when I look. I started
Speaker 1: my career in Newcastle and remember covering the Knights and
Speaker 1: when you guys were playing, you know, a Sunday afternoon
Speaker 1: marathon stadium bathes in sunshine and you guys would play
Speaker 1: there and the Knights would get on a roll like
Speaker 1: you were unstoppable. To me, it looked like you were
Speaker 1: in the backyard at sesnok all the park And is
Speaker 1: that what have felt like?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: It was just it was so much fun. Particularly like
Speaker 2: you don't you like you think about for.
Speaker 5: Whatever reason, some of those Newcastle size I played in,
Speaker 5: we were almost like we never felt the pressure because
Speaker 5: we're so tight. We're like we really were like a family.
Speaker 5: I never realized what a special group we had until
Speaker 5: I left Newcastle and you look back and again, you know,
Speaker 5: but it was like I would I wake up on
Speaker 5: the Sunday morning for the heart of Games, I go
Speaker 5: around the corner, I picked Joey up and we drive
Speaker 5: to the game, and you knew how big a crowd
Speaker 5: it was going to be by how far away from
Speaker 5: the stadium just starts to the cars parked. So if
Speaker 5: you're playing the Broncos and those big sides, honestly, you
Speaker 5: saw the cars parking kilometers away and you're going, Okay,
Speaker 5: we're going to have a full house, this is going
Speaker 5: to be this is going to be something. And our
Speaker 5: dressing room before the game, it was like there were
Speaker 5: there were nerves, of course, but it.
Speaker 2: Was more excitement. We used to have music blaring in there.
Speaker 2: It was just so much fun. It was.
Speaker 3: It really was having with.
Speaker 2: Wock had his way.
Speaker 3: How late his career did the arrive in your.
Speaker 5: Walk drived in ninety nine, So when I come into
Speaker 5: first crate, So I started getting a run around ninety
Speaker 5: ninety two. It was the David Waite years, and then
Speaker 5: went into Malcolm really for a number of years, and
Speaker 5: then Warren came along, so we had.
Speaker 3: Did you get on?
Speaker 2: Did initially have gone? Really good? It was it was
Speaker 2: did you first?
Speaker 3: You did a lot of great play?
Speaker 5: That was always yours to say that, he said, Rothfield
Speaker 5: and those blokes a call him shackles.
Speaker 3: I'm just letting I grow up with Stephen Bimer and
Speaker 3: he kept telling me shackling me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: He had that revitation with us, not so much because
Speaker 5: we've been established buzz and I look back, you know,
Speaker 5: we did have I think it was a number of things.
Speaker 5: I look back at it now and I have to
Speaker 5: I take a fair bit of responsibility out of it.
Speaker 5: But there were circumstances. There was from my angle, I
Speaker 5: warrant may Warren had a difficult bedside manner he was
Speaker 5: well known for. I've noticed, yeah, great tactically, but from
Speaker 5: my angle, it's funny. As I get older, I start
Speaker 5: to think about it more and it actually starts. I'm
Speaker 5: able to piece them the pieces. I put the pieces together.
Speaker 5: I've got a lot easier, and a lot of it
Speaker 5: is if I move away from talking out Warren for
Speaker 5: a second. For me, I had about four really big
Speaker 5: years heading into two thousand and I'll preface this by
Speaker 5: saying I wasn't a natural footballer. Buzz I couldn't. I
Speaker 5: just couldn't wake up on a Sunday and just go
Speaker 5: out there and play like an Andrew could, or like
Speaker 5: a lot of those great players like a Monthster I
Speaker 5: Reckon would do that.
Speaker 3: For me, I had to put myself with my writing skills.
Speaker 2: I'm going to say that, buzz, but.
Speaker 5: I had to put myself through the ringer all week
Speaker 5: to get myself to perform like I did, And that
Speaker 5: takes a toll. It takes a toll on you. So
Speaker 5: I came into grade three, ninety four, ninety six, ninety seven.
Speaker 2: Those four years were really big years.
Speaker 5: So ninety five Malcolm really arrives. We suddenly go from
Speaker 5: being a mid table side. We're starting to mature as
Speaker 5: a team. We get into the final four. At the
Speaker 5: end of that year, we go a way for the
Speaker 5: Australian side. We take state of Origin for the first time.
Speaker 2: The next year is a.
Speaker 5: Little bit of disappointment for the club, but we're still
Speaker 5: playing rep football. Ninety seven was ninety seven. It was
Speaker 5: just a mega year. Huge ninety eight we had a
Speaker 5: great season. Again, we had a lot of injuries, but
Speaker 5: what we started to find out it gave you a
Speaker 5: little insight. I can only imagine what penrith On threw
Speaker 5: going for five in a row. But even being the
Speaker 5: defending premiers from playing the next year, mate, you're playing
Speaker 5: against sides that are just sky higher beats and we
Speaker 5: led we would joint minor premiers with the Broncos in
Speaker 5: ninety eight, and then we just went lost, loss and
Speaker 5: went out. We were just we'd run out of gas.
