John Raper MBE is pushing 80, now walks with a cane and his memory is slowly starting to desert him.But as he shuffled across the ground where he was The King of Rugby League half a century ago - Kogarah Oval - the itch returned."Geez, I'd love to be playing the way they play this game today," says the man acclaimed as the greatest forward of all time."Just look at this grass, for starters."It's like a carpet. When we played, it was like running on concrete."There was a cricket pitch in the middle of the ground and I lost so much skin there over the years. I had gravel rash my entire career and for years after."We would have a bath after the game and use a scrubbing brush to get all the bits of rock out of our knees. And if you landed head first, which you often did, it was brutal."And today, they train fulltime, they know all about nutrition and rehab and are more professional."I'd often play after a night on the drink - and play okay."But I know I would have been so much better in this era. I would have been a good boy and not given my wife hell."
No comments:
Post a Comment