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New boy Brown at home among the Wallabies' pigs
September 26, 2008
T he overland explorers Burke and Wills camped near Julia Creek on their historic and ultimately ill-fated crossing of Australia in 1861, but the Queensland cattle town's most recent celebrity, Richard Brown, travels by jet rather than camel.
Through one of those quirks of professional rugby life, Australia's newest Test back-rower is a born-and-bred Queensland bushie, who lives in Subiaco after three seasons with the Western Force.
Raw-boned and rangy, tireless and fearless, Brown is making weekly cross-Nullarbor flights between Perth and Sydney for the Wallabies' training camps in a manner that would make the early explorers' minds spin.
Brown appeared in his first Test for Australia in this month's 28-24 Bledisloe Cup-losing international to New Zealand in Brisbane, replacing the injured Wycliff Palu after 34 minutes and making such an impact, the Australian Rugby Union did not notify him of his selection for Europe, letting him find his name in the touring party on the internet.
The Brown family has run Nonda Downs property, an hour out of Julia Creek, for 70-odd years. "Nonda means Running Water," Brown mused, "but that's the funny thing, there's not much water at the moment.
"We've got 100,000 acres, mainly classed as semi-arid desert. It's generally hot, dry and flat country. It's either bone-dry or flooding in the monsoon season, but it's home. It's home."
Life is hard but healthy on a cattle station. By the age of 12, Richard could shoot a rifle with the best of them. His father Norman had no qualms at sending his son out, two or three days at a time, to reduce the plague pig population as they wallowed, fouling the bore water.
"My dad had this system that for every 100 pigs I shot or hunted, he'd give me a present, like a whip. They were a bit of menace," he recalled. "It was a great childhood. I got hooked once, but it was only a year-old pig. I've still got the scar.
I'd go on long runs for the pigs so I've been chased up a few trees in my time.
"You get hit by one of those big pigs, one of the razorbacks, and you're in trouble, eh?"
Trisha Brown educated her four children through the School of the Air before sending them off to boarding school, Richard going to Nudgee College in Brisbane at 13. The college is renowned for its production line of rugby representatives such as Elton Flatley, Glenn Panoho, Rocky Elsom, Hugh McMeniman and Junior Pelesasa.
Being a natural athlete - he is irreverently known as "Brown Dog" for his work ethic - he graduated to Australian under 21 and national Sevens honours. But the Reds had fine back-rowers in David Croft, Tom McVerry, John Roe and Daniel Heenan, and when the opportunity arose to join the Force he had few reservations about signing.
Coach Robbie Deans spoke glowingly of the 105kg, 189cm back-rower, declaring "Brownie is a great example of what's possible. He's a bloke who has just toiled away, working at what's important to him and to us, such that when the call came he thrived.
"We've already seen a number of players exposed to the game at this level for the first time, and they've done well. It also shows the scope that is there. With that outlook and preparation and work, we can remove the element of chance that we are exposed to at the moment.
"It's always good to see players thrive. I hope there is a whole collection of players out there who aren't even here, who are thinking: 'I'd love to be part of something like this.' That's what we need. We have to build that depth so that, be it injury or form, we don't lose our way."
These days Brown lopes around Perry Lakes and he is a regular in the weights room. Moving west was an enormous gamble, but it has been the making of the man as a rugby player. And his great good fortune is that he has former New Zealand No.8 John Mitchell as his head coach.
"I wanted to stay in Brisbane. Moving here was a big deal, but it's something I've enjoyed," he said. "I've grown as a person and I've learned from my mistakes and here I am."
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