Speaker 5: But then ninety nine Warren arrived and I really channeled
Speaker 5: that much energy into ninety nine. Right, it's going to
Speaker 5: be a big season and I reckon it was the
Speaker 5: best year of my career. Warren had a lot to
Speaker 5: do with that. I went away for the Try Nations.
Speaker 5: I was able to do something I could never do
Speaker 5: for the rest of my career for the previously and
Speaker 5: that was forced Freddy into Locke and.
Speaker 2: I played six in the Australians.
Speaker 5: It was a really big one, so we played and
Speaker 5: some of those games in that tri Nation. The final
Speaker 5: we played against New Zealand was without a doubt in
Speaker 5: miment for me, the toughest game I ever played my life.
Speaker 2: It was ridiculous.
Speaker 5: And then you go away and it was an abbreviated
Speaker 5: preseason because you've put a month or six weeks on
Speaker 5: the end of the year. There were at football and
Speaker 5: I remember coming back to training in two thousand and
Speaker 5: I just didn't want to be there and there was
Speaker 5: just something missing, something missing to the point that if
Speaker 5: you told me to run one hundred meters down the
Speaker 5: other in field in a drill, I'd struggle to do it.
Speaker 2: I just.
Speaker 5: I put so much into those previous five years, and
Speaker 5: particularly the twelve months before that, I just emptied myself
Speaker 5: out and and yeah, I started the season on the
Speaker 5: back foot. I got an injury in the trials and
Speaker 5: from then I was just playing catch up.
Speaker 2: Uh and and so you know, I was.
Speaker 5: I was difficult to I would have been difficult people
Speaker 5: to a person to deal with at that time. And
Speaker 5: of course on top of that, Warren could be a
Speaker 5: difficult guy to work with. Warren is no compromising man,
Speaker 5: you know. It's just like it's all about wins, it's
Speaker 5: all about loss.
Speaker 1: You just have a blow up on the training paddic.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there was a blow up in the tray. There
Speaker 5: was a blow up in the training paddic. I remember
Speaker 5: bas too.
Speaker 2: He wrote about it. Yeah, it was something like there
Speaker 2: was a big bit going on and Warren had.
Speaker 5: Said something to one of the players and and then
Speaker 5: I and then I chirped up and started saying something
Speaker 5: and things just sort of went from there and things
Speaker 5: were not really the same after.
Speaker 1: You or not one of us, was that one of
Speaker 1: the things you said. I remember the stories from the time.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know where I read that.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 5: It was a lazy and it was and it was
Speaker 5: a difficult point at time because I'd always been a
Speaker 5: bloke that always got on very well with his coaches,
Speaker 5: you know, and becoming an easy teammate to get along with.
Speaker 5: That year, it wasn't at all, I was a really
Speaker 5: frustrated player and you know, and that's that's my side
Speaker 5: of it. I look at things that Warren, you know,
Speaker 5: could have done a lot better and whatnot.
Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, right about his
Speaker 3: table manners or lack of.
Speaker 2: Yeah oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah mate. He could hit.
Speaker 3: So that was career.
Speaker 2: Yeah he could hit you between the eyes with something
Speaker 2: because he was so articulate. And I believed he was
Speaker 2: an English too too.
Speaker 1: Maybe can you tell us a story about Super League
Speaker 1: and Ken Cowley? Was it calling when you're at Sizzler?
Speaker 2: Well, if we go back, this is like, it's just I'm.
Speaker 1: Trying to remember the stories you've told me on the
Speaker 1: piece and how many.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to the public. I'm trying to remember the stories.
Speaker 3: And before you tell it, I reckon you and Andrews
Speaker 3: saved the a r L. If you too would jump
Speaker 3: ship with this Cowley story about to tell us, I reckon,
Speaker 3: that's the end of the r L. That's how big
Speaker 3: they were.
Speaker 2: Were humility and modesty side.
Speaker 5: I agree looking back now on hindsight, didn't appreciate it then,
Speaker 5: but you look back now and you see, I only
Speaker 5: understand I've only really understood in the last ten years
Speaker 5: how momentous our decision was going to going to be.
Speaker 5: We had no idea it started. It started by the
Speaker 5: fact Newcastle was always the lowest, one of the lowest
Speaker 5: paying clubs.
Speaker 2: It was always it was always broke. It was always
Speaker 2: it was always broke. And I remember the club once
Speaker 2: we didn't have a This is a good one. This
Speaker 2: shows how nighive we were.
Speaker 5: The club were looking to sign resigned Andrew and I
Speaker 5: and there was a bit of interest around.
Speaker 2: It was a little bit of interesting.
Speaker 3: Did you always ste a package too?
Speaker 2: No, not really, I wanted to.
Speaker 5: But there was clubs like the Western Reds at the time,
Speaker 5: because there was a lot of halves at the club,
Speaker 5: and we was about it was about nineteen ninety two
Speaker 5: and I had little touches of first grade but Mattie
Speaker 5: Rodwell and Mick Hagen was locked in and the Western
Speaker 5: Reds reached out about Andrew and I going over there
Speaker 5: and playing. There was a bit going on, but they
Speaker 5: wanted to resign us. We didn't have a manager. And
Speaker 5: then I mean, can you believe this, Someone from the
Speaker 5: club said, oh, we know two blokes you should manage
Speaker 5: you blokes.
