Why Blues star's grandparents will finally see him play
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Mercury
2 hours ago
- Mercury
NRL, rugby union and A-League venue Allianz Stadium could be set to close leaving Sydney FC stranded
Don't miss out on the headlines from NRL. Followed categories will be added to My News. Allianz Stadium could be sensationally closed and unavailable for sport this coming summer. The $828 million venue only reopened in 2022, but is now awaiting results on a report into the massive drainage issues the facility has faced over the past three years. Watch every game of The 2025 FIFA Club World Cup LIVE on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Get your first month for just $1. Limited time offer. The investigation comes after disastrous flooded playing surfaces this season and last when the Sydney Roosters, Waratahs and NSW Blues women's side hosted games. A decision is expected to be made by the end of the month after Allianz operators Service NSW responded to matter. The worst possible scenario is if the issue is due to the stadium's underground drainage system, as feared, it could take months to rectify. Player safety at Allianz Stadium for the State of Origin women's series came under heavy scrutiny. Photo:. The move will mean Sydney FC may have to find a temporary new home for the upcoming 2025/26 A-League season, most likely Leichhardt Oval according to AAP, causing significant commercial concerns. The A-League and the Sky Blues have already looked to adjust the schedule to work around major concerts and events, creating another hurdle for the side. 'The comprehensive review into the playing surface and drainage system at Allianz Stadium is expected to be finalised later this month,' a Venues NSW spokesperson said. 'As we are awaiting the results of the investigation, no decision has been made on what remediation works are required.' Ground staff work on the Allianz Stadium pitch during a 2024 match between the Roosters and Eels. Photo: Fox Sports. The stadium's neighbouring venue the Sydney Cricket Ground last week also come under massive scrutiny during a Round 16 clash between the Sydney Swans and Western Bulldogs, which also saw drainage issues causing a slippery surfaces for players. New turf has been re-laid the past two summers but conditions have only worsened. The worst of it came in May after a rain-soaked women's State of Origin match saw players surrounded by pools of water in near unplayable conditions. The review comes after independent MP Mark Latham raised his concerns in parliament last month. The MP questioned why the issued had persisted for so long and had concerns for player safety and insurance. Originally published as Fears Allianz Stadium report could see venue closed for summer
Sydney Morning Herald
2 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
After a sporting life of hard knocks, Paul Gallen's going out with a bang
This story is part of the June 28 edition of Good Weekend. See all 14 stories. A few rows over the sideline fence at Suncorp Stadium sit three old Brisbanites in full kit Maroon. These grizzled, greying guys – bellies filled with Bundy and hope – seem buoyant about their chances in State of Origin game one, but I want to know what they think of Paul Gallen, the former Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks rugby league enforcer, NSW captain and current professional boxer, who's prowling the nearby grass as a TV commentator. 'He's a f---wit,' spits the first. 'F---head,' adds the next. 'F---face,' concludes the last. Insults delivered, the trio break into wide synchronous smiles – a single tooth missing from at least two of their shit-eating grins. Yep, we're in the cauldron now. Machines are belching flames into the night and there are 52,483 people in the grandstands, many of them having spilled down the street after XXXX refreshment at the Caxton pub or XXX entertainment at Honey B's strip club. None of them likes Gallen very much. He doesn't like them, either. The lock, prop and second rower spent almost his entire state career losing to this mob, yet also baiting and infuriating them, once snubbing their champion captain, another time describing any bumpkin barrackers here as having 'two heads'. For a while, Gallen, 43, was the most hated man in Queensland. He might still be. As his beloved NSW Blues are booed onto the field, he claps and waves – almost trolling – and leans back with a conspiratorial expression to show me something on his phone. It's a meme. A man is ordering food at a restaurant: 'We are QLDers. What should we get?' The waitress offers a one word reply: 'F---ed.' This is pure Gallen – antagonistic but entertaining. In his new life – since retiring in 2019 after 19 seasons of first grade NRL – he's traded on creating attention and financially capitalising on his notoriety, not just as a Nine commentator but also as a pundit on the network's 100% Footy (Nine is the owner of this masthead) but in a boxing career that comes to an end on July 16 at Sydney's Qudos Bank Arena, when he laces up his gloves for a long- awaited bout against former footy opponent Sonny Bill Williams. A fitness freak driven unashamedly by the almighty dollar, it's still fair to wonder why an already wealthy guy like Gallen is willing to risk cognitive injury by stepping into the ring against a younger, taller, faster, stronger man, who aims to knock him out cold. I suppose there's bad blood between them – Gallen insists their animosity is personal (and we'll get to that) – but the full answer is probably three decades old. Cast adrift Paul Mark Gallen grew up in western Sydney's Greystanes. The eldest of five (three brothers and two sisters), Dad was a plumber and Mum stayed home. Things were relatively 'normal' until he hit 13, when money grew tight. 