A giant we've never warmed to
A decent article on a great man.
A giant we've never warmed to
By Paul Kent in Montpellier
September 21, 2007
THE case of George Gregan is difficult to comprehend. He has played a world-record 136 Tests, been Australia's premier halfback for 14 years and come Sunday, equals the record for Test captaincy at 59. So he is a stayer.
He has won a World Cup and Bledisloe Cups, led the only Australian team to the Super 12 title and has won Tri-Nations titles. He is a winner.
He has been the single most dominant presence in this Wallaby team for near on six years, is more recognisable worldwide than any man in gold and is often still the man the team goes to when the going gets tight.
He is a leader. Yet they write no songs for George Gregan. Yes, the case of George Gregan is difficult to comprehend.
When it came to sports heroes, they campaigned to save Steve Waugh. They cried into their beers when John Eales said "adios" and they shook their heads when Ian Thorpe said the time had come. They cheered Alfie Langer, they even celebrated Wayne Carey.
As a nation, we take our champions and we elevate them until their sainthood is secure. They are all adored and celebrated.
Yet in the curious case of George Gregan, he is ... respected. He is a man low on sentiment. Maybe that is part of the reason.
There is a detachment to working life that is recognised by the supporters, making the bond hard to seal.
It was there as late as Wednesday afternoon, shortly after Wallaby selectors showed their own soft hearts in naming Gregan captain for Sunday's Test against Fiji, even though the team's vice-captain Phil Waugh was also named as a starter.
It allows him to equal Will Carling's captaincy record. Gregan, naturally, was asked how he felt.
"Fantastic," he said, before saying how disappointing it was that captain Stirling Mortlock was injured but that Fiji still gave Australia a chance to build on the momentum already gathering in the tournament.
As you can see, whatever sentimentalities there were got quickly overrun by realities. Perhaps Waugh summed it up when he was asked later to compare the different styles of Gregan and Mortlock.
"George is a lot quieter and, in a way, a little bit more aloof," he said. "Stirling is very upbeat, very energetic."
Maybe to love a man he has to love us back. In many ways, Gregan is a man all about himself (even if that doesn't include talking about himself).
There is no more focused athlete in Australia and while ever his goals run in tandem to those of the Wallabies, as they have for much of his career, the combination sings.
Gregan seems unconcerned about the perceived lack of warmth until later, when he is asked directly about his ice-man facade.
"I get emotional," he said. "I've got emotions. I'm not desensitised. I just don't think ..." and he stopped. "I'm very team-focused on what we're trying to achieve every week."
And for a moment you believed you almost had him. Almost broke the veneer. The Iceman cameth, but then he wenteth.
Let it be known that Gregan's detachment is not some shortfall in character, more a single-mindedness. He has an enormous ability to compartmentalise, to separate his life in boxes.
That's why the Carling record is great and something to be celebrated after the game. But now it's about winning the game. It might be what separates Gregan from the rest, but it is what he has had to do to succeed.
"You take what you want to achieve and then you work backwards," he explained.
To him, it's not so unusual.
"Some people say, and there's nothing wrong with it, that they want to win a World Cup. And it's a great achievement and a lot of hard work goes into it," he said.
"But before you get that Cup ... you might think that's your ultimate goal, but you think I've got to work hard and be consistent and do everything that you have to do. That's what you go about doing."
His ability to compartmentalise is, in some ways, friend and enemy. It has allowed Gregan to pursue his goals with a focus that has seen him achieve all of them.
Yet now, as his career nears an end, the celebration of those achievements is nowhere near what they would be if he were an Eales, a Thorpe, or a Steve Waugh.
This, for a man with all those records and accomplishments, who two years ago opened the George Gregan Foundation for sick children, which so far has raised more than $1 million for children's hospitals.
The charity was launched after his son Max was born with epilepsy in 2004 and reveals the softer side of sport's most focused competitor.
"My kids make me get emotional," he said finally.
"They're in pre-school and kindy and when they come back from there and all of a sudden they're counting, or they've learned a new word ..."
He paused.
"You get emotional about it," he said.
