May 28, 2009


Richard Brown has come a long way from hunting wild pigs in outback Queensland, writes Greg Growden.

If you want to know why Wallabies Test No.8 Richard Brown is such an extroverted, combative type, fascinated by tackling life's extremes, check his background. The clues are there.

As soon as he was wearing short pants, he was riding horses, mustering cattle. He was driving a ute "as soon as I could touch the pedals".

Before his teens, he was a crack shooter, heading deep into the Queensland outback with his dogs and his guns, motivated by his father's offer of a present every time he could shoot or hunt 100 wild pigs. The young son finished with a sizeable pile of presents.

For urban dwellers, this sounds the most tantalising of adventures. For Brown, it was simply growing up on Nonda Downs, a 40,000-hectare family property with 5000 head of cattle, an hour out of Julia Creek, which is on the road between Townsville and Mt Isa.

Julia Creek isn't lush. It hosts the annual Dirt and Dust Festival, and the area where Brown grew up was classified as semi-arid desert. So you had to be tough and resourceful to survive. Brown learnt that early.

Yet the tough environment came with many rich attractions. As Brown puts it: "My childhood was blessed."

Brown could head north towards the Gulf of Carpentaria to catch barramundi. He could hitch a boat, drive for an hour in another direction and go water skiing on a nearby muddy creek. He even got the urge to fly, getting a "restricted pilot's licence" before football took over as his main priority.

Life on the land also included an education with a difference. Between years 1 and 7, he was a student of the School of the Air. His mother, Trish, was in charge of the house classroom.

"I wasn't a good student," Brown, 24, said yesterday. "There were many times I brought my mum to tears. But she kept at it, because she thought no one else could handle me.

"In the busy times when we were cattle mustering, I would work with dad in the morning, come back in so mum could teach me and then in the afternoon get back out there and muster cattle for dad."

Then came the life change. At 13, Brown headed to the big smoke to become a boarder at Brisbane's Nudgee College.

"I pretty much hadn't been in a classroom until I went to Nudgee," he said. "Mum and dad took the right approach. They rocked up to the college, dropped me off and left again. They basically dropped me in the deep end and it was sink or swim."

He swum. This had a lot to do with him always standing up for himself. Then again, this was nothing compared to confronting razorbacks. "I was involved in a few run-ins early on because I was a bit cheeky," he said. "But it was a good school and a good environment. I didn't learn a hell of a lot, but I had a few people looking after me and they taught me some good lessons."

Some of the best were on the rugby field. Nudgee boasts its fair share of former Wallabies, and Brown found that his frenetic nature was ideally suited to the game. He was soon progressing through the grades, making the Australian Schoolboys in 2001.

He was part of the Queensland Academy system, until the Western Force lured him to Perth as one of their first signings in 2005. Last year, the new Wallabies coach Robbie Deans elevated him to Test status and the international novice was immediately receiving accolades. That was no surprise considering he is everything Deans wants in a back-rower - courageous, tireless, resourceful, devious. Cattle musterer. Cattle rustler.

Most importantly, Brown is the type of gregarious, mischievous character teams thrive on. On match day, he is always telling jokes and prepared to be the butt of others. He lightens the mood.

"I used to be very tense, aggressive before games and by kick-off felt exhausted," he said. "Now I try to stay relaxed by cracking jokes with teammates. Then when play starts, I become a different person."

On the field, he is everywhere. Off the field, he is similarly impossible to ignore. "When we played Italy in Padova last year, I was on the bus and we were going to the game," he said. "I had the headphones on and didn't realise that I was loudly singing this song. There was this tap on my shoulder. Stirling Mortlock was glaring down at me, and saying, 'Shut up."'

Mortlock did ask politely, mind you, because like everyone else in the squad, the Test skipper is well aware his sharp-shooting No.8 is an experienced smiling assassin.

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