Speaker 2: So they got these two blokes.
Speaker 5: Fancy listening to a club ceo who you were negotiating with,
Speaker 5: till you you should get batmaners managers to negotiate on
Speaker 5: your behalf. Well, we signed. This was season ninety four, mate,
Speaker 5: We signed on big deal. We got a big contract.
Speaker 5: I was on fifteen grand and Joey was on.
Speaker 2: Twelve and a half. How Andrews settled on No.
Speaker 3: Brown paper bag, No brown.
Speaker 5: Paper bags in those days. No cash, no cash in Newcastle,
Speaker 5: no cash at the Knights none.
Speaker 2: That was it.
Speaker 5: And you know what, I was happy? I was, mate,
Speaker 5: I was I was actually thinking I was going good.
Speaker 5: The only the only thing house, No, no.
Speaker 2: You could fifty k you could about it.
Speaker 5: First house I bought Newcastle shortly after I did a loan.
Speaker 5: I bought first house about one hundred and thirty grand.
Speaker 2: I thought, as I.
Speaker 5: Paid like a lot of people would lace, I'm never
Speaker 5: going to be able to pay this back. Super leagues
Speaker 5: to help with that. But it I went in ninety four.
Speaker 5: I'm on fifteen grand, right, and I'm thinking I'm going
Speaker 5: pretty good.
Speaker 2: And I went down.
Speaker 5: I got selected for country Origin and I'm sitting as
Speaker 5: I failed a fitness test. I'd hurt my need of
Speaker 5: the game before against Norse. But I'm sitting in between
Speaker 5: Ricky Stewart and Laza and they're talking across me, talking
Speaker 5: about contracts and the amount of money that Laso was
Speaker 5: on it at the Broncos and obviously there going.
Speaker 2: Fucking hell, I think I've been had either he's lying
Speaker 2: I've been been had and I've been had.
Speaker 5: And so we're fifteen grand, twelve and a half grand
Speaker 5: and Malcolm really comes to the club. We went about
Speaker 5: the first number of games in a row. Who just
Speaker 5: feel a momentous momentum, a big shift, a momentous shift
Speaker 5: in the club. And then we're going down to play
Speaker 5: Balmain Tigers at Paramount Stadium.
Speaker 2: We all jump on the.
Speaker 5: Bus and someone out of the blue just goes anything
Speaker 5: about this Super League. This was on the Saturday and
Speaker 5: it just broke. It's I've I've just gone past the
Speaker 5: news agents and there's a big thing. We're like, anyway,
Speaker 5: we get on the bus and it's just we turned
Speaker 5: on the radio and it's what is this Like it
Speaker 5: was Saturday morning. By the time that we reached North Paramatta,
Speaker 5: the ridges there, there were already a stack of managers
Speaker 5: at the hotel waiting for a stop, waiting for players. Yep,
Speaker 5: because a lot of the Newcastle players. I think amongst
Speaker 5: the Newcastle players, only chief had a manager, his brother.
Speaker 5: Everyone else was basically open for business. And we no
Speaker 5: longer had our managers once we worked out that they're
Speaker 5: working for the club. So we're sort of we're by ourselves,
Speaker 5: and me and Andrew check in to our room. We're
Speaker 5: in a room together and the phone just starts calling,
Speaker 5: but player manager after player manager, one player manager keeps
Speaker 5: calling back all the time them, I represent super League.
Speaker 5: If you don't sign with the Super League, this chance
Speaker 5: you and your brother your careers could be over. I'm
Speaker 5: the only one you'd be able to deal with. And
Speaker 5: we're like, mate, why don't you come down sign a
Speaker 5: Super League contract now? It's two hundred grand waiting for
Speaker 5: you right now, and we go where are you? He goes, Okay,
Speaker 5: go to the window, look down at North param Madna McDonald's.
Speaker 2: That's me waving. Yeah, have three waving.
Speaker 5: So anyway, he keeps ringing, but he rings again. I
Speaker 5: just said make good a fuck off.
Speaker 1: Moses around then or no, that was.
Speaker 3: It wasn't my dear friend.
Speaker 2: No, it wasn't chimes. It wasn't.
Speaker 5: But the next minute he's banging on the door. He's banging,
Speaker 5: he's being in the hotel. So we rang the football manager,
Speaker 5: Robert Finch, and said, mate, can you get these blokes away?
Speaker 5: So he went down, He went went down to the
Speaker 5: reception and said no phone calls through to the rooms
Speaker 5: and basically yeah, they stood at the lifts and make
Speaker 5: sure no player managers were going to get up there.
Speaker 5: But we don't play the game. We played the game,
Speaker 5: we beat Almain, We come back and we arrive and
Speaker 5: we go, right, we're going to have them.
Speaker 2: There's a meeting upstairs at the club and we just
Speaker 2: totally know after what's going on.
Speaker 5: We walk in there, start to form the picture. What's
Speaker 5: going to go on?
Speaker 2: Where do we? We don't know?