'I remember constantly hearing about it,' says Gallen. 'That's probably why I'm so obsessed with making sure I'm comfortable in life.' His home grew tense. His parents split. It was a turning point. 'I got a bit out of control – too much for Mum to handle,' Gallen says. 'I was just being a bit of a rat at home and at school. Just doing the wrong thing. It got to the point where Mum said she couldn't have me at home any more.' Imagine that for a second. Scott Hogan, Gallen's best mate then and now, remembers his barely teenage friend cast adrift, couch surfing for months and hanging out in parks, getting up to no good. 'Small amounts of vandalism – setting alight the odd For Sale sign in front yards – and getting in blues with other kids,' says Hogan. 'We definitely lost our way there.' Gallen was lucky to have an aunt and uncle, Suey and Lance, who took him in. Because had they not, who knows what might have been. 'I probably wouldn't be here at all,' he admits. 'But I started making better choices.' Lance was a mechanic and taught Gallen how to buy, fix and sell old motorbikes – sometimes just stripping out the engine and spray-painting the fairings and frame. 'I might only make a couple of hundred bucks, but it was a couple of hundred bucks I didn't have before.' He was lucky, too, for football. Hogan remembers playing with 'Dump', his nickname for Gallen, for the Wentworthville Magpies when they were six. 'Dump absolutely hated losing,' says Hogan. 'He would sit there with the shits for an hour, wouldn't want to talk, wouldn't want to shake hands.' Somewhat strangely, he wasn't passionate about NRL. He didn't even have a team. Parramatta and Penrith were the nearest clubs, so they got some attention. The Canberra Raiders were good, so he followed them – yet only a little. 'But the one thing I always loved was Origin,' he says. 'I remember training as a kid on Wednesday night and I couldn't wait to get home to see that first hit-up.' He suspected he was good enough around 17, when he began making state teams, although he missed the Australian schoolboys side – a huge disappointment that only made him work harder. He signed with Cronulla in year 12, just after the Sharks won the NRL minor premiership in 1999. He could have joined the Melbourne Storm, but it would have meant going to their feeder club in Brisbane. 'And I already hated Queensland. I didn't want to go there. The rest is history.' I'm reminded of that history at a Gallen lovefest shortly before Origin kicks off. It's a Cronulla function on a hotel rooftop as the sun sets beyond the Scenic Rim, an area to the west of Brisbane. 'Our next guest played 348 games for the Cronulla Sharks, 24 games for NSW, winning one series, plus 32 games for Australia,' says Sharks' chief executive Dino Mezzatesta. 'He's a premiership captain. He's a professional boxer. He is Shark number 339!' Gallen's Sharkies career began in 2001 and, it must be said, was pockmarked with grubby play – headshots and elbows and testicle clutching – even (allegedly) trying to rip the stitches out of someone's head wound. Gallen also led his side to a drought-breaking NRL premiership flag in 2016 and lasted until he was 38, pretty much as old as players ever get. Fellow guest and former Cronulla star Andrew Ettingshausen explains how it might have ended differently, too, considering Gallen flirted with leaving Cronulla. 'I probably kept him at the Sharks,' claims Ettingshausen. 'And that was a great thing because he was able to win a premiership.' Yet his State of Origin performances were his true point of difference, which is really all this crowd wants to talk about anyway. 'When you're on the bus to Origin, it feels like life or death,' says Ettingshausen. (He's serious.) 'Like, if you were told it was going to be all over after this game, you'd die happy.' Loading Gallen talks about this later, too, while giving a radio interview on our drive to the match. The harder it got, the better he went and the more he wanted to be there. Yet the pre-match nerves were crippling, too. 'The last hour I always found was my time to stress. I was on edge, touchy, didn't want anyone near me. I was a nightmare for myself, and the family.' NSW rout Queensland tonight, 18-6, and I try to connect with their passion. Sadly, I can't escape my identity as an AFL tragic; a staunch Victorian duty bound by code wars to hate rugby league for its numbing boredom. This is the first game I've seen live – the pinnacle of the sport – and it's exhausting to watch, but I'll happily concede that the collisions up close have a ballistic beauty. A rather gigantic person named Tino Fa'asuamaleaui comes trotting from the field, face bloodied, and Gallen – with his own panel-beaten brow – glances up at the bleeding player with respect. Maybe recognition. Possibly envy? 