I’M GOING TO MAKE IT RIGHT
IT’S BEEN CALLED A FOOTY FAIRYTALE, BUT FANS ARE DIVIDED. RUGBY’S PRODIGAL SON JAMES O’CONNOR RETURNS TO HIS ROOTS TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT
Peppermint tea.
The polite request isn’t what you expect when interviewing the bad boy of rugby.
James O’Connor’s chequered career – turfed intoxicated out of Perth airport in 2013, arrested in a Paris cocaine bust in 2017 – was branded by commentators as the biggest waste of talent in the Australian sport’s history.
But they called it too soon. Released from his English Premiership contract with Sale a season early, O’Connor has signed a controversial new two-year deal with the St George Queensland Reds and Rugby Australia.
While focusing on moving forward, the 29-year-old doesn’t flinch from his embarrassing rap sheet.
When we catch up for a chat at the local surf club, he’s disarmingly frank.
Snatching time between packing boxes as he moves into his new Gold Coast pad, the sincerity that convinced Rugby Australia’s Scott Johnson and Reds coach Brad Thorn is evident, even if this isn’t O’Connor’s first second chance.
ONCE UPON A TIME
O’Connor was born on the Gold Coast, moving to New Zealand aged five before returning to his hometown at 11.
“I guess you can say I’ve come from a cushioned background – my dad was a minister in New Zealand,” he says.
“(It wasn’t all rugby growing up), I was quite balanced. My parents made sure I had an education and, because I was so competitive, I wanted to be the best at everything.
“I held on so tight to everything, everything was a competition.
“I also have two brothers. I’m the middle child, so that probably explains a little bit of that as well – fighting for affection, fighting for food (laughs).”
Graduating from Wallaby breeding ground Nudgee College in Brisbane, sporting success came thick and fast.
“Obviously I love rugby; I’ve played it since I was five years old,” O’Connor said.
“I grew up on it, spending time in New Zealand where they live on it.”
O’Connor became the youngest Super Rugby debutant at age 17 and the second youngest Wallaby in Australian rugby history at 18, collecting contracts that would make him one of the richest teenagers in Australian sport. Some commentators called him cocky, most were dazzled by his undeniable gift.
“I was a boy still. I might have been in a man’s body but I was a child,” he says.
“I thought I had all the answers. I would have been tough to coach back then, I can see that now.
“I wasn’t coming from a bad place – it was just all I knew and the conditioning I had growing up. That’s the role I played in every team, so that’s how I lived my life.”
THE VILLAIN INSIDE
After off-field antics cut his stint as a Wallaby short at the age of 22, O’Connor spent the next two years in Europe with London Irish and then Toulon. While he returned to Australia in 2015, his ill-fated contract with the Queensland Reds floundered in further disappointment.
Exiled in the European wilderness, it was in France surrounded by scandalous headlines that O’Connor says he hit rock bottom.
“I’d played well but I was dying on the inside,” he says. “I couldn’t express myself. My body was broken, I was lost, I had anxiety, I was a bit depressed.
“I just didn’t have a purpose any more, rugby wasn’t really fulfilling me because I wasn’t using it the way I was meant to.
“I’m a warrior and I was put here to be like a rugby player, to give my energy in that way and to be able to help people. I went as far as I could in the wrong way.
“I had to find myself and face my darkness.”
WE NEED A HERO
O’Connor credits an organisation called Saviour World – described as a “men’s knowledge” movement – for getting him started on an 18-month road to redemption.
He works with an ascension coach, who asks to be known only as Ollie, and confronted his demons on a retreat in Iceland where heat exhaustion, meditation and sensory deprivation were on the menu.
He documented it all in videos for social media.
“I was off my path so I had no purpose for living,” O’Connor says.
“If you just serve yourself there’s no fulfilment in it – yeah, you might get money, you might get power, but society has put you in a trap to chase the wrong things.
“Once I started genuinely giving and being I got so much feedback from guys who had been lost as well.
“People think that being a man is that masculine ‘show them that you’re big and tough’, but being a man is about being able to be soft as well.
“In the rugby environment men don’t talk. It’s that ego – they don’t want to show that they’re vulnerable.”
He wants to use his platform, including a 150,000-strong following on Instagram, to be a force for good.
This homecoming was part of the plan – a leap of faith to repay a debt.
“I felt I owed the Reds – it’s about being accountable for my actions,” O’Connor said. “I want to see Queensland rugby thriving. “I went there last time and I ... I didn’t promise, but there was a certain version of me that I didn’t live up to and I ran from it all because I couldn’t deal with myself internally. I was injured as well.
“I came here with nothing, packed up my house and moved from the UK with nothing.
“There was talk back then, but I didn’t have a contract (when I moved).”
Remaining by his side is fiancee Bridget Bauman, who he describes as the yin to his yang.
“I’ve known her since school,” O’Connor says.
“We met one new year’s when I went to Noosa and she’s been on the journey with me the whole time. She’s been a rock.”
O’Connor seems to have slipped seamlessly into a wholesome existence in the Sunshine State, grabbing groceries at
Flannerys and interrupting daily training for dips in the ocean.
Physically and mentally, he says he’s never felt better.
A HAPPY ENDING?
The rugby fold’s forgiveness of their wayward charge has been labelled by some as hypocritical, as salt in the wound for Israel Folau supporters.
O’Connor is far from the first protege to topple from a precarious pedestal.
He won’t be the last. Are we simply expecting too much from our sporting heroes?
“I think (being a role model) is part of the deal,” O’Connor says.
“I’ve realised I’m in a privileged position and if you misuse it, you lose it.
“I didn’t understand that (before). I thought it was just rugby.
“I had almost a victim mentality: ‘Why can’t I live my life like everybody else does? I’m just playing rugby, I’ve never asked for this’.
“But essentially you have asked for this. Every day I was working I was asking a higher power to put me that position.”
Perhaps it’s appropriate he borrows his next line from a certain Spidey superhero – “With great power comes great responsibility”.
As the Wallabies build towards the World Cup dream, O’Connor believes in the super power of sport to be a globally unifying force for good.
“This is my time,” he says.
“It’s so hard to (say) specific goals because it’s a team environment and you’re just one piece of the puzzle, but the more open the team is, the more the whole nation gets behind it.
“When we beat the All Blacks in Perth you could feel everyone had a buzz.
“The beautiful thing about sport and playing for a national team is that it affects so many people.
“We’re playing with power, we’re playing a skilful game and people appreciate the work you have to put in to get there, to be disciplined every day. That’s what I want to be involved in.
“It’s amazing how much one person can change things – a ripple effect. We saw what happened with Nelson Mandela and with South Africa when they got behind the rugby team – it brought the whole nation together and it changed literally everything.”
As to whether O’Connor will get his made for Hollywood ending, the ball is in his court.
“WE’RE PLAYING WITH POWER, WE’RE PLAYING A SKILFUL GAME AND PEOPLE APPRECIATE THE WORK YOU HAVE TO PUT IN TO GET THERE, TO BE DISCIPLINED EVERY DAY. THAT’S WHAT I WANT TO BE INVOLVED IN.”