Speaker 5: And super do a presssentation Malcolm Node and it was
Speaker 5: someone else, I believe at the time. I've been told
Speaker 5: now where we through David Smith through your book, I
Speaker 5: wasn't David No, David Smith, now it was Malcolm Node.
Speaker 5: David Smith wasn't at that one ended up coming on
Speaker 5: and John he was a solicitor anyway anyway.
Speaker 2: But in the Wolf your food, like I should.
Speaker 4: Remember I wrote it.
Speaker 5: Well that the the thing about it was is that
Speaker 5: we believe that it was going to be John Rubeau
Speaker 5: and a couple of others come down and sell.
Speaker 2: Us the super League dream.
Speaker 5: But unfortunately Wayne pulled out of a meeting.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's what he said, Brisbane and he did.
Speaker 1: That's what happened. Had to go up there to sort of.
Speaker 3: Wayne blew up, and I did the front page. I
Speaker 3: had about forty head shots on the front of the
Speaker 3: Sunday Telly sport YEP side sealed, delivered and Wayne's head
Speaker 3: was in there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's what that's what's saying.
Speaker 3: Wyne went absolutely batallistic pulled out of that you're talking about.
Speaker 2: That's right. If they had arrived to that meetings, every
Speaker 2: chance that.
Speaker 1: Basically how buzz changed the course of Super League.
Speaker 3: Well, I'd sent you the page I did.
Speaker 4: I've seen it, so it's in the book.
Speaker 5: So that the presentation was pretty poll the overhead projector
Speaker 5: broke down. The players started jeering like and basically because
Speaker 5: no one knew who Malcolm and the other guy was,
Speaker 5: everyone's like still billies from Newcastle. So we start sledging
Speaker 5: them and all this sort of stuff. We only took
Speaker 5: it serious when they said, right, what we're going to do.
Speaker 5: We're going to conduct meetings now, are you were to
Speaker 5: come in? Singularly Me and Andrew went in together, but singularly,
Speaker 5: if you've got a manager, call him he can come.
Speaker 5: But whatever we offer you, the super League has to
Speaker 5: remain completely. The first guy that went in was Darren Tracy.
Speaker 5: So Darren Tracy goes in.
Speaker 2: He's probably on.
Speaker 5: About ten grand, and he's sitting there and he comes.
Speaker 5: They can see they're sitting in a glass office, right,
Speaker 5: and we're at the bar.
Speaker 2: And he walks out of the.
Speaker 5: Glass office and he looks at us and goes, I've
Speaker 5: just been offered fucking two hundred and fifty grand, right,
Speaker 5: and they and they're watching him do that, right, and
Speaker 5: straight away everyone just went wow. So me and Andrew,
Speaker 5: Andrew and I go in there and they offer us
Speaker 5: three fifty a year for five years. We wow, Okay.
Speaker 5: I think it was about one hundred grand upfront. Good offer.
Speaker 5: So we go okay, we go away and they said
Speaker 5: we'd like you to sign it. We said, we don't
Speaker 5: want to do it yet because a lot of the
Speaker 5: other players are undecided. We want to keep the team together. Anyway,
Speaker 5: one thing leads to another and the offers just keep
Speaker 5: getting bigger for Andrew and I. And the reason was
Speaker 5: was the chief. They got the chief. The Aral had
Speaker 5: got the Chief and he signed right, so that was
Speaker 5: a big blow to the super Bowl.
Speaker 3: Is the Chief?
Speaker 2: I don't know, but I don't know.
Speaker 3: But he then he put us on the bus.
Speaker 2: Put us on the bus.
Speaker 5: So he the next day went and saw a chef
Speaker 5: and to his house, sorry that night, and we said,
Speaker 5: we've just been off of this.
Speaker 2: We're going to go to the Super League.
Speaker 5: And he was distraught and he said, boys, just can
Speaker 5: you do me one favor. Let me drive his down
Speaker 5: to the AARRL headquarters Philip Street tomorrow. Let's have a
Speaker 5: listen to what Kali Naco are going to offer. And
Speaker 5: then from there, you know, sweet, it was we all
Speaker 5: jump on the mini bus, right, this is hilarious.
Speaker 2: Super League Super League.
Speaker 5: Start making phone calls to people on the bus, so
Speaker 5: phones are getting passed around.
Speaker 2: I didn't have a phone. Phones are getting passed around.
Speaker 5: And players like there were players on there that they've
Speaker 5: been off at one hundred and fifty. Suddenly they go,
Speaker 5: we'll give you two fifty. So there were players on
Speaker 5: the bus that were going, oh, hang on a second, Chief,
Speaker 5: hold on a second.
Speaker 2: Oh Jesus, I just forgot it's my sister's birthday. Let me.
Speaker 2: Players were literally hopping off off the bus as it
Speaker 2: was going down.
Speaker 5: As it was going down, just Super League said, if
Speaker 5: you go into Phillips Street, basically no contract, that's the deal.