'There's not one part about the game that I miss,' Gallen responds, pausing, 'except for nights like tonight. When they run out – the enormity of it, the crowd, knowing how special it is – I do miss it. You get nostalgic. But I go to a club game, watch them belt each other, and mate, you can have that.' Gallen's happier in a glass bunker five floors up, tucking into a plate of steak and mash while broadcast hosts James Bracey and Andrew Johns natter about the contest. Off to the side sits NRL powerbroker Phil Gould in a purple smock as a make-up lady applies foundation. Gould has an eye for how Origin players should act and perform. Gallen is the archetype, he says, but also now understands that he's here to entertain. 'There's a sense of theatre about Gal,' Gould says. 'And there's never a backward step. He doesn't have a reverse gear.' He likes what he does, too. When the NSW bus rolls into the bowels of the stadium, Gallen interviews star Angus Crichton, and the affection between them feels genuine. Storm coach Craig Bellamy says g'day. Blues coach Laurie Daley gives him a hug. 'Nathan Cleary gave me a nod, which is cool,' Gallen says like a little kid. 'I'm a fan of the game.' He wasn't always this way with media. He didn't work them out until 2010, after speaking with league legend and former Sharks boss Ron Massey, who tore strips off Gallen for the way he was warring with the press. 'Ron helped me realise you can either work with them – or against them.' Or become one of them. Sam Thaiday, the former Brisbane Bronco and Maroon, giggles at this. 'I dropped him on his head once, a classic spear tackle,' says Thaiday, still laughing. 'But we need that rivalry, banter, stick, because if those things aren't around it's just a regular game. You need heroes and villains in State of Origin, and Gal was a great villain.' League immortal Cameron Smith compares Gallen's work as a talking head to the headfirst battles they had as rival club and state captains, but also playing together for Australia. 'You always knew exactly what you were going to get from Gal; he just wanted to make teams better,' says Smith. 'His media work is a bit like his football: he gives everything and never holds back.' Smith saw that up close in 2022, when he was forced to separate Gallen from the man he's about to fight, Sonny Bill Williams. The pair went from discussing a NZ Warriors-Parramatta Eels NRL match to pointing fingers and puffing chests over why their mooted boxing match still wasn't organised. Smith thought it was performative bluster initially – pantomime posturing – but quickly felt their heat. 'This fight against Sonny has been on the cards for a long, long time,' Smith says. 'It's the fight everyone's wanted to see. Gal will be ready to go.' [The fight will be telecast on Stan Sport, which is owned by Nine.] An hour later, after the game, Gallen confirms his eagerness, looking down the barrel of a camera to deliver a message: 'You're gonna cop it, Sonny,' he warns. 'You're in big trouble, boy.' No love lost It's a cold Tuesday morning in Cronulla and Gallen walks me through his gym: a decaying Masonic temple filled with kettlebells and speed balls and a ring. Gallen always boxed as a kid but never seriously – until 2012, when he was asked to fight in a New Zealand charity event against former international rugby union player Hikawera Elliot. He won and has since fought everyone from Tongan league player John Hopoate to retired AFL forward Barry Hall, for 15 wins and two losses. But I need to know how much of the sledging between him and Williams is real. 'All of it,' he says, flatly. 'We don't like each other.' Their skirmish seems somewhat silly – a war of words that sharpens and subsides in predictable cycles – but it does seem to constantly percolate, then escalate. 'I've always said, 'I don't really know Sonny at all,' but some of his carry-on lately …' Gallen says, voice fading. 'For him to say the things he did last week were well and truly below the belt.' He's talking about Williams accusing Gallen of dodging a press conference because he might have to face drug testers, followed by a goading reference to the backdated 12-month ban Gallen and a number of other Cronulla players were given in 2014 after being infamously 'doped and duped' – unwittingly taking banned supplements. These were the growth hormone peptides obtained by the now disgraced sports scientist Stephen Dank, who oversaw a similar program at AFL club Essendon. The saga surrounding the so-called ' blackest day in Australian sport ' is clearly still a raw nerve for Gallen, so he's angry with Williams for dredging up those memories just to entice pay-per-viewers and ticket buyers. 'There's a number of things I could say about Sonny, too, but I'm not going to sell my soul to sell a fight,' says Gallen. 'I want to be the better man.' 'The first time I [saw the psychologist] he had me bawling my eyes out … I actually got really angry with him.' Paul Gallen The details of that entire episode, believed to be tied up in legal agreements, will likely never be known, but Gallen notably lashed the league in 2014, livid over the forced departure of Sharks CEO Steve Noyce. (Noyce had co-operated with the investigation into the supplements saga, and was seen by many Sharks supporters as a fall guy.) Gallen was furious at the time because he believed Noyce truly cared for the players. 