Reluctant hero steps forward

[travelling_gerry]

July 11, 2009

Wallabies flanker George Smith will join the 100-Test club next week, writes Greg Growden.

George Smith is exactly like his name. No frills. Straight up and down. Hard and fast. The common man. He is not interested in fanfare. He keeps himself in the background. He is just happy doing his job with maximum effort and minimum fuss. Always the reluctant hero.

But this shy footballer has been forced to emerge from the fringes of the team group-shot and take some much warranted kudos to coincide with an important moment in his peerless 10-year career. In a week's time, he will be pushed out in front of his teammates to lead the Wallabies on to Eden Park to celebrate becoming the 10th international player, and fourth Australian, to play 100 Tests.

And in typical George Smith style, he underwent an endless line of one-on-one media interviews yesterday so that the moment did not become too much of a distraction next week, when in his mind there are more important assignments, such as winning a Bledisloe Cup match in Auckland for the first time in 23 years.

But even he had to admit that joining George Gregan, Stephen Larkham and David Campese in the Australian Rugby Century Club was going to be a special moment.

The Smith clan certainly thinks so, with 12 family members, including his wife Louise, eldest son Wyatt and parents Richard and Selanoa travelling to Auckland.

Still, there won't be too much time for celebrations, as he has to get up in the early hours of Sunday morning to get to Auckland airport in time for the early morning Wallabies team flight back to Sydney.

"Yes, it does mean a lot to me … it is a personal milestone," Smith said yesterday. "Awards are more team orientated, but this is a reward not just for me but for everyone who supported me during my junior years, especially those at the Manly club. It's also important for my family, and my mum and dad who go down to Canberra every week to see me play."

He's probably not interested, but it is also the ideal time to remind him how good he is. Sometimes he isn't so sure, and when told his longevity, incredible prowess and enormous talents have him marked as Australia's greatest openside flanker, he often thinks it's a leg pull. It isn't. Smith is the best No.7 Australia has fielded, and he has to be, with provincial rival and national teammate Phil Waugh forever hovering.

But you won't get him to agree with this No.1 status. As always, he keeps it in perspective, explaining that there is more to be achieved. And it is not just his extraordinarily broad skills which make him a standout especially at the breakdown, where for years he has exasperated Test opponents by somehow winning so much loose ball and relentlessly turning defence into attack, that set him apart. It is that he never gets injured.


Although always hovering near the main pressure points of any match, he keeps backing up. He is never sidelined, even though he yesterday recalled missing several games in 2003 because of a nerve problem. But that's about it. What's the secret?

"I don't know. I do get myself into some weird positions at the bottom of rucks, but I suppose body fat, short legs and long torso must work in my favour," he said.

The focus is forever. He is relatively quiet on the field. And there is a reason. "I'm not quick-witted enough to be a sledger," he explained. "I remember this year, Matt Giteau was getting into me when we were playing the Force, and then Drew Mitchell said something really quick. I looked at him, but I couldn't say anything quick enough. He thought I was really angry. I wasn't. I just couldn't think of anything."

But never underestimate him. He is always thinking, always adapting his game.
"I have matured as a person and a player," he said. "When I started, I was like a cattle dog hitting every ruck, trying to tackle everyone, and always trying to get my hands on the ball. But now I am more selective. Rugby is a mental game. That's why I like it. You don't want to get a referee offside, and you don't want to be wasting energy on things you don't need to be doing. You have to know which rucks you can attack and dominate, and ones which are a lost cause. You have to choose your moment."

Forever the thinking, smiling assassin.

http://www.rugbyheaven.com.au/news/n...e#contentSwap1

[travelling_gerry]

Bret Harris | July 11, 2009
Article from: The Australian

IT is hardly surprising that such little fanfare surrounds George Smith's 100th Test match, to be played against New Zealand in Auckland next Saturday.

A shy personality, Smith has quietly gone about his business since making his Test debut against France in Paris in 2000.

Smith has never been a big talker. Actions have always spoken so much louder. Yet, he has had more to boast about than most.

When he runs on to Eden Park to become Australia's fourth player to make 100 Tests, Smith will further his claim to not only being one of the greatest Wallabies, but arguably the best ever.

Smith is the embodiment of the total rugby player. A hard-nosed, physical, combative loose forward with the silken skills and tactical nous of an inside back.

It is this unique combination of attributes that makes Smith such a great player.

One of eight children to an Australian father and a Tongan mother, Smith was born in Manly and grew up at North Curl Curl on Sydney's northern beaches.

He attended boarding school in Tonga for a year in 1996 and has maintained a strong connection with his Pacific island heritage.

"It's important you have that connection with your heritage," Smith said. "When I do get back to Tonga I have an affinity for the Tongan culture.

"(Boarding school) was great. It was a very humbling experience. It's not materialistic in terms of the things they have, but you definitely have an appreciation for what you do have and it's a very family-orientated culture, very religious in the way they do things."

Smith started playing rugby as a junior with the Warringah Roos and by the time he was 12 he began to cross paths with another whiz-kid from the northern peninsula -- his future Wallabies teammate and rival Phil Waugh.

He also played junior rugby league with the North Curl Curl Knights where he honed his ball-running skills, but it was rugby union that really suited his unique talents. "Playing openside, I enjoyed pilfering balls. That was my strength," Smith said. "I enjoyed the combat of that.