Speaker 5: So we go down, we speak to the aral. There
Speaker 5: were no offers given given to us then, but they
Speaker 5: were going to send a couple of representatives down that
Speaker 5: night after we trained, they're going to make offers. What
Speaker 5: happens in between as we're the phones are getting passed
Speaker 5: down and it keeps getting pasted to me. So Andrew
Speaker 5: and I our offer went from three point fifty to
Speaker 5: as we're about to walk into Phillips Street five point
Speaker 5: fifty to as we're driving back home to Newcastle seven
Speaker 5: hundred right, five years a year, and it just it's
Speaker 5: climbing right. We get to training and we're on the
Speaker 5: training field, the training seceession's just about over and someone
Speaker 5: who was involved with the club who wanted to go
Speaker 5: to Super Lee put his hand on the shoulder and
Speaker 5: went the office seven fifty year, seven hundred up front
Speaker 5: and for seven years. And I went in too, Joe
Speaker 5: and whispered to him, We're signed with the Super League, right okay,
Speaker 5: next person, we go up. We grab Chief, we said Chief.
Speaker 5: He started crying. He was like, club's breaking up, you know. Anyway,
Speaker 5: he goes, boys, can you just give me two hours?
Speaker 5: He rings, Gus says, mate, this is what's happened. Gus
Speaker 5: says to Chief, tell him to hold on. I'm flying
Speaker 5: down the highway. So they came charging down the highway
Speaker 5: and Gus gets up and does this chur Chilean speech
Speaker 5: in front of.
Speaker 4: The whole group. Is very good.
Speaker 2: You know, Gus can tell.
Speaker 5: And he goes and he understands that we're just young
Speaker 5: blokes from the Hunnah Valley, from coal fields. All we
Speaker 5: ever want to be is footballers, right, and all we
Speaker 5: want to do is play for the Knights.
Speaker 2: So he goes tear.
Speaker 5: What breaks my heart, boys, It breaks my heart the
Speaker 5: fact that my favorite players, a few of my favorite
Speaker 5: players of all time, Ricky Stewart, Bradley Clyde, Laurie Dailey,
Speaker 5: they will never play Roaby League ever, again, they will
Speaker 5: never play league.
Speaker 2: Can you believe that? We're going? Oh the fuck?
Speaker 5: The next minute, our CEO or football manager puts his
Speaker 5: head around the corner and Gus spots him and goes.
Speaker 2: Hey, you, who are you? Who are you?
Speaker 5: You know I'm the general manager or whatever his job was.
Speaker 5: He goes, let me ask you a question. Now, unbeknownst
Speaker 5: to us, the club want to go to Super League.
Speaker 5: Gus says, what do you want these boys to do?
Speaker 5: And he shits himself and goes, We'll do whatever the
Speaker 5: players want. He goes, perfect, thank you, See boys, it's
Speaker 5: up to you, blokes right, who wants to sign for
Speaker 5: the RL? And everyone put their hands up except Andrew
Speaker 5: and I and he just zeroed in on us and
Speaker 5: he's staring at us, and he goes, right, let's have
Speaker 5: a meeting everyone. I'm going to talk to you one
Speaker 5: by one. YouTube blokes first. So we go in there
Speaker 5: and he goes, right, let's be straight up here. What
Speaker 5: deve ofphager?
Speaker 2: Yep?
Speaker 5: He goes, mate, letting you know now we can't match that.
Speaker 5: The Packers would skin me alive. He said, I'll tear
Speaker 5: what I'm going to do. I'm going to offer years
Speaker 5: three fifty a year two hundred and fifty up front,
Speaker 5: it's five years. We straight away with the wind put
Speaker 5: uppers and all the boys want to stay at the night.
Speaker 5: We want to keep the nights together. We said, it's
Speaker 5: half the money, mate, that's half the money. Fair play
Speaker 5: to Gus, right, I'll never forget him doing this. Ire
Speaker 5: He's gone, mate, he'd be thinking to himself, I can't
Speaker 5: believe I'm about to do this with these two young blokes.
Speaker 5: So yeah, we haven't got a manager. He goes, right, fellas,
Speaker 5: this only stays between us. If the Packers find out
Speaker 5: about this, they will kill me. I'm going to give
Speaker 5: you boys a twenty four hour clause to get out
Speaker 5: of your contract, he said, anytime between now and then
Speaker 5: you can just tear the contract up and go the
Speaker 5: Super League. But no one else is going to get
Speaker 5: that often, none of your mates and no one has
Speaker 5: No one needs to know about it. If the Packers
Speaker 5: or anyone ask you about it, Matthew, you have to
Speaker 5: say that you demanded it. I said, okay, no problem,
Speaker 5: So we leave. Honestly, boys, within twenty minutes of leaving
Speaker 5: the room, it's out that we've got a clause so
Speaker 5: that it goes up to eight hundred and just keep climbing. Anyway,
Speaker 5: I got to the point that I it.
Speaker 2: Was just it was just getting it was.
Speaker 5: Getting crazy, and we we just made a decision to
Speaker 5: basically not take any calls and to avoid everyone because
Speaker 5: we want to stay as a team and we don't
Speaker 5: want to know what they're going to offer us. And
Speaker 5: it comes up that there's one hour to go the
Speaker 5: next day before the clause runs out. The next afternoon,
Speaker 5: we've got about an hour an hour, hour and a
Speaker 5: half and we're sitting in Sizzler because that's what winners do,
Speaker 5: as do. They juice toast and the cheese shrimp.