'Couldn't say that about any other c... from Nrl,' he posted online. The fallout was swift. Gallen almost lost his playing spot for the Blues and Australia, and was forced into sessions with a psychologist. He remembers sitting there, sceptical of the counsellor. 'He started asking me about my childhood, basically explaining to me that the reason we are what we are is because of what happened in childhood – particularly the age of 10 to 15,' Gallen says. 'The first time I was there, he had me bawling my eyes out – crying my eyes out. I actually got really angry with him – 'What are you doing to me? Are you allowed to do this?' – because I was so rattled.' But Gallen stuck with the 12-week course (as mandated). 'And it was the best thing I ever did. It taught me so much about myself and about life and why I am the way I am. I hated it – hated going there – but it was the best thing for me.' Tough, but not bulletproof The worst thing for him – according to some – is what he's going to do this month: fight. 'He's too tough for his own good,' says journalist and former Australian rugby union Wallaby representative Peter FitzSimons. 'No one gets to play the way Gallen played without believing they're bulletproof, but he's not bulletproof.' FitzSimons is talking about chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), linked with repetitive trauma to the brain. There's a quote FitzSimons can't shake from an interview with America's foremost concussion expert, who described the human brain as a bowl of jelly floating around in a bucket of bone. 'It's meant to float around in there to Brahms' Lullaby – not rock 'n' roll!' says FitzSimons. 'Rugby league is the toughest game in the world, but there's a penalty for that, and it's paid by the old man down the road.' Adding boxing bouts to the mix, he says, is simply obscene. 'I don't care how much they're paying you: Stop this. Not just for you. For your wife and your children,' FitzSimons says. 'And the rest of us paying money to watch it? We're saying, 'For my entertainment, I want to watch two men punch one another in the head, and I don't give a f... what happens to them.' ' Now it's Paul Gallen's turn to opine. 'First off, I've definitely never been concussed in my playing career,' he says. 'I've had two concussion tests – and one was just a rort to get an interchange.' (Amusing footnote: Gallen came back on after that fake 15-minute head injury assessment, only to concede a game-losing penalty with 30 seconds left.) Second, he says, most walking wounded horror stories (so far) come from another era, before the duty of care grew. Gallen was actually pivotal to at least one change. I'm talking here about an infamous one-two punch that altered State of Origin forever. For those with no interest at all in NRL – I see you, much respect, but also please bear with me – note that in 2013 NSW was nearing the end of an ignominious eight-series losing streak to Queensland. Fed up, their coach, Laurie Daley, played a video showing how the Maroons would fall or jump onto Blues players' heads or legs in semi-legal acts of tactical spite, and he asked a question: Who's gonna do something? 'I was the captain,' says Gallen, 'so I stood up and said, 'Yeah, I am. If I see it happen, I'm going to do something about it.' Which meant a push and shove, and maybe a fight.' Queensland's intentionally clumsy brutality continued, and Gallen got fed up. He hit opponent Nate Myles with a cheap shot in a tackle. Myles elbowed him in the head and said, 'Is that the best you've got?' Gallen caught him with a left and a right and continued playing. They shook hands after the match, but the issue was already blowing up on air: 'Wooshka, wooshka, bang!' said one commentator. 'He looked like Muhammad Ali!' The press conference was worse. 'Everything was about this fight,' says Gallen, 'and I was like, 'Who cares? It's a fight in Origin.' That's what everyone wants to see. Even today we show all those old fights.' Loading This is true. Fans cannot contain their appetite for destruction. On my brief visit to the commentary box, the callers still cater to our darkest impulses: 'There's an accidental elbow and a head clash!' says one. 'The daily double!' But the dissection wouldn't die. Gallen was even asked to get on the phone with a school principal to talk to two teenagers after a playground brawl. 'I just remember thinking how smart those kids were – to blame it on me – and how stupid the principal was to believe them.' NRL officials had already discussed aligning rules around fighting in Origin matches with those governing club games, but Gallen's one-two combination was the last straw. 'Throw a punch now, and you're in the sin bin for 10 minutes – and I got blamed,' he says. 'A little winger comes in and pushes a front rower, knowing he won't get clocked, and it's apparently my fault.' It's not as though Gallen doesn't consider the risks involved in footy or fighting. He thinks about them carefully, including contributing factors such as lifestyle. 'Thirty years ago, guys would get knocked out, get dragged up, go again and keep playing – but what was the first thing they did in the changing room?' he asks. 