"I like travelling the world and seeing different things and different cultures. Rugby league didn't have that lure for me."

Ironically, Smith's move to Canberra to join Super rugby team the Brumbies in 2000 came about as a result of an injury to Waugh in an Australian under-19 championship in the national capital.

Smith replaced Waugh in the NSW team and was spotted by Brumbies head coach Eddie Jones and his assistant Ewen McKenzie offered him a contract.

Asked to cite the main influences on his career, Smith nominated his Manly Vikings under-16 coach Ian MacDonald and Jones.

"Ian was very much a father-figure and a person who had a lot of time for the kids," Smith said.

"He was a person who was good to be around and I keep in contact with him.

"In my professional career Eddie Jones had a big affect on me in the way he coached me and showed a lot of confidence in the way that I played the game.

"He allowed me to play the game I wanted to play. He allowed me to combine my ball skills with playing hard on the ball. That definitely gave me a lot of confidence."

Apart from his talent, the most amazing thing about Smith is his durability. He rarely gets injured.

"I can't put it down to one thing. It's a number of things," he said. "I love playing and I love competing. Once you get on the field you enjoy yourself and the niggling injuries seem to fade away."

The fact that Smith has remained largely injury-free is even more remarkable considering he plays such a physically demanding position.

"When I first came into professional rugby I was very gung-ho in the way that I approached each ruck," he said.

"I'd be at every ruck. If I kept doing that, I would definitely have had a number of injuries.

"I've matured and I'm experienced enough to know when to attack a ruck and when not to."

Smith said the Wallabies' historic Test series win against the British and Irish Lions in 2001 was the highlight of his career.

"I really enjoyed the British Lions series. I enjoyed the whole experience, especially to finish the third match with a win on my 21st birthday was fantastic," Smith said.

"The World Cup campaign in 2003 was fantastic. Although the result didn't go our way, it was a great feeling to be around the Australian public at that stage. And 2007 I enjoyed that also.

"I'd love to win that World Cup (in 2011). That would be the ultimate for me. Third-time lucky, hopefully."

For the first seven years of his Test career Smith competed fiercely with Waugh for the gold No7 jersey, but he has been the first-choice openside flanker under Wallabies coach Robbie Deans. 'It's always been a healthy rivalry," Smith said. "We definitely try to better each other.

"Having him alongside me has brought the standard of our training and play up."

The real enemy, though, is the great All Blacks captain and openside flanker Richie McCaw who, fittingly, will oppose Smith in his 100th Test.

But Smith will not be thinking about McCaw when he runs on to Eden Park.

"It's going to be a special occasion for myself and the people who have supported me," Smith said.

"I'll be thinking about them and my family.

"Hopefully, we'll win."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...015651,00.html

[travelling_gerry]

By Iain Payten

July 11, 2009 12:00am

THE culture shock hit so hard at first that he dropped 15kg adapting to the food. George Smith was a teenager and back in Tonga, returned to the land of his heritage to attend year 10 of school.

It was a rite of passage his elder brothers Patrick and Egan had undertaken and now the stocky young kid from Sydney's northern beaches was following the same scary path.

"They really enjoyed it and when they came back you could see the difference in them," Smith recalls. "So I went over too."

The year was 1996 and Smith was 15. Staying with cousins in Fua'amotu - a suburb in Tonga's capital Nuku'alofa - Smith got used to the grub soon enough and jumped into life studying at Tupou College.

It felt like both a homeland and a world away from home, but unmistakeably an experience that would shape Smith's life forever.

"It changed me, definitely. It is a very humbling experience going back to the Islands," Smith said. "It is not a materialistic place. They live on what they need to survive."

Smith's eyes were opened and though never a hugely boastful type before, humility quickly became a core personality trait.

"Just by seeing how little the family had and how much we had back here in Australia," Smith remembers. "It not only changed me culturally, but taught me to be very humble in the way you conduct yourself in life."

Anyone who knows Smith will tell you the lesson must have stuck fast.

In 14 years since, the 29-year-old has gone on to play 99 Tests for the Wallabies and captain his country.

The only time his feet come off the ground, however, is in a lineout. Such is Smith's modesty, when the spotlight shines brightly next week to celebrate his becoming the fourth Australian in history to reach 100 Tests, you can bank on him being embarrassed by the fuss.

"I think I am a very humble person in the way I approach things in life. But people closest to me, my friends and family, they know me and when I am proud," Smith said yesterday.

His fifteenth was a defining year for Smith in another big way, too.

He survived the footy fields of Tonga by playing left-right-out ("My cousin said: 'Don't bother, they'll take your head off. You're the whitest guy out there.") and then switched positions back home as well.

A hooker in junior league and union, Smith was advised if he couldn't throw straight he should move to the back-row. It was a good call. A year later he was No. 7 for the Australian under-16s and four years later a Wallaby debutant.

Many plaudits have deservedly gone Smith's way. Skilful, smart, relentless. But perhaps the underused superlative is tough.

In nine years since making his debut for the Brumbies and Australia in 2000, Smith has missed just one game in nine Super rugby seasons with injury. His longest Test absence is three matches. Surely he can brag about that?

"I am hugely proud of that fact," he said. "But while 100 Tests is a nice personal achievement, it's not just me achieving this milestone. It belongs to everyone who has supported me as well. It's not just about me."



http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegrap...006067,00.html

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