Speaker 2: Fry and the BArch and chicken.
Speaker 5: And the manager of Sizzlely comes out and goes, hey, Maddie,
Speaker 5: there's a bloke on the pharn.
Speaker 2: What he said in the you've heard that your blokes
Speaker 2: are here. I've gone. It's fucking bizarre.
Speaker 5: So I've gone and I'm gone. Hello, yea, Matthew is
Speaker 5: ken Cally?
Speaker 2: Sorry?
Speaker 5: Who's can who? He asked, it's Ken Kelly, Matthew. Do
Speaker 5: you know who I am? I'm apologize, I don't, he said,
Speaker 5: I think yeah, News Limited and I went okay, and
Speaker 5: he said to me, he said, you and your brother are.
Speaker 2: Very naive, aren't you.
Speaker 5: And I thought, well, if I say, if I say no,
Speaker 5: it shows I am no if you and I say,
Speaker 5: and he said, you don't realize that that money we're
Speaker 5: offering you has got nothing to do with your football ability,
Speaker 5: nothing at all. It's the fact that we need a
Speaker 5: Newcastle team and af few blokes come with us and signed.
Speaker 5: We can build a team around YouTube blokes and we
Speaker 5: believe it will exert enough pressure that's super legal in
Speaker 5: the war. So Matthew, what am I going to say
Speaker 5: to you is this just name a price, any price,
Speaker 5: because it's got nothing.
Speaker 2: To do with football. It's just this is your decision.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: I could win us all.
Speaker 5: And I went, oh, can. Here's the problem I've got, mate.
Speaker 5: All of my best mates have followed me and Andrew
Speaker 5: and I in because we've signed and they ain't got
Speaker 5: a clause to get out. And he went right, He said, Matthew,
Speaker 5: with the money I can give you, you can buy
Speaker 5: a whole set of better friends.
Speaker 2: And I just said it. I said, can.
Speaker 5: I'm so sorry, but I said, mate, I just can't
Speaker 5: do it by conscience.
Speaker 3: And I wonder why were you had to pay freeze
Speaker 3: on the editorial floor.
Speaker 4: You couldn't do it?
Speaker 5: And he went, you know what he said, I respect that.
Speaker 3: Please tell me you did better out of the arl that.
Speaker 2: It three fifty.
Speaker 5: We had five years at three fifty and we had
Speaker 5: two fifty upfront, which when you're coming from fifteen grand
Speaker 5: a year, it's pretty good.
Speaker 1: Well in comparison to your life post career, it's chicken feed, really,
Speaker 1: isn't that? Hey, listen, I want to I want to
Speaker 1: let let's go into your career post post forty. Last
Speaker 1: year during Magic Around, you had the family podcast at
Speaker 1: that pub on and left His at Cactus Street, and
Speaker 1: I was lucky to be there and had all your
Speaker 1: Newcastle teammates there from back in the day and you
Speaker 1: and you, you and the boys and Tricia doing your
Speaker 1: bid up there on stage, and we were all pissing
Speaker 1: ourselves laughing, and I turned to Matt Giddley goes, this
Speaker 1: is exactly what he would do on the bus when
Speaker 1: we were players. Did you ever envisage Maddie that you
Speaker 1: would be have the post career, post football career that
Speaker 1: you've got.
Speaker 5: I didn't wear my trajectory. I saw as I would
Speaker 5: go in to I'd play and then basically as soon
Speaker 5: as I would retire, I'm looking to go into coaching. Right,
Speaker 5: because very fortunate in that Malcolm really would basically go
Speaker 5: to end, but also go to the playing group and
Speaker 5: go listen, we're playing mainly this week.
Speaker 2: What do you reckon about these blakes? How were we
Speaker 2: going to play them?
Speaker 5: And you know, I like looking back at Malcolm then,
Speaker 5: like it wasn't It wasn't about Malcolm saying, oh, you know,
Speaker 5: I don't know how to play these blakes. It was
Speaker 5: about the fact that if you're a coach, it helps
Speaker 5: a lot. You know, if the team believes in the
Speaker 5: game plan, and if they come up with a game plan,
Speaker 5: they're going to believe in it. And so we'd say, right,
Speaker 5: and Malcolm, I reckon, mate, what they'd like to do
Speaker 5: coming out of the yachts? They compress, so we'll push
Speaker 5: the ball wide. Then we get an attack, they open up,
Speaker 5: we'll play through them, we'll play the game.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Great.
Speaker 5: So we'd all do this every single week, and you
Speaker 5: actually start to find yourself coaching and doing that sort
Speaker 5: of stuff. And in ninety seven the other one too
Speaker 5: in ninety seven was the fact that Malcolm going to
Speaker 5: that ninety seven season. I'm trying to get the order
Speaker 5: here right. I think it was Malcolm's father might have passed,
Speaker 5: so he went back to England for a couple of weeks.