'Get on the drink. Tuesday night after training? On the drink again.' He's right, insofar as what you do after a head knock can have a huge bearing on the outcome: exacerbating symptoms, allowing them to linger and feeding cumulative long-term problems. He's experienced this first-hand. In September 2022, in what he thought would be his final night of boxing, Gallen fought twice ('A dumb thing to do') – winning against former NRL players Ben Hannant and Justin Hodges – but his behaviour later, after absorbing all those blows, was even dumber. 'I went out on the drink on Wednesday night, and I drank Thursday, Friday, Saturday. All of a sudden Sunday I woke up with a cracking headache. Monday same thing. Tuesday same thing. Wednesday came and I knew something was wrong.' He saw a Sharks doctor, who had all his old concussion baseline testing results, and he actually tested better than in his final playing days. 'But I'd had a concussive episode and gone on the drink,' Gallen recalls. 'Just stupid.' Loading His final note on CTE is no one knows if you have it or not until you die, when your brain is removed from your skull, then sliced and studied for the presence of proteins that might point to the degenerative condition. (A recent medical breakthrough provides hope, though, for an earlier, living diagnosis of the condition.) ' I've had every single check you can have while you're alive,' Gallen says. 'I've had my head scanned and tested, done all the written assessments – and I've been told I'm in a good place.' 'Peter FitzSimons is free to have any opinion he wants, but he can't stop me from doing what I want to do in my life, too. What's the point of living in fear? Life is about setting my kids up [he has four] and helping them get where they want to get – that's the goal.' Money minded That's something he's been working towards most of his career. Gallen can't stress enough how small his cheques were when he started. His first teenage contract was for around $2000, then $7500 in first grade, but he remained an apprentice plumber for three years. 'I did real estate courses, personal training courses, business development courses. I always had that fear it would stop overnight and needed something else behind me.' Gallen has made more money in 18 bouts than in two decades of rugby league. 'I've got one more run in me.' Paul Gallen He's made more money in his 18 boxing bouts than his entire two decades in rugby league, but he's remained prudent, always sinking his capital into property or managed funds, or a little crypto. 'I was taught early that the best thing you can do in life is make money while you sleep. That's always stuck in my mind, so all my money is invested. I don't save any. It has to be out there doing something for me.' He spends intentionally, mainly on travel – to Canada and Thailand and, hopefully this year, Japan. 'I want to be able to do whatever I want to do when I want to do it. That's my mindset. If my job ends at the end of this next contract, I still want to be able to enjoy a European summer at the drop of a hat.' Mostly, though, he's happy in the bayside suburb of Burraneer, near Cronulla in southern Sydney, where he bought in 2012 and lives with his wife, Anne, and kids Charly, 16, Kody, 14, Macy, 10 and Ruby, 7. He lets them play league tag but won't let them box. 'It's not a nice sport – to know you're going to get punched in the head or dropped with a bodyshot. If you don't need to do it, don't get involved.' He'll be scared on fight night, because there's always fear. 'Anyone who says otherwise is full of crap. I wouldn't do this fight unless the reward was going to be good, and it will. Father Time is definitely undefeated, but I've got one more run in me. Then I'm out.' That much is assured by the boss of the household. 'Anne said to me the other day, 'If you even think about fighting again, we're getting divorced',' he says. 'She won't accept another one. And I know I can't keep doing this.' Loading His fitness remains strong, training every day. He bench presses around 120 kilograms, deadlifts 150 kilograms, and does chin-ups with a 20-kilogram plate. 'Boxing in the morning. Cardio after that: run, bike, rower,' he says, digging into a chicken karaage bowl with greens and brown rice at a cafe next to the gym. 'I love hitting heavy bags. I love running sandhills. I'd be doing that stuff whether I was fighting or not.' A few weeks after we meet, the Maroons fend off a Blues comeback to win Origin II, 26-24, setting up a tantalising decider in Sydney this coming Wednesday. Gallen probably prefers it that way. After all, it'll give Queensland a sniff, and it's the hope that'll kill them. Consider what he said immediately after the State of Origin win at Brisbane's Lang Park, standing on the torn-up grass of the deserted arena. 'My favourite thing? With about 10 minutes to go in a win like that, you start seeing empty red-and-yellow seats around the joint,' says Gallen, gazing up at the stands and grinning. 'It is absolutely beautiful to know that they've given up, and they're leaving. 'Where are ya Queenslanders? Yer gone!' Nothing better than those empty seats.'
The Age
15 hours ago
- The Age
Why Blues star's grandparents will finally see him play
NSW Blues star Connor Watson reveals what he is looking forward to most about playing in the State of Origin series decider at home.