Speaker 5: So we sort of had to and some ultaneously Peter Sharp,
Speaker 5: who's reserve Groy coach, he got pinched by Paramatta to
Speaker 5: go there and these are the days before you've got
Speaker 5: me and assistants and all that sort of stuff. And
Speaker 5: so Malcolm that two weeks we blasically almost had We
Speaker 5: had to almost coach ourselves. And then when Malcolm come back,
Speaker 5: his other parent got very, very sick, so he had
Speaker 5: to go back again, and so we did it again.
Speaker 5: When he ride back and this is the mark of
Speaker 5: Malcolm what it like.
Speaker 2: Champion he was.
Speaker 5: He just ride back and goes right, how we playing
Speaker 5: and that's it.
Speaker 2: And we just went from this.
Speaker 5: So I always thought where he buzz that I would
Speaker 5: go into coaching. But right at the back end of
Speaker 5: the career they used to give me it some things
Speaker 5: on the Footy Show, and then after I retired they
Speaker 5: offered me a role on it and I just ventured
Speaker 5: into that part of my life and I've never gone
Speaker 5: back the other way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but t B, what was I going to ask next? Coaching?
Speaker 3: I spoke to you several months ago, and you're not
Speaker 3: under contract because.
Speaker 2: Not a contract, not the new owners. But I'm still, yeah,
Speaker 2: what are you?
Speaker 3: What are you going to do there? I don't know
Speaker 3: because I hear this Radio Winterest TV.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, I've.
Speaker 5: I haven't sought any other employment at the moment, Like
Speaker 5: I've I reckon, in my whole working life, I've never
Speaker 5: had a better time than I am right now working
Speaker 5: with everyone. The good thing after you've been doing for
Speaker 5: a long while is that you can pick and choose.
Speaker 5: You can pick who.
Speaker 2: You want to work with.
Speaker 5: And so you know with Radio Waby and then you
Speaker 5: know with the TV staff, with Fletch and iron In
Speaker 5: we had Gordon there for years. It's just you know
Speaker 5: it actually, you know, it reminds just what I was
Speaker 5: just talking about that about when you those Newcastle days
Speaker 5: where everyone's a family and when everyone's just pushing the
Speaker 5: same direction, everyone gets on, everything's easy. And so once
Speaker 5: I started sort of pushing in the in that direction
Speaker 5: Buzz and saw the effect that it was having on
Speaker 5: coaching was having on coaches.
Speaker 2: I never really had the desire go back.
Speaker 5: I've had interest, I've had interest numerous times, but I've
Speaker 5: never made never made the jump.
Speaker 3: You do a bit of one on one still, yep, yep,
Speaker 3: still do Yeah, yep, still do. Work with some handy
Speaker 3: players over the years, haven't you who else? Yeah?
Speaker 5: Munster, Cooper Munster. The year there was Monster, there was
Speaker 5: the year Slater was coming up with the shoulder that was.
Speaker 5: That was a great experience. I worked with Melbourne for
Speaker 5: a number of years and then in twenty seven they
Speaker 5: made They won the comp in twenty twelve, and from
Speaker 5: there they'd had a couple of disappointing seasons. They got
Speaker 5: boot in the ground from twenty sixteen. Anyway, they reached
Speaker 5: out to me and said would you think about doing
Speaker 5: our attack again? And I said, yeah, yeah, goold haves
Speaker 5: go and so mind you no money?
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, money.
Speaker 2: It must have traveled how naive I am.
Speaker 5: But anyway, but I enjoyed doing it and so what
Speaker 5: we started, what it was about that year was trying
Speaker 5: to attack a different way. But also on top of that,
Speaker 5: Slater was coming back into that side.
Speaker 2: You know, Slater had.
Speaker 5: Missed a year or two with that shoulder injury.
Speaker 2: Months had been the fullback.
Speaker 5: Suddenly Slater's coming back and there were a lot of
Speaker 5: doubts around Slater. But then if Slater's coming back, monster
Speaker 5: has got to move to six. And so we just
Speaker 5: go down the park and we bet all that combination
Speaker 5: down and it was great. And it just shows you
Speaker 5: how good the Melbourne Storm are. Right So on the
Speaker 5: northern Baches, those Blades could have stayed in five star
Speaker 5: accommodation in Manly or this great accommodation here there everywhere
Speaker 5: they stayed in basically a hostel. They stayed They stayed
Speaker 5: in a hostel.
Speaker 2: Those works, like it just says a lot about that.
Speaker 1: How much you so you're doing, Like even now you're
Speaker 1: doing much work with halves.
Speaker 2: I'll do a little bit, Uh, coach Halves will reach
Speaker 2: out individually.
Speaker 5: Right, so there's about three in the comp that I'll
Speaker 5: work with, but it's if they reach out to me.
Speaker 5: Oftentimes I'll reach out to the coach and say, hey, listen,
Speaker 5: we're going to keep this really tight, but he's going
Speaker 5: to work right are you? Firstly, are you comfortable with that?
Speaker 5: And secondly, what does he need?
Speaker 3: Trip Blake. You know we're talking about your now but technology.
Speaker 3: You got your mobile with you now? Do you use it?
Speaker 5: I've got a mobile, that's it I've got.
Speaker 3: Do you know how to log onto a computer? No,
Speaker 3: you seriously don't. I've never got an email on your phone.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't even know what it is. You've never said
Speaker 3: I've never seen an email in my life.
Speaker 2: I have never.
Speaker 3: Presume being in text.
Speaker 2: Text I've don't actually be able to speak text relation.
Speaker 2: But I'll see what happened, buzz. So I used to
Speaker 2: rely on Trish.
Speaker 3: I remember, remember I used to from England when he
Speaker 3: was in England and it was his handwriting.
Speaker 1: Facts so in your sports editor, Yes you t do
Speaker 1: you bash it out?
Speaker 3: No? I got someone else but Tria.
Speaker 5: Trish used to Then when I used to send it
Speaker 5: via email, Trish would have to type it in and
Speaker 5: she'd send it by hers.
Speaker 2: But then what would happen?
Speaker 5: She'd hold it against me, you know if I was
Speaker 5: out late and you know, spent a couple of days
Speaker 5: drink and she'd just go, I'm not going to do
Speaker 5: your article this week.
Speaker 4: I had to work.
Speaker 3: I was responding, why you missed a few deadlines?
Speaker 4: You must.
Speaker 1: You must enjoy doing you know, the podcast with your
Speaker 1: family and your boys. Cooper's very much going down the
Speaker 1: same path as you in many respects than you, Reckon.
Speaker 3: It's funny how Jack's the opposite to you and technology savvy.
Speaker 5: O, mate, it is really funny, like Jack and I
Speaker 5: look similar, but Cooper and Trish.
Speaker 2: Are just like Jack. Take he is just the Italian
Speaker 2: part of the family. Very sensible, mate.
Speaker 5: I'm telling you right now, he's the glue that holds
Speaker 5: our family together. That kid, he's the glue. He actually,
Speaker 5: he's the glue that holds the extended family together in
Speaker 5: a lot of ways. Always has Andrew Jack also even
Speaker 5: when he was born, Andrew and I had gone through
Speaker 5: a little bit of a difficult period after that fight
Speaker 5: was unsurprisingly fight, and it was only when I reckon
Speaker 5: when Jack was born that all that dissolved away. He's
Speaker 5: always been a bloke that sort of held the family
Speaker 5: together where and Cooper's just you know, he's working Colin
Speaker 5: Jackie all and everything at the moment.
Speaker 2: Very gregarious.
Speaker 5: Prot He burned the candle at both ends a little hard,
Speaker 5: but that's what you do when you first retire, I suppose.
Speaker 5: But it is great. John's here's John's he is but
Speaker 5: it's in the DNA. But it is great, mates, it's
Speaker 5: really good. And it come about, I mean it coming out.
Speaker 5: It was by accident.
Speaker 2: We used to do that.
Speaker 5: Just remember Buzz when we used to do that, when
Speaker 5: during COVID we go and sit in that room and
Speaker 5: it was just you know, like Crawls had to keep
Speaker 5: the business going for people who paid. So there's no
Speaker 5: game to talk about. So we should just go on
Speaker 5: to three outcasts. Yeah, just do live podcasts with the TV. Anyway,
Speaker 5: what happened there was a bit of a COVID scare
Speaker 5: again and you could only go into the building once
Speaker 5: a week, but they needed to do another one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was right.
Speaker 5: And I just said, bring the podcast here to the
Speaker 5: house and I'll get the family to a podcast. And
Speaker 5: they said it will it work. I said, if you
Speaker 5: met the family, it will work.
Speaker 4: And now look at it. Good, very good. Just don't
Speaker 4: encroach on our numbers.
Speaker 1: That's all that we worry about.
Speaker 2: That.
Speaker 1: I think you should bring us into your into the
Speaker 1: into the podcast.
Speaker 4: Into the empire, into the bosom.
Speaker 3: Listen, we could talk about your advertise with us your
Speaker 3: podcast while we're looking for a sponsor that'd.
Speaker 1: Be good and one podcast sponsoring another send via email.
Speaker 1: We could sit here and talk all day, but we're
Speaker 1: getting wrapped up. Thanks so much for joining us, mate,
Speaker 1: You've been a great mate to both of us and
Speaker 1: colleague over the years. So thank you so much for
Speaker 1: being our first special guest on off the record.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much, Webb Buzz appreciated boys, Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thanks a lot, Matie, you are so important and to
Speaker 3: rugby league you really are that madness When is it Thursdays?
Speaker 3: Sunday night?
Speaker 2: Thursdays and Sundays.
Speaker 3: It's so stupid that seriously, you're such a big part
Speaker 3: of rugby league and it's been so good to either
Speaker 3: lobby this.
Speaker 5: One to finish with the other night. We're got the
Speaker 5: we've got the audience there right and we're sitting there
Speaker 5: and Toby sext and and Max King and we're chatting
Speaker 5: away and I just lost it went where am I here?
Speaker 2: Where am i?
Speaker 5: And this blow from the audience goes, how funk a
Speaker 5: long you've been doing this for?
Speaker 2: Mate?
Speaker 3: To get.
Speaker 4: Long? Good boy?
Speaker 3: Thanks